Compare the Best External Hard DrivesApril 2019

External hard drives are portable and used to backup files and data from your computer, so they’re safeguarded in case of accident or for retrieval at a later date. While Cloud-based backups are being used more and more for backups, external hard drives still have several important benefits compared to online backups:

Capacity

The main important consideration when choosing an external hard drive is the capacity. This Is a measure of how much data the drive can hold, and is measured in gigabytes (Gb) or terrabytes (Tb) . A gigabyte is 1000 megabytes, and a terabyte is 1000 gigabytes. Our drives range from relatively small portable 120gig drives to enormous 5Tb drives, which can safely hold all the data from multiple machines at once. Generally speaking the higher the capacity the better, but it does depend on what you’re going to be backing up. If you only use your computer to store documents, low-res photos and the like, a 2-500 gig drive should be enough. On the other hand, large capacity drives are useful for storing RAW photos, video editing or Photoshop files.

Size & Portability

Hand in hand with the capacity of the drive is its size. Generally speaking, the larger the capacity of a drive, the bigger it is. Small-capacity drives are extremely portable, being no larger than a mobile phone, so can be transported very easily. On the other end of the scale, the very large capacity drives are not meant to be portable, and usually sit in or under your desk as a safe deposit for all your data. Portability and weight will only become a real issue when choosing the very high-capacity drives, but it is worth paying attention to if you plan on transporting the drive frequently.

Read/Write Speeds

Read & write speeds measure how quickly data can be written from & to the external hard drive. This is measures in bytes per second - the higher the speed, the faster large files (such as movies) will be transferred onto or from the drive. The read-write speeds are also affected by the USB version supported - USB 3.0 supported drives allow far higher transfer rates than USB 2 drives, so it is worth seeking out the newest drive you can for the fastest data transfer speeds.

Power

On the subject of USBs, external hard drives are powered by 2 main methods: via USB or externally power lead. Smaller drives will be powered via USB - this means that the same lead that transfers the data also powers the device. This means no battery, no extra leads, and they are far more portable. Larger drives may be so big and powerful that USB alone can’t provide enough power - in which case they may need an external power connection to properly function. This means that extra consideration has to be made for a spare power socket and the required leads - making them less use when on the go.

Extras

Finally, there are a wealth of extras that can be found in more advanced models of external hard drives. Some of these may only be useful in specific situations, and you will usually pay more for them, but the utility may well be worth the extra cost. Some examples of extra features include:

External Hard Drive Prices

The price range of external hard drives is from £29 to £4,495 and in total we found prices for 406 external hard drives. The average price of a new external hard drive is £171 and 80% of external hard drive are priced between £48 and £289. The most expensive external hard drive that we found is the G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL - 64Tb at £4,495, and the cheapest is the Toshiba Canvio Basics - 500Gb at only £30.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

G-Technology external hard disk drives range in price from £50 to £4,495, and the highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is G-Technology external hard disk drives with an average price of £605.

The second highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Emtec external hard drives with an average price of £541. Emtec external hard drives start at £541 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £541.

The third highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is ioSafe external hard disk with an average price of £518. ioSafe external hard disk range in price from £335 to £878.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have checked 283 expert reviews and 1,719 user reviews for external harddisks and used this information to determine the average rating for each brand of external hard drive. Western Digital is the top rated external hard drive brand with an average rating of 89%. Silicon Power is the second best brand with 82% and iStorage is the third best brand with 79%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

We found 271 current offers for external hard disk drives from Amazon UK making it the biggest external hard drive retailer. That is significantly bigger than the second biggest retailer, Ebuyer for whom we found 188 current offers for external hard disk drives. The third biggest retailer is Ebuyer Business with 175 current external hard drive offers.

When Are Most New External Hard Drives Released?

Most new external hard disk tend to be released between June and July. If you wait until June 2019 then you might be able to get better features on your external hard drive. Also the price of the current external hard disks may drop off just before the latest models are released in June. The biggest month in 2018 for new external hard drive releases was June, with 59 new external hard drives released that month. July was the biggest month in 2017 for new external hard drive, with 36 new external hard drive released that month. In 2016 most new external harddisks were released in October, with 42 new external harddisks released that month.

How Fast Do External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

New external hard drives drop in price by an average of 1% in the first 6 months after they wer first released. If you are prepared to wait then you could save an average of £2 on a typical £171 new external hard drive by waiting 6 months before buying.

Weights

'Weight' denotes the weight of the external hard drive, measured in grams (g).

The weights of external hard disk drive range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of the majority of external hard drive range from 0g to 300g. The external hard drive with the heaviest weight is the G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL - 64Tb, which is an 11.4kg external hard drive and is available at £4,495.00. The Integral USB 3.0 Portable SSD External Hard Drive - 256GB, which can be purchased for £108.99, has the lightest weight and is a 41g external hard drive.

USB Powered

Whether the hard drive is powered by USB or not.

Of the 841 new external hard disk drive currently listed on Kagoo, the vast majority are USB powered external hard disk drive. 673 out of 841 are USB powered external hard disk drive.

Hard Drive Capacities

'Hard Drive Capacity' denotes how much data the hard drive can hold, measured in gigabytes (GB).

Across the range of external hard disks, the hard drive capacities range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of most external hard disks range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The G-Technology G-Speed Shuttle XL - 64Tb, which is available at £4,495.00, has the biggest hard drive capacity and is a 64TB external hard drive. The external hard drive with the smallest hard drive capacity is the Western Digital WD My Passport Wireless - 1TB, which is a 1GB external hard drive and can be purchased for £131.24.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Hard Drives?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard drives. For each retailer it shows the total number of external hard drives where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard drive. For each retailer we took all of their prices and looked at what proportion of those prices where the cheapest on the market. The cheapest retailer that we found was Amazon UK. 174 of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

Proportion of External Hard Drive for Which Each Retailer is Cheapest?

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for external harddisk by counting the number of cheapest prices for that retailer, makes the retailers that offer the greatest number of external hard drive prices more likely to offer the greatest number of cheapest prices. The chart below considers the proportion of each retailer's external hard drive prices that are the cheapest compared to other retailers. The cheapest retailer that we found using this approach was Amazon UK. 64.2% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.