Compare the Best External Hard DrivesJuly 2020

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:

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 £854 and in total we found prices for 326 external hard drives. On average, a new external hard drive costs £150 and 80% of external hard drives are priced between £46 and £320. The Toshiba Canvio Basics - 500Gb is the cheapest external hard drive at only £30, and Apricorn Aegis Padlock DT - 10TB is the most expensive at £854.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

Apricorn external harddisk start at £854 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £854. The highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Apricorn external harddisk with an average price of £854.

Glyph external harddisks range in price from £566 to £566, and the average price of Glyph external harddisks is £566 which is the second highest average price of all external hard drive brands.

IoSafe external harddisk start at £335 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £850. The third highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is ioSafe external harddisk with an average price of £542.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have evaluated 258 expert reviews and 1,510 user reviews for external hard drive and used this data 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%. Seagate is the second best brand with 76% and Buffalo is the third best brand with 75%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

The biggest external hard drive retailer by number of products currently for sale is Quzo. We found 281 current external hard drive offers from Quzo. The second biggest retailer is SmartTeck with 157 offers. That means Quzo is much bigger than SmartTeck when it comes to external hard disks. Raysan and Carter is the third biggest retailer with 82 current offers.

When Are Most New External Harddisk Released?

We couldn't see any evident pattern in the release dates for new external hard disk over the last 3 years. The biggest month last year for new external hard drive releases was February, with 11 new external hard drives released that month. In June 2018, 59 new external harddisks were released making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. In 2017 most new external harddisks were released in July, with 36 new external harddisks released that month.

How Fast Do External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

On average, in the first 6 months after release, external hard drives drop in price by 0%.

That means a saving of £1 on a typical £150 new external hard drive if you wait 6 months before buying.

Weights

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

Across the range of external hard disk drive, the weights range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of the majority of external hard disks range from 0g to 300g. The external hard drive with the heaviest weight is the ioSafe SoloPRO - 3Tb, which is a 6.8kg external hard drive and is on sale for £610.52. 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.

The vast majority of the 863 new external harddisks currently listed on Kagoo are USB powered external harddisks. 704 external harddisks (82%) are USB powered external harddisks.

Hard Drive Capacities

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

Comparing all external hard disk drive, the hard drive capacities range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of the majority of external hard disk range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The Western Digital My Book Duo - 20Tb, which can be purchased for £652.52, has the biggest hard drive capacity and is a 20TB external hard drive. The external hard drive with the smallest hard drive capacity is the Western Digital WD My Passport Wireless - 2TB, which is a 1GB external hard drive and can be purchased for £160.32.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Harddisks?

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 disk 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 Ebuyer Business. 46 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 hard drives 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 Ebuyer Business. 65.7% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.