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 £5 to £854 and in total we found prices for 363 external hard drives. On average, a new external hard drive costs £148 and 80% of external hard drives are priced between £47 and £322. The most expensive external hard drive that we found is the Apricorn Aegis Padlock DT - 10TB at £854, and the cheapest is the Western Digital My Passport at only £6.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

The highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Apricorn external hard disk drive with an average price of £854. Apricorn external hard disk drive range in price from £854 to £854.

The average price of ioSafe external hard drives is £503 which is the second highest average price of all external hard drive brands. ioSafe external hard drives start at £335 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £764.

Digittrade external hard disk drive start at £124 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £766. The average price of Digittrade external hard disk drive is £445 which is the third highest average price of all external hard drive brands.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have analysed 265 expert reviews and 1,649 user reviews for external hard disks and used this data to evaluate the average rating for each brand of external hard drive. The top rated external hard drive brand is Western Digital with an average rating of 88%. The second best brand is Seagate with 76% and the third best brand is Buffalo with 75%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

We found 264 current offers for external harddisk from Quzo making it the biggest external hard drive retailer. That is much bigger than the second biggest retailer, SmartTeck for whom we found 154 current offers for external harddisk. The third biggest retailer is Ebuyer Business with 70 current external hard drive offers.

When Are Most New External Harddisk Released?

We couldn't see any prominent pattern in the release dates for new external hard drive over the last 3 years. 11 new external hard disk were released in February 2019 making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. June was the biggest month in 2018 for new external hard drive, with 59 new external hard drive released that month. The biggest month in 2017 for new external hard drive releases was July, with 36 new external hard drives released that month.

How Fast Do External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

On average external hard drives drop in price by 1% in the first 6 months after release.

If you are prepared to wait then you could save an average of £1 on a typical £148 new external hard drive by waiting 6 months before buying.

Weights

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

Across the range of external hard drives, the weights range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of most external hard drive range from 0g to 300g. The ioSafe Solo G3 Fireproof External Hard Drive - 3TB, which is on sale for £421.00, has the heaviest weight and is a 6.8kg external hard drive. The external hard drive with the lightest weight is the Integral USB 3.0 Portable SSD External Hard Drive - 256GB, which is a 41g external hard drive and is available at £108.99.

USB Powered

Whether the hard drive is powered by USB or not.

The vast majority of the 873 new external hard disk currently listed on Kagoo are USB powered external hard disk. 692 external hard disk out of 873 are USB powered external hard disk.

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 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 currently retails for £627.85, 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 sells for £160.32.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Hard Disk?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disk drive. For each retailer it shows the total number of external hard disk drive 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 Quzo. 124 of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

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

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for external harddisks 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 Quzo. 47% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.