Compare the Best External Hard DrivesAugust 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 disk drive is from £29 to £883 and in total we found prices for 398 external hard disk drive. A new external hard drive costs on average £148 and 80% of external hard disks are priced between £48 and £316. The most expensive external hard drive that we found is the Western Digital WD My Book Pro - 16Tb at £883, and the cheapest is the Toshiba Canvio Basics - 500Gb at only £30.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

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

The second highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Apricorn external harddisks with an average price of £493. Apricorn external harddisks range in price from £132 to £854.

The third highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Glyph external hard disk drives with an average price of £342. Glyph external hard disk drives start at £117 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £566.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have checked 150 expert reviews and 1,650 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 90%. The second best brand is Seagate with 84% and the third best brand is Buffalo with 75%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

The biggest external hard drive retailer by number of products currently for sale is Quzo. We found 308 current external hard drive offers from Quzo. The second biggest retailer is Amazon UK with 220 offers. That means Quzo is significantly bigger than Amazon UK when it comes to external hard disk. SmartTeck is the third biggest retailer with 175 current offers.

When Are Most New External Harddisks Released?

Most new external hard disk tend to be released between June and July. That means that most of the latest external hard drive technology was released in within the last 3 months, and now is good time to buy. Seven new external hard drive were released in July 2019 making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. In June 2018, 59 new external hard disks were released making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. The biggest month in 2017 for new external hard drive releases was April, with 28 new external hard disk drives released that month.

Weights

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

Comparing all external hard drives, the weights range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of most external hard drives range from 0g to 300g. The external hard drive with the heaviest weight is the ioSafe SoloPRO - 2Tb, which is a 6.8kg external hard drive and sells for £492.30. The Integral USB 3.0 Portable SSD External Hard Drive - 256GB, which currently retails 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 800 new external hard drives currently listed on Kagoo are USB powered external hard disk drives. 666 out of 800 external hard drives are USB powered external hard disk drives.

Hard Drive Capacities

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

The hard drive capacities of external hard disk drives range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of most external hard disk drives range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The Western Digital My Book Duo - 20Tb, which is on sale for £602.46, has the biggest hard drive capacity and is a 20TB external hard drive. The Western Digital WD My Passport Wireless - 2TB, which currently retails for £160.32, has the smallest hard drive capacity and is a 1GB external hard drive.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Hard Drive?

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 disks. 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. 108 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 disk drive 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. 49.1% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.