Compare the Best External Hard DrivesNovember 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:

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

External hard disks range in price from £29 to £738 and in total we found prices for 367 external hard disks. The average price of a new external hard drive is £134 and 80% of external hard disk drives are priced between £44 and £299. The Toshiba Canvio Basics - 500Gb is the cheapest external hard drive at only £30, and Digittrade HS256 S3 - 1Tb is the most expensive at £738.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

The highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Digittrade external hard disk with an average price of £433. Digittrade external hard disk start at £128 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £738.

The average price of DataLocker external hard disks is £396 which is the second highest average price of all external hard drive brands. DataLocker external hard disks range in price from £396 to £396.

The average price of ioSafe external hard disk drive is £359 which is the third highest average price of all external hard drive brands. ioSafe external hard disk drive range in price from £313 to £421.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have evaluated 259 expert reviews and 1,629 user reviews for external harddisk and used this data to calculate 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 87%. The second best brand is Seagate with 76% 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 Amazon UK. We found 99 current external hard drive offers from Amazon UK. The second biggest retailer is Ebuyer Business with 69 offers. That means Amazon UK is significantly bigger than Ebuyer Business when it comes to external hard disk. Ebuyer is the third biggest retailer with 47 current offers.

When Are Most New External Hard Drive Released?

June to July is the most common period for new external hard disk drives to be released in. The biggest month in 2018 for new external hard drive releases was June, with 59 new external hard drive released that month. July was the biggest month in 2017 for new external hard drives, with 36 new external hard drives released that month. 42 new external hard disks were released in October 2016 making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases.

How Fast Do External Hard Drive Prices Drop After Release?

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

A typical new external hard drive costs on average £134. By waiting 6 months before buying you could save on average £1.

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 harddisk range from 0g to 300g. The external hard drive with the heaviest weight is the ioSafe Solo G3 Fireproof External Hard Drive - 2TB, which is a 6.8kg external hard drive and can be purchased for £313.49. The Integral USB 3.0 Portable SSD External Hard Drive - 256GB, which is available at £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 855 new external harddisks currently listed on Kagoo, the vast majority are USB powered external hard disks. 684 external harddisks out of 855 are USB powered external hard disks.

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 disks range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of the majority of external harddisk range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The Western Digital My Book Duo - 16Tb, which sells for £412.20, has the biggest hard drive capacity and is a 16TB 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 is priced at £160.32.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Hard Disk Drive?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard disk. For each retailer it shows the total number of external hard disk where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external harddisk. 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. 51 of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.

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

Assessing how cheap each retailer is for external hard disk 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 Amazon UK. 51.5% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.