Compare the Best External Hard DrivesFebruary 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

In total we found 364 external hard disk drive ranging from £29 to £710. A new external hard drive costs on average £134 and 80% of external hard disk drive are priced between £44 and £297. The Toshiba Canvio Basics - 500Gb is the cheapest external hard drive at only £30, and Digittrade HS256 S3 - 1Tb is the most expensive at £709.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

The average price of Digittrade external hard disks is £577 which is the highest average price of all external hard drive brands. Digittrade external hard disks range in price from £444 to £709.

The average price of ioSafe external hard drives is £424 which is the second highest average price of all external hard drive brands. ioSafe external hard drives start at £317 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £663.

The average price of iStorage external harddisks is £299 which is the third highest average price of all external hard drive brands. iStorage external harddisks start at £118 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £507.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have evaluated 263 expert reviews and 1,617 user reviews for external hard drives and used these reviews to determine 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 86%. The second best brand is Seagate with 76% and the third best brand is Buffalo with 75%.

Biggest External Hard Drive Retailers

We found 107 current offers for external hard drives from Amazon UK making it the biggest external hard drive retailer. That is much bigger than the second biggest retailer, Ebuyer Business for whom we found 66 current offers for external hard drives. The third biggest retailer is eBay with 56 current external hard drive offers.

When Are Most New External Harddisks Released?

Over the last 3 years we couldn't see any obvious trend in the release month for new external hard disk. February was the biggest month last year for new external hard drive, with seven new external hard drive released that month. 59 new external hard disk drives were released in June 2018 making it the biggest month that year for new external hard drive releases. In July 2017, 36 new external hard drives were released 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 disk drives drop in price by 1% on average.

That means that on a typical external hard drive costing £134 you could save on average £1 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 range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of the majority of external hard drive range from 0g to 300g. The ioSafe Solo G3 - 4Tb, which is priced at £316.77, 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 priced at £108.99.

USB Powered

Whether the hard drive is powered by USB or not.

The vast majority of the 853 new external hard disk drives currently listed on Kagoo are USB powered external hard disk drive. 681 external hard disk drives (80%) 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).

Comparing all external hard disk, the hard drive capacities range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of most external harddisks range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The external hard drive with the biggest hard drive capacity is the Western Digital My Book Duo - 20Tb, which is a 20TB external hard drive and is available at £500.60. The Western Digital WD My Passport Wireless - 1TB, which sells for £131.24, has the smallest hard drive capacity and is a 1GB external hard drive.

Which Are the Cheapest Retailers for External Harddisk?

The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external hard drive. For each retailer it shows the total number of external hard drive 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. 69 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 disks 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. 64.5% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.