Compare the Best External Hard DrivesSeptember 2021

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 disks is from £29 to £788 and in total we found prices for 391 external hard disks. The average price of a new external hard drive is £164 and 80% of external hard drive are priced between £48 and £356. The G-Technology G-DRIVE Thunderbolt 3 - 8Tb is the most expensive external hard drive that we found at £788, and the Toshiba Canvio Basics - 500Gb is the cheapest at only £30.

External Hard Drive Brands - Price Range

IoSafe external harddisks range in price from £281 to £704, and the highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is ioSafe external harddisks with an average price of £443.

The second highest average external hard drive price out of all brands is Digittrade external hard disks with an average price of £339. Digittrade external hard disks start at £275 and their most expensive external hard drive costs £382.

G-Technology external hard disk drive range in price from £72 to £788, and the average price of G-Technology external hard disk drive is £327 which is the third highest average price of all external hard drive brands.

External Hard Drive Brands - Average Ratings

We have analysed 111 expert reviews and 1,752 user reviews for external hard drives 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 89%. 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 Amazon UK. We found 212 current external hard drive offers from Amazon UK. The second biggest retailer is SmartTeck with 204 offers. That means Amazon UK is slightly bigger than SmartTeck when it comes to external hard drive. Quzo is the third biggest retailer with 194 current offers.

When Are Most New External Hard Disk Released?

We couldn't see any noticeable pattern in the release dates for new external hard drive over the last 3 years. Last year most new external hard drives were released in February, with five new external hard drives released that month. 10 new external hard disks were released in September 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 disk, with 55 new external hard disk released that month.

Weights

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

Comparing all external hard disk drives, the weights range from 41g to 11.4kg. The weights of the majority of external harddisks range from 0g to 300g. The ioSafe SoloPRO - 3Tb, which can be purchased for £504.44, has the heaviest weight and is a 6.8kg external hard drive. The Integral USB 3.0 Portable SSD External Hard Drive - 256GB, which is on sale 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 836 new external hard drive currently listed on Kagoo are USB powered external hard disk. 82% of external hard drive 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).

Comparing all external hard drives, the hard drive capacities range from 1GB to 64TB. The hard drive capacities of the majority of external hard disk drives range from 0GB to 1.5TB. The Western Digital Western Digital My Book Duo - 24Tb, which sells for £704.99, has the biggest hard drive capacity and is a 24TB 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 harddisk. For each retailer it shows the total number of external harddisk where they currently have a market leading price. The chart below helps you decide which retailer is normally cheapest for buying external harddisks. 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. 97 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 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. 45.8% of their external hard drive prices were the cheapest that could be found anywhere.