Best Portable Hard Drives of 2022

Taking files with you tin be a pain if you rely on flash drives, and for larger files or having everything in a unmarried physical location, you're likely going to desire to look at a portable drive of some sort. Nosotros rounded upward a few smashing portable drives for when an net connexion is limited or you lot prefer to have information hands attainable with just a cable.

Nosotros ever recommend storing important data in more than than a single place, so be certain to utilize an bachelor NAS (or deject service) as well as a physical portable drive, just in instance.

Samsung T5

Samsung is responsible for some fantastic storage solutions. Whether you lot're after a solid-state drive (SSD), NVMe or RAM, the tech company has yous covered with high-quality components. This is why the T5 is included in our portable roundup, because it sports a powerful Samsung SSD with read and write speeds of upwards to 540MB/s. It'south also a total metal pattern for effectually $160, which isn't bad when y'all consider the toll of SSDs today and that this price is for the 500GB version.

The 250GB variant comes in at a picayune less, costing around $125, but $35 for double the storage is a worthy upgrade. This drive offers optional password protection and AES 256-chip hardware encryption, which means your data is relatively secure.

Samsung also offers a 3-year warranty and USB Blazon-C to Type-C and Blazon-A cables for maximum compatibility. Overall, it is an excellent portable drive.

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PNY Aristocracy

PNY Elite

This affordable portable SSD from PNY allows you to pick up 240GB of storage for only $89.99. The drive is a little slower than the Samsung T5, which is reflected in the cost. Read speeds tin hit 430MB/s and write speeds max out at 400MB/s. To be fair on the PNY Elite, you'll not likely notice the difference unless you're in a rush to transfer files.

The drive itself is smaller than a credit bill of fare, and the enclosure is made of aluminum for enhanced durability. Three years worth of warranty comes included alongside access to Acronis True Paradigm Data Protection software. 1 should bear in mind that some owners take had issues with achieving transfer speeds that PNY claims, but for the price, it's an affordable pick.

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Seagate Backup Plus Slim

Seagate Backup Plus

Seagate is a well-known brand when it comes to storage, especially with the Xbox One. The visitor likewise offers the excellent Backup Plus external drive, starting at effectually $53. Information technology's a really good price and the reason for that is Seagate using a mechanical hard drive, equally opposed to a faster and meaty SSD. The good part is you not but salve a fair corporeality per GB only it likewise doesn't crave a split up power supply (information technology's all powered through USB).

Every bit a bonus, Seagate includes ii months worth of Adobe'southward Artistic Cloud Photography program, which gives you access to Photoshop. The downside of the hard-disk bulldoze (HDD) is the read and write speeds of around 120MB/s, considerably slower than competing SSDs.

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CalDigit Tuff

Should you truly value the rubber of your data, this is when something like the CalDigit Tuff portable HDD makes more than sense. It'due south a beast of an enclosure, specifically designed to take a battering without issue. The 2TB HDD volition set yous back around $180 but information technology'due south well worth it and can fifty-fifty survive a drop from up to 4 feet. There's likewise the fact that information technology can remain submerged for up to thirty minutes in 3.28 feet of water, plus information technology has a dust- and shock-resistant coating.

Unfortunately, like the Seagate offering, this uses a mechanical bulldoze and not an SSD. This ways transfer speeds are going to be restricted to around 130MB/due south. It's non a deal breaker but is definitely something to consider if speed is a requirement.

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DIY options

If yous struggle to find a portable bulldoze that ticks all your boxes, you lot tin can build your own. We accept a guide that runs you through everything y'all will need to salve a footling and create a custom portable bulldoze.

Create your own portable SSD

Even more storage

Best external hard drives for Xbox One
All-time external difficult drives

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