What is carried over the wires varies greatly. Keep in mind, USB-C refers only to the connector itself. You see it in everything from phones to laptops. USB-C is the latest of the USB connectors the world is coalescing around. Type B ports are becoming rare, though you might find one on enclosures supporting 5.25-inch hard drives or optical drives. USB 3 Type-B is the larger, blocky version of USB 3.0 Micro B. It’ll do 5Gbps and is fine for hard drives and SATA (internally) SSDs. It’s actually the same Micro USB port used on your phone, but beefed up with more data lines to hit USB 3.0 speeds. This is still a very common port on many lower-cost portable and desktop external hard drives today. For comparison, a slower 1TB Samsung T5 on USB is only $125. Still, if you want the most performance, you can get it in drives such as our recommended portable, the Samsung Portable SSD X5, which is $200 for 500GB of capacity. Thunderbolt 3 and the newer Thunderbolt 4 typically are the highest-performing interfaces for external storage, with the key limitation being a premium price and a general lack of compatibility with the far more popular USB 3.2 ports in the world.
Although faster than the typical USB 3.2 SuperSpeed 10Gbps, there aren’t a lot of USB 20Gbps gen 2×2 ports out there, but these drives should work with the upcoming USB4 at the same 20Gbps pace. The faster USB 3.2 SuperSpeed 20Gbps (Gen 2×2) moves you into a higher-price bracket, with the Seagate Firecuda Gaming SSD costing $200 for the same 500GB of storage. A SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, our runner-up for portable storage, can be had for $90 in a 500GB capacity. The good news is that while USB 3.1 Gen 2, which is more than fast enough for most users at 10Gbps, used to be expensive, it’s basically the standard today. Where SuperSpeed 10Gbps/20Gbps, USB4, or Thunderbolt will definitely help is with the aforementioned RAID hard drive setups, or more likely-an SSD. Don’t worry about Gen 2, 10Gbps, or Thunderbolt with single hard drive enclosures because it doesn’t really matter. No hard drive, unless combined in RAID with others, can outstrip the 5Gbps (roughly 500MBps real-world after overhead) throughput of USB 3.1 Gen 1. For the sake of brevity (and sanity), we generally shorten those names to USB 10Gbps, or 10Gbps USB, for instance.
In an attempt to simplify things, the USB Forum has recently changed the nomenclature to indicate throughput speed-SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps, SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps, and SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps-because performance is a priority for most uses. Beyond that simple statement, the story gets confusing-largely because of the plethora of variations: USB 3.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1 (5Gbps, which is basically USB 3.0), USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps), and USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 (20Gbps), and now the up-and-coming USB4. The vast majority of external drives today are USB drives. The worst value for an external hard drive is typically the lowest-capacity drive. To see links for all of our external drive reviews (besides those we have featured as our best picks), scroll to the bottom of this article. Below our selection of best picks, you can learn about what to look for when shopping for an external drive, and how we test them. Read on to find out why we choose the drives we did. Updated 11/19/21 to add two new categories to our external drive recommendations: best external drives for photographers, and the best for gamers. We’ll also walk you through our other top picks, and everything you need to know to select the best external drive for your needs.
BEST PORTABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES FOR MAC PRO
Our latest picks for best external performance drive ( SanDisk’s Extreme Pro Portable and Samsung’s T7) are blazing-fast-great news if you’re transferring large amounts of data. Two things are for sure: No one ever said they wanted less storage space, and no one ever said they wanted a slower drive. Xbox One X users, especially, would be wise to invest in an external drive to augment the console’s measly 1TB hard drive (the external drive needs to be USB 3.0-compatible and will be formatted when you insert the drive). It can back up your precious data or store your overflow, and it can transport or transfer files between computing devices.
BEST PORTABLE EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES FOR MAC PC
Anyone who uses a PC should have an external drive.
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