Best external drives 2026: Fast SSDs and roomy hard drives

External USB/Thunderbolt SSDs and/or hard drives (aka direct-attached storage, or DAS) are a super-convenient way to add storage capacity to your system as well as back it up. External drives are also extremely handy for transporting data between locations and devices in what used to be known as sneaker-net.

Your particular needs will determine whether your choice for external storage should prioritize speed, in which case you’ll want an SSD with a fast interface (USB4 or Thunderbolt); capacity, which will always favor more affordable hard drives; or portability — you can’t get more portable than a pocketable thumb drive. Depending on your intent, we’ve got picks for you.

Why you should trust PCWorld for external drive reviews and buying advice: It’s in our name! PCWorld’s reviewers have been testing PC hardware for decades. Our storage evaluations are thorough and rigorous, pushing the limits of every product — from performance benchmarks to the practicalities of daily use. As PC users ourselves, we know what makes a product stand out. Only the best external drives make this list.

There are four general categories when it comes to external storage, all fairly self-explanatory: portable SSD, portable HDD, desktop HDD (typically larger capacity, larger footprint, and requiring external power, and thus meant to be stationary), and thumb-drive SSD — the smallest and most portable external storage, but often limited in capacity.

If you’re looking to treat your external storage as an extension of your internal storage, then performance is likely paramount. You’ll want an SSD, which can be 10 to 20 times faster — depending on the interface — than a hard drive. SSDs also offer sub-millisecond seek times where HDDs seek at tens of milliseconds.

On the other hand, if the primary role is backup, then you might want to opt for a hard drive (HDD) with its larger capacity and a significantly lower price per gigabyte/terabyte. Currently, single SSDs top out at 8TB, 2.5-inch HDDs at 6TB, and desktop 3.5-inch HDDs at 36TB.

Need internal storage instead? See our guides to the best SSDs and best PCIe 4.0 SSDs.

The cost per TB of both SSDs and HDDs tends to drop as capacity increases. However, the latest, greatest (highest capacity) drives of both types tend to carry a premium, simply because the company knows some users want as much capacity as they can get and are willing to pay more.

Normally, you’ll get the lowest price per terabyte from the second-highest capacity drive, aka last years model. But do the math before you plunk down your hard earned money — you may find deals. Below you can see the phenomenon in terms of a WD 2.5-inch HDD.

Above you can see the general more capacity, cheaper per terabyte trend.

If you’re extending your internal storage, you probably know better than we do how much you’ll need. Video sucks up space at a remarkable pace, especially at higher resolutions. With SSDs, traditionally we’ve recommended twice the capacity you think you’ll need as older types tended to slow down as they filled. Modern SSD controller design has mitigated this to a great degree, but it’s still our rule of thumb.

If you’re going for backup, then the more the merrier. Again, twice the amount of total data on the drives to back up is a good start. Remember, you’ll want at least one full system backup, then regular incremental, differential, or data-only backups.

That said, reinstalling Windows and your applications isn’t quite the insane drudgery it once was, and you can likely get away with just backing up your data. In that case twice the amount of essential data you have will do the trick. Sensing a 2X trend here?

Another rule of thumb: 1TB for travel and light backups, 2TB for mainstream photo/video libraries, 4TB+ for larger archives, 8TB+ for desk-bound bulk backup.

Note that these are our minimum recommendations. The more the merrier, and the further back in time you can keep backups for.

If you’re buying an HDD, the interface is relatively unimportant — even older 5Gbps USB offers more than enough bandwidth to accommodate the 300MBps that is as fast as a modern HDD can deliver data. In fact, you’re unlikely to run across an external HDD that offers a faster interface unless it’s a multi-bay RAID box. Even then, 10Gbps is likely to be more than fast enough.

For SSDs, there’s a huge difference in performance depending on the interface involved. The internals of most external SSDs these days are NVMe rather than SATA, and capable of 3GBps. No matter what the internals, 5Gbps USB (3.0) limits the drive to just over 500MBps, 10Gbps USB (3.2) to just over 1GBps, and 20Gbps USB (3.2×2)/Thunderbolt 2 to around 2GBps, so you’re leaving performance on the table with any of those.

Of course, those may be all that your computer offers, so buy to match. However, if you’re rocking a newer computer you may have Thunderbolt 3/4/5 or if it’s really recent, USB4. Those will deliver around 3.5GBps unless they’re the still rare 80Gbps flavors in which case you’ll see around 6.5GBps.

Note that all those numbers are what you’ll see with synthetic benchmarks. Windows Explorer is a horrible performer in data transfers. We recommend using FastCopy or if you’re a command line type — Xcopy. Both of which are two to three times as fast as Explorer transferring large files.

Compatibility is a major concern and where 5Gbps and 10Gbps USB reign supreme. You’d be hard pressed to find a computer or device that won’t support them and they function on nearly every USB and Thunderbolt port in existence.

USB 3.2×2 on the other hand requires a dedicated 20Gbps port or a newer USB4 port to function at the full 20Gbps speed. They drop to 10Gbps on 10Gbps USB ports and most Thunderbolt ports.

Obviously, 40Gbps USB4 requires a USB4 port or Thunderbolt 4/5 port to reach maximum speed. But on USB4 ports, even that’s not guaranteed. We haven’t seen one yet, but full 40Gbps implementation in true USB Forum fashion, isn’t required, so there might be slower 20Gbps USB4 SSDs and ports.

Thunderbolt SSDs generally require a Thunderbolt 3/4/5 port or USB4 port to function at 40Gbps. In truth, USB4 is basically Thunderbolt 4 with some minor tweaks. 80Gbps Thunderbolt SSDs require a Thunderbolt 5 port, and/or the upcoming 80Gbps USB4 second gen.

USB4 SSDs are easily the most compatible (backwards to USB 2.x, forward to Thunderbolt 5) high-performance types, so they’re currently our recommended interface for speedy data delivery. That said, 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5 is pretty sexy.

While we of course recommend orientation-agnostic Type-C, you can find Type-C adapters or adapter cables for any type.

USB Type-C, USB-C, Type-C is the latest USB connector and the one the world is standardizing on. It’s small, easy to insert, and you don’t have to worry about which side faces up as with Type-A.

Keep in mind that Type-C refers only to the connector itself. What is carried over the wires varies greatly: USB 2.0 High Speed (480Mbps) to USB 3.2 SuperSpeed 20Gbps, as well as USB4 and Thunderbolt 3/4/5 and any combination of them.

USB Type-A: You won’t find this familiar rectangular port on any drive, but you will still find it on plenty of PCs and laptops as well as the male version on the other end of most Type-B and Type-C adapter cables.

USB 3 Micro-B is the wider, flatter port that’s still very common on many lower-cost portable and desktop external hard drives. It’s actually the same Micro USB port used on older phones, but with more data lines to hit USB 3.0 speeds. It’ll do 5Gbps and is fine for hard drives and SATA (internally) SSDs. Micro-B cables are generally Type-A on the PC end.

USB 3 Type-B is the larger, squarer version of USB 3.0 Micro B. Type B ports are becoming rare, though you might find one on older 5.25-inch enclosures, printers, and scanners. It supports speeds up to 5Gbps and cables are generally Type-A on the PC side.

Thunderbolt 2 is dead at this point. It’s found on older Macs, but even Apple put it out to pasture in 2017. There’s no need to invest in a Thunderbolt 2 drive unless it’s for legacy support issues. That said…

…Apple sells a bi-directional Thunderbolt 1/2 to 3 adapter if you need to connect the one generation to the other. The adapter does not, however, carry power, so bus-powered external drives (no power jack) will require a powered dock.

eSATA is another legacy port that’s disappeared from newer devices. Created for attaching external storage to your computer’s SATA bus, eSATA was a cheap way in its day to move beyond the toddling 60MBps performance of USB 2.0.

5Gbps USB 3.0 put the last nail in eSATA’s coffin. As with Thunderbolt 2, the only reason to invest in an eSATA drive is for use with older computers.

We discussed the rule of three for backup, but while the cloud is a great offsite option, you can also manage that with multiple external drives — storing them in different locations. Once upon a time, I used to regularly send copies of my recordings to my mom’s for safe-keeping.

If you’re using your external storage as a primary repository for important data, then you should have a second drive as a copy. You might even consider a dual-drive enclosure and run them mirrored, i.e. the same set of data written simultaneously to both. SSDs aren’t nearly as prone to mishap as hard drives, but even then…

Simply put, keep your data backed up!