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- Best Portable Storage Drive For Mac
- Best Portable Storage For Digital Photos
- Best Portable Storage For Mac
- Best Storage Device For Mac
- Best Portable Storage For Mac
- Best Portable Storage For Photographers
- Best Portable Storage For Mac
- Best Portable External Storage For Mac
The technology of external hard drives and connection ports is constantly changing which is why we’ve taken a closer look at the best external hard drive for Mac of 2018. The great thing for Mac users is that external HDDs have never been cheaper and storage sizes have never been bigger.
The Rundown
- Best Overall: Western Digital My Passport at Amazon, “Offers outstanding performance that rivals that of pricier competitors.”
- Runner-Up, Best Overall:Samsung T5 SSD at Amazon, “The all-metal, shock-resistant enclosure is rugged and portable.”
- Best for Business:WD 8TB My Book Desktop at Amazon, “Offers far more capacity than more portable drives for far less cash.”
- Best Splurge:Seagate Backup Plus Hub 6TB at Amazon, “This drive offers a lot of capacity and it’s fast and flexible.”
- Best for Gaming:U32 ShadowUSB at Amazon, “A USB 3.0 device that has plug-and-play compatibility with the Xbox One.”
- Best for Apple:LaCie Rugged 2TB Thunderbolt USB-C at Amazon, “Super fast drive that can handle plenty of bumps, rain, and bounces.”
- Best Portability:Toshiba Canvio Advance at Amazon, “Users delight in the small size, transfer speeds, and cool running temperature.”
- Best Durability: Silicon Power 1TB Rugged Armor at Amazon, “Offering a tough exterior with a shockproof design.”
Our Top Picks
Best Overall, Best for Fast Transfers: Western Digital My Passport
What We Like
Excellent storage capacity for the price
Encryption built-in
Automatic backup
What We Don't Like
Slower than a portable SSD
No fancy features
My Passport is an inexpensive drive, but it offers outstanding performance that rivals that of pricier competitors thanks to a 3.0 USB port and excellent disk controller. This drive allows a maximum transfer speed of 174 MBps read, and 168 MBps write. It’s available in sizes ranging from 1 TB to 4 TB. Our tester thought it was a great overall value for the price: 'If you're on a budget and looking for a cheap and cheerful storage solution, the My Passport isn't very fancy but it does a reliable job of storing your precious files,' he said.
Runner-Up, Best Overall: Samsung T5 Portable SSD
What We Like
Compact design
Lightning fast transfer speeds
Compatible with multiple devices
What We Don't Like
Smaller storage space
Outdated aesthetic
Pricey
The Samsung T5 Portable DDS is on the pricey side (especially in the larger capacities), but the speed and security it comes with are worth it for those looking for durable performance. Weighing less than 2 ounces, the all-metal, shock-resistant enclosure is very portable. What really makes this device stand out, though, is its super-fast transfer speed, with up to 540 MB/s thanks to the SSD design, making it ideal for transferring giant files like 4K videos. Our tester, agreed, raving that its speed was 'unbeatable.' The T5 connects to just about anything, too, with its USB 3.1 Type-C and Type-A ports and works with Windows, Mac, and Android devices. Plus, integrated AES 256-bit hardware encryption ensures the safety of your data.
Best for Business: WD 8TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive - USB 3.0
What We Like
Automatic backup system
Fantastic storage capacity
Above average transfer speeds
What We Don't Like
Needs external power to function
Limited portability
The My Book Desktop External Hard Drive from Western Digital, while large, fits the bill for business owners in need of serious space: It comes in 3, 4, 6, 8, or 10TB varieties and offers Western Digital’s own backup solution for Windows users. It’s also compatible with Time Machine for Mac users (though you may need to reformat). It has 256-bit AES hardware encryption for strong security and has both USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 ports to connect to a wide range of computers. You'll have to rely on the device's wall-based power supply, but according to our tester, that’s worth the trade-off for this spacious vault that holds your invaluable digital data: 'Though it's not really a portable hard drive,' he explained, 'it's definitely the best option if you want a static drive that sits on your desk storing and backing up your files in a secure manner.'
Best Splurge: Seagate Backup Plus Hub 6TB STEL6000100
What We Like
Massive capacity
Great value for size
Solid speed
What We Don't Like
A few interrupted connections
Must reformat for Mac OS
If cost is no concern, we recommend taking a close look at the Seagate Backup Plus Hub. It houses SMR (Shingled Magnetic Recording) drives, which allow more physical bits of memory in the same space without decreasing the size of the bits. This drive offers a lot of capacity — available in 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB versions — and is fast and flexible. Our testers appreciated the two extra USB ports on the front where you can charge other devices while you work. One of our reviewers reported that it took 12 minutes to do a 9 GB transfer, which equates to a write speed of about 107 Mbps. “It feels like a good value to me,” one of our testers said.
Best for Gaming: U32 ShadowUSB Hard Drive
What We Don't Like
Limited color options
This USB 3.0 connective device has plug-and-play compatibility with the Xbox One, which means your gaming console will immediately recognize the drive as soon as it’s plugged in. Our testers took advantage of the drive’s 1TB capacity by storing Forza Horizon 3, Titanfall 2, Halo 5, Sea of Thieves, Fortnite, PUBG, and Madden 19 — and didn’t experience a single issue. If you plan to use this device to store more than just games, 1TB is large enough to hold 650,000 photos, 250,000 songs, and over 500 hours of video. The small black device is stylish and even comes with a three-year warranty.
Best for Apple: LaCie Rugged 2TB Thunderbolt USB-C Portable Hard Drive
What We Like
Extremely durable
Integrated connecting cable
Large capacity
If you’re looking for a Mac-friendly external hard drive that’s built for durability, take a look at LaCie’s Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C portable hard drive. With its distinctive rubber bumpers and brushed aluminum chassis, the drive offers drop resistance up to 5 feet, crush resistance that can withstand up to a 1-ton car, and IP54 water and dust resistance. You’ll never worry about losing your connecting cable, either, as this series of hard drives, available in 2 to 5 TB capacities, have an attached USB cord in your favorite flavor (USB-C, USB-C Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt, or USB 3.0). It's fast, too, with up to 510MB/s with the SSD version and up to 130MB/s with the HDD version.
Best Portability: Toshiba Canvio Advance 3TB Portable Hard Drive HDTC930XR3CA
What We Don't Like
Must reformat for Mac OS
Not much bigger than a deck of cards, Toshiba’s Canvio Advance portable hard drive offers 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB models to fill with as much media as can fit. It plugs into your Mac or PC with USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. Some customers report seeing around 110 Mbps of throughput when using a USB 3.0 port. It also features an internal shock sensor that will make sure your data isn’t corrupted if the drive is jostled while in use. Users delight in the small size, fast transfer speeds, and cool running temperature of this little portable drive.
Best Durability: Silicon Power 1TB Rugged Armor A60 Military-Grade
What We Like
Water resistant
Drop-proof and shockproof
Reasonable price
Silicon Power’s Armor A60 external hard drive, in 1, 2, or 5 TB versions, is no joke, offering a tough, drop-proof (up to 4 feet) exterior with a shockproof design andIPX4 water-resistant protection. The textured casing is also scratch and slip-proof with a silicon bumper around the sides. The A60 reads and writes super fast thanks to the USB 3.0 cable, which conveniently affixes to the drive itself, and is compatible with Mac and PC devices courtesy of the FAT32 file system. While there might be higher performing everyday options, for photographers and others looking for a device that's adventure compatible, the A60 is a perfect choice.
FAQs
Why would I need an external hard drive?
External hard drives provide portable storage space for files, allowing you to increase the total storage of your computer, share files between computers, or simply keep backed-up files secure in case something happens to the originals. If your computer is slowing down or you’re getting warnings about low storage space, it might be time to invest in an external hard drive to free up some space on your computer’s internal hard drive.
What’s the difference between a hard disk drive (HDD) and a solid-state drive (SSD)?
You’ll find external hard drives in HDD and SSD versions, and they both perform the same function—with a few distinct advantages. HDDs have been around much longer and stores files by way of a spinning electromagnetic disk, whereas SSDs rely on flash memory chips for storage and therefore have no moving parts. This means SSDs are usually faster, more dependable, and more expensive. You can get much more storage for a fairly cheap price with an HDD.
How are external hard drives powered?
Some external hard drives get their power from the computer itself transmitted over the data cable, and others require the additional power from an AC outlet. All external hard drives connect to the computer either by USB, FireWire, eSATA, or wirelessly, and this connection type is directly linked to transfer speed.
Digital storage is changing. Internal storage drives are getting bigger, cloud storage is getting cheaper, and USB drives are getting less common. But that doesn’t necessarily negate the need for a good external hard drive — in fact, sometimes they’re the best way to go.
Buying a hard drive isn’t as simple as purchasing the first (or cheapest) one you see. There are a number of factors to consider when buying an external storage drive, and the kind of drive you ultimately end up buying could dictate what you’re able to do with it.
So what should you keep in mind? For starters, you’ll want to decide between a hard drive and a solid-state drive, both of which offer some major advantages and disadvantages. You’ll also want to think about drive speed, hard drive format, connectivity, and special protection features.
Before diving into our guide, there are a few terms you should know. You'll most likely be deciding between a drive of multiple gigabytes (GB), or multiple terabytes (TB). One terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes, and one gigabyte is 1,000 megabytes (MB). An MP3 file takes around 3.5MB, meaning that one gigabyte can store around 285 songs. One HD movie takes up around 3.5GB — so one terabyte can store 285 HD movies.
Here’s everything to consider when buying an external drive.
Storage Size
The most important thing to consider is the size of your drive. We’re not talking how physically big, but rather, how much storage you want. It’s hard to recommend a storage size because it varies from person to person and largely depends on what you plan on storing. A good rule of thumb, however, is to determine how much storage you think you’ll need and then buy a drive that’s double.
If you plan on storing documents only, you probably don’t need much more than 80GB. If you’re storing a small to medium music collection and photos, then up to 256GB should be fine. For storing movies and other video content, the amount you need could range into the multiple terabytes, especially if the movies are in 4K. Ultimately, it’s always good to get more storage than you think you’ll need — even if it means shelling out more money.
Types of External Drives
Next, it’s time to decide on the kind of storage drive you want. There are two main types of external storage drives, and while they ultimately serve the same purpose, the way they store files is markedly different.
Traditionally, if you wanted a storage drive it meant buying a hard disk drive. There are some advantages and some disadvantages to this. For starters, hard disk drives have been around for quite some time, so they’ve become relatively cheap. They function by storing files on an electromagnetic disk that spins around and is read by a moving arm.
Because of those moving parts, they’re much more likely to break with a lot of movement. The speed of a hard disk drive is essentially dictated by how fast the electromagnetic disk spins, and they're generally slower than solid-state drives. (We’ll get more into the different speeds later.) Hard disk drives are the way to go, however, if you want a lot of storage at a cheap price and don’t plan on moving them a lot.
Solid state drives do away with the moving electromagnetic disk, and replace it with what’s called “flash storage.” That’s the same kind of storage that’s used in smartphones, RAM in computers, and, these days, many of the internal storage drives in computers. Solid-state storage essentially uses microchips to store information, and as a result, there are no moving parts. That means there’s a lower failure rate, higher speed, and simply better overall performance. In particular, that means they’re great for running software or an operating system off of.
Of course, there is a downside to all of those advantages — and that’s price. Solid-state drives are much more expensive than hard disk drives, and while they are going down in price, you simply can’t get multi-terabyte solid-state drives without spending at least a few hundred dollars.
Performance
There are a few things that can affect the performance of a hard drive beyond simply what type of hard drive it is. That’s truer of a hard disk drive than a solid-state drive, but solid-state drives still have performance-related metrics that you should pay attention to.
The transfer speed of a hard drive largely has to do with the type of connector that the hard drive comes with. Newer connection standards have higher transfer speeds. The term “transfer speed” is technically a little misleading, as it doesn’t really dictate exactly how fast a hard drive can transfer files to and from your computer. Instead, it tells you how fast a hard drive can theoretically transfer files, based on the connection protocol the hard drive uses.
In the past, the connector was the main limiting factor in how fast a drive could transfer files: USB 2.0 hard drives, in the real world, could transfer data at up to 20 MB/second, while FireWire 800 drives limited things to 85 MB/second. These days, the newer USB 3.0 standard allows for data transfer at up to 460 MB/second, while Thunderbolt allows for speeds of over 1GB/second. Because of that, the connection type isn’t the bottleneck. Instead, the speed is dictated by how fast the hard drive can read and write data, which is referred to as the read/write speed.
Read/write speeds refer to how quickly a hard drive can access the files stored within it — not how quickly those files are transferred to or from a computer. The “read” speed refers to how quickly a hard drive can access a stored file, while the “write” speed refers to how quickly a drive can save a new file. Given the development in transfer protocols, read/write speeds are a much better indicator of how fast your hard drive will be able to actually transfer files than “transfer speed,” especially when it comes to hard disk drives.
Read/write speeds change a lot depending on whether it’s an HDD or SDD, and even within those categories there can be some variation. As mentioned, HDDs have a spinning disk inside of them, and the rate at which drives can access data depends on how quickly that disk spins. Commonly, drives spin at 5,400RPM, or rotations per minute, and drives at that speed generally have a read/write speed of around 100MB/s. Some HDDs have a physical speed of 7,200RPM, which allows for a slightly faster read/write speed of 120MB/s.
Read/write speeds can vary a lot with SSDs, but typically they range from 200MB/s at the slowest to multiple GB per second at the fastest. If all you’re doing is transferring files, then any of those speeds should be more than enough, but if you’re using your drive to store software or your operating system, then something on the fast end might help. In that case, look for speeds of 500MB/s or more.
Other Features and Considerations
While the type of hard drive and performance of the hard drive are perhaps the most important factors to consider, there are a few other features to keep in mind.
While most consumer-level hard drives connect to your computer through a USB cable, some offer network connectivity instead, meaning you can access your hard drive from any computer or phone that’s on the same network. That can be pretty helpful for those who have multiple computers set up and simply want to use an external hard drive to back up files and transfer files between computers.
You can actually give any external hard drive network features by simply plugging it into your router — providing your router has a compatible port on it — but it will require a little more tweaking to get set up properly. Still, special network-connected drives have some advantages. For example, so-called “Network Attached Storage” or NAS, can be used as a media server by apps like Plex, while standard router-connected drives aren’t necessarily able to do so. NAS is a little more expensive, but it’s also often expandable thanks to extra slots in the enclosure, which can accept more actual hard drives.
Check out our guide to the best NAS (Network Attached Storage).
The kind of port or ports that your hard drive uses to connect to a computer is very much linked to transfer speed. Most hard drives connect to a computer through a form of USB. That could mean the now-outdated USB 2.0 or the newer USB 3.0 or USB 3.1, and if it is USB 3.1, it could also connect through the newer USB-C connector, while still using the USB 3.1 standard.
Other ports, which are increasingly less common, include FireWire 400 and FireWire 800, though fewer and fewer computers support those ports, so you should be wary of that when purchasing.
We recommend looking for a hard drive with USB 3.1 support and a USB-C connector, especially if your computer is relatively new. It might mean having to buy an adapter to use with your current computer that may not have USB-C, but it means that when you upgrade to a new computer, your external hard drive will stay usable.
Check out our guide to the best USB-C adapters available.
External hard drives come in a few different formats, though it’s very easy to reformat a hard drive if you happen to buy the wrong kind. Hard drive formats are largely linked to the operating system that you’re going to be using the hard drive with. Here’s a quick rundown.
NTFS is the most common format for new external hard drives and can be used with Windows computers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work as well with any other operating systems. Macs can read NTFS-formatted hard drives, but can’t write to them.
HFS+, which stands for “Hierarchical File System,” is a hard drive format that works much better with Macs, and it’s an improvement on the older HFS format in that it can support larger file types. Unfortunately, HFS+ drives don’t really work with Windows computers. HFS+ drives are the way to go for those who plan on using them with Macs that are running slightly older versions of macOS.
APFS is a newer hard drive format that works with Mac computers, but it only works with Mac running macOS High Sierra or newer. Like HFS+ drives, APFS drives can’t be read by Windows computers.
exFAT is essentially a mix of NTFS and FAT32, an older drive format that’s not used much anymore. There are a number of advantages to exFAT drives — namely that they can be recognized by both Windows and Mac computers, so if you need support for both, it’s worth formatting your drive to exFAT.
If you’re not sure what hard drive format to go for, then go for exFAT, since it works with most operating systems. Most hard drives come in NTFS, though, so you may need to buy one and then reformat it. Keep in mind it's not as easy to reformat a HFS+ or APFS drive if you need to use it on Windows.
The physical size of an external hard drive doesn't necessarily translate to the amount of storage space, particularly with the advent of flash storage. You really only have a say in the physical size of a hard drive when it comes to solid-state drives, as there are standard sizes for hard disk drives. Hard disk drives’ spinning disks can come in either 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch sizes. A standard size for a portable hard disk drive, for example, is the Western Digital Elements 2TB hard drive, which comes in at 4.35 x 3.23 x 0.59 inches. Smaller desktop hard drives come in at around 7 x 5 inches and range up from there.
Solid-state hard drives can be much smaller, making them much more portable. The SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD, for example, comes in a size of 3.79 x 1.95 x 0.35 inches — a fairly average size for solid-state drives.
Best Portable Storage Drive For Mac
External hard drives can come with features designed to keep files more secure, which might be important if you plan on using yours to store sensitive information. For example, some hard drives offer password-protection by default, meaning you can easily set a password to keep all your files safe. Some also offer high-level encryption, rendering your files useless to those who don’t have your password, even if they manage to somehow hack into the drive.
A hard drive buffer is essentially storage that exists between the computer and the actual storage in a hard drive. Files stored by the hard drive in the buffer can be accessed far quicker than those stored in the main storage of a hard drive, and the bigger the hard drive buffer — sometimes called the cache — the better the overall performance the drive is likely to have.
Generally speaking, you really only need to care about the size of the buffer if you plan on running software from your hard drive. If all you’re doing is storing files, the type of drive and the speed of the disk will be much more important.
If you do feel as though you need a hard drive with a larger buffer, then we recommend getting one with at least a 64MB cache, though those with 128MB and even 256MB are pretty common, too.
Price
Depending on the type of hard drive and the amount of storage you opt for, the price can vary drastically.
Hard disk drives, as mentioned, are much cheaper than solid-state drives, so if you need a lot of storage at a reasonable price, a HDD might be the way to go. You can expect to pay around as little as 3 cents per GB for a HDD.
On the other hand, it's not uncommon to see a solid-state drive that runs into 25 cents per GB. Lower-capacity SSDs might range up to 40 cents per GB, while 2TB SSDs might come at 20 cents. Of course, that still makes for a drive that costs hundreds of dollars.
Conclusion
While there's a lot to keep in mind when buying an external hard drive, hopefully, this will help you narrow down your selection. Our overall recommendations? If you want lots of storage at a reasonable price, and don’t plan on moving your hard drive around a lot, go for an HDD. If you want fast performance and either don’t need a lot of storage or are willing to spend more, then an SSD is your best best. In both cases, it’s a good idea to find a drive that supports USB 3.0 or later, and a USB-C port might be helpful depending on whether your computer has a USB-C port.
There are a few brands that have built a reputation for quality external hard drives, including Western Digital, SanDisk, and Seagate. It’s often worth buying a hard drive from a reputable brand, as smaller companies may not offer much in the way of support for faulty drives.
Rest assured, no matter what your needs are there’s likely a hard drive out there for you, and hopefully purchasing is a little easier with your new-found knowledge of their key features.
Your guide
Justin Krajeski
After 18 hours of new research and testing, we found that the 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim is still the best portable hard drive for most people. It’s reliable, it’s one of the lightest, thinnest hard drives we tested, and it was faster than the competition in our backup and file-transfer tests.
Our pick
2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is reliable, thin, and light, and it offers fast speeds at a reasonable cost.
Buying Options
The Slim has been one of our top picks for the past four years, and it’s the only portable hard drive that we’ve tested that doesn’t sacrifice size, speed, or reliability. Every other 2 TB portable hard drive is significantly larger, performs slower in our tests, or has a failure rate that’s too high to recommend. The Slim has an acceptable 9-percent reported failure rate among nearly 2,701 user reviews. We recommend the 2 TB model because it’s a great value. Seagate includes handy backup software, too.
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Also great
Best Portable Storage For Digital Photos
4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable
The 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable is a reliable drive that offers more storage space for less money per terabyte than our pick, but it’s larger and heavier.
Buying Options
If you want more storage and don’t mind a larger, heavier drive, we continue to recommend the 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable, which costs less per terabyte than the 2 TB Backup Plus Slim. It was faster at sequential reading in our HD Tune test, but it was slower in our other testing. It’s twice as thick as our top pick and almost twice as heavy, too. (Make sure not to buy the 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Fast by mistake—that’s a different drive that we do not recommend.)
Everything we recommend
Our pick
2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is reliable, thin, and light, and it offers fast speeds at a reasonable cost.
Buying Options
Also great
4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable
The 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable is a reliable drive that offers more storage space for less money per terabyte than our pick, but it’s larger and heavier.
Buying Options
Best Portable Storage For Mac
The research
Why you should trust us
Wirecutter has researched and recommended hard drives since early 2012, and our PC team has over eight years of combined experience testing hard drives and solid-state drives. I’ve spent the last two years reviewing hard drives and SSDs. We’ve collectively spent nearly 200 hours researching and testing portable hard drives in just the past four years.
Who this is for
If you’re not backing up the important documents and photos on your computer, you should start. Your computer's internal drive will stop working someday, and unless your data is backed up, it'll be gone forever. Fortunately, backing up your data is easy and getting started takes only a few minutes: Read our advice and set up a system that will back up your files automatically both to an external hard drive and the cloud. Just backing up to one or the other isn't enough; having both onsite and cloud backups ensures that your data stays safe from localized threats such as fire, theft, or natural disaster, as well as Internet outages or disruptions to the cloud backup provider. A portable hard drive is a great local backup for a computer you take from your house to the coffee shop, on business trips, or on vacations.
You should consider replacing your backup drives between the third and sixth year of use. If your drive dies and you have a cloud backup, you won’t lose data, but restoring from the cloud will take a very long time. According to statistics from cloud backup service Backblaze, hard drives are most likely to fail either within the first 18 months of use or after three years. About 5 percent of drives fail in the first 18 months of use, and the failure rate lowers to about 1.5 percent for another 18 months. At three years of service, the failure rate jumps to almost 12 percent. At the four year mark, the failure rate is 20 percent. Based on five years of data, Backblaze estimated that more than half of hard drives will last six years.
You should consider replacing your backup drives between the third and sixth year of use.
If you frequently move between different locations and need a drive to keep in your bag and use to back up photos and other data while you’re traveling, you should get a portable external drive like the ones we recommend in this guide. But if you spend most of your time working from one desk, a desktop external drive is the better choice. They’re less expensive per terabyte and a bit faster than portable drives, but desktop external hard drives are bigger and heavier than portable ones and require an additional power adapter. And although one bump can still lead to failure, portable hard drives are designed to withstand a little more abuse than desktop hard drives. If you can afford to pay around three times more for a smaller, lighter, more durable and much faster portable drive with hardware encryption, we recommend a portable solid-state drive.
How we picked
Ideally, a portable hard drive is something you don’t notice much. It should sit on your desk, quietly storing and backing up your data. And if you want to throw it in your bag (carefully), that shouldn’t be a problem. These are the features you should look for in a portable hard drive, in rough order of importance:
- Reliability: Although reliability is the most important factor for any storage device, solid information on reliability can be hard to come by. Only three companies still manufacture hard drives—Seagate, Western Digital, and Toshiba—and all of them make reliable hard drives. But all hard drives die. While the vast majority of drives from these manufacturers will be fine until you upgrade to a faster, more spacious drive in a few years, it’s still possible to buy a bad egg that will die too soon.
- Build quality: Your portable hard drive should be able to withstand normal wear and tear from being handled and thrown into your bag often. Rugged portable drives are bulkier and more expensive than the portable drives we recommend for most people. (You can read more about rugged drives in the Competition section.)
- Physical size and weight: The smaller and lighter, the better. Your portable hard drive should also draw all the power it needs from the USB port, no power adapter necessary.
- Speed: Even though portable hard drives are generally slower than their desktop brethren, speed is still important. You’re more likely to use a portable drive to transfer large files between different computers, so a faster drive will save you time. We considered only those drives with USB 3.0 connections. Anything faster isn’t necessary for hard drives, because they’re limited by disk speed, not the USB interface.
- Price: We found that most people buy 2 TB and 4 TB drives by looking at Amazon reviews for our top picks. While a higher-capacity drive is more cost-effective per terabyte, 4 TB portable hard drives cost nearly twice as expensive as 2 TB drives and supply more storage than most people need. Since many portable drives nowadays have similar performance, lower-cost options are better.
- Capacity: We recommend getting the largest capacity you can afford right now because you’ll amass more data over time and larger drives generally have a better price-per-terabyte value. We focused on 2 TB drives because of their balance of value and total cost. We also have a 4 TB pick for people who need more portable storage and don’t mind the larger size.
- Warranty and customer service: A good warranty is important in case you get a lemon. While the majority of portable hard drives we tested have two-year warranties, a couple have three-year warranties. Responsive customer service is important, too, in case you have trouble backing up your data.
- Backup software: While backup software is a nice perk, you can find lots of free alternatives and other great options for online backup services. If you don’t need the extra features provided by the software, it’s not worth the time and effort to set it up on every computer you use. Dragging and dropping files works just fine for manual backups, and your OS’s built-in backup utility suffices for automatic ones.
How we tested
For our 2018 update, we narrowed down our list of contenders by price and capacity and tested six 2 TB models and one 4 TB model. For each portable hard drive, we ran HD Tune Pro, a benchmarking program that tests sequential transfer speeds and random access time across the entire disk. You can read a more in-depth explanation of the program at the HD Tune website. We also timed the file transfer of a 45.5 GB rip of a Blu-ray movie from start to finish, running each transfer three times and determining the average to rule out performance hiccups. Finally, we timed how long it took each external hard drive to back up 38.5 GB to Time Machine on a 2016 MacBook Pro.
To spot any widespread reliability issues, we read through Amazon reviews for each of the drives we tested and counted the number of reported drive failures. This method has shortcomings. For one, people are more likely to post a review when they have a problem. Also, because of the limited information available in some reviews, it can be hard to differentiate between hardware failures and software issues or user errors that could cause problems with a drive. But this approach is the best we have for now.
We also looked at Backblaze’s hard drive reliability ratings from 2017, which are based on more than 90,000 drives used in its cloud backup servers. Backup servers are a very different environment than a box on your desk—bare drives in servers are accessed more often and are subject to more vibrations and more heat; drives in enclosures have more potential points of failure between the USB connector and the USB-to-SATA logic board. The hard drives Backblaze uses are desktop hard drives, not portable hard drives, with some drives pulled from external enclosures. Even so, the Backblaze study is the largest, most recent sample of hard drive failures we have access to, and it’s always a fascinating read.
Our pick: 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim
Our pick
2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is reliable, thin, and light, and it offers fast speeds at a reasonable cost.
Buying Options
The 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim is the best portable hard drive for most people because it’s reliable. It’s lighter and smaller than most of the other hard drives we tested, was consistently faster than most of the competition in our tests, and is one of the least expensive drives per terabyte we tested. The Slim also comes with handy backup software.
The Slim has been one of our picks since April 2014 because it continues to be the most reliable drive (based on the largest sample of Amazon reviews) while still providing fast performance. In May 2018, we recorded 249 failure reports out of 2,701 user reviews for the 2 TB model, giving the Slim a 9-percent reported failure rate—that’s pretty good for a drive that’s been around for four years, since drive failure rates start going up after three. During our years of testing, we’ve found that reported failure rates below 10 percent aren't cause for concern.
The Slim (bottom) is just barely thicker than the thinnest drive we’ve tested, the Ultra Slim (top). Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald
The Slim (top) is much thinner than most of the other drives we tested, like the WD Elements Portable (bottom).Photo: Rozette Rago
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The Slim (bottom) is just barely thicker than the thinnest drive we’ve tested, the Ultra Slim (top). Photo: Kyle Fitzgerald
The Slim (top) is much thinner than most of the other drives we tested, like the WD Elements Portable (bottom).Photo: Rozette Rago
Multiple Wirecutter staffers have been using the Seagate Backup Plus Slim for all kinds of things with few to no issues. Lead editor Kimber Streams has been using the drive “to store and transfer personal files, work photos, and test data for about four years,” and has “never used the included software or the app,” but notes that “the drive still works great!” Staff writer Thorin Klosowski has been using the drive with a PlayStation 4 for about a year to store games and data, “and it’s ticking along just fine, even though the PS4 has a knack for requiring a database rebuild if you don’t power it down right.” And senior staff writer Joel Santo Domingo has been using the drive for Time Machine backups and other data storage for two years. He writes, “it’s fast enough to use on a day-to-day basis, and in that time, I’ve yet to fill it up.”
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is one of the thinnest and lightest portable hard drives we tested. It’s less than half an inch thick—0.48 inches, to be exact—and it weighs just 5.6 ounces, making it easy to throw into a bag when you’re on the go. It’s 4.47 inches long and 2.99 inches wide. Most drives we tested were similarly speedy but were much thicker, which is why the Slim is our pick over anything else. The only 2 TB drive that’s lighter and thinner than the Slim is the Ultra Slim, which we discuss more in the Competition section.
The Slim was roughly as fast as the competition at reading and writing Blu-ray video, and it was even faster in our Time Machine testing. It was firmly in the middle of the pack for our Blu-ray testing, reading and writing our files in 6 minutes and 33 seconds, and it measured as one of the fastest portable hard drives we tested with Time Machine, writing 38.5 GB to our MacBook Pro in 24 minutes and 9 seconds.
In HD Tune write testing, the Slim was the fastest portable hard drive we tested, measuring 86.4 MB/s, although its margin of victory fell within the margin of error of our measurements of other portable hard drives’ speeds. Its HD Tune read speed, 88.1 MB/s, was one of the fastest speeds we tested.
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim’s sturdy plastic case doesn’t flex or creak under pressure like many other drives do. It also stands up well to light scratches from keys—only the glossy black sides dinged up in our tests. Although our pick will hold up well to normal bag friction, it isn’t rated to survive any significant shocks.
We recommend the 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim because it’s less expensive per terabyte than the 1 TB model and it’s the highest capacity option the Slim has. (If you need more space, consider the 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable.) Even if you have only a terabyte of data right now, your needs will expand over the drive’s lifespan, and having room to grow is better than buying multiple drives and spending more in the long run. The Backup Plus Slim was on the cheaper end of the portable hard drives we tested; while the WD My Passport and WD Elements cost about the same, everything else cost at least $2.50 more per TB.
The user-friendly Seagate Dashboard interface lets you back up your PC, mobile devices, and social media, or it can restore from an existing backup. The Seagate Mobile Backup app for iOS and Android also backs up contacts, messages, photos, and other data from your smartphone to your hard drive via Wi-Fi or your phone’s data connection as long as the drive is plugged into a computer running the Dashboard software.
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim hasn’t been reviewed recently, but CNET and StorageReview both praised its performance and value when the drive was released in 2014. It has a 4.1-star rating on Amazon out of 15,892 reviews—a larger pool of reviews than any other portable hard drive we’ve tested.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
As PCSTATS notes, the Backup Plus Slim’s USB port wobbles up and down when pressure is applied to the cable more than with other drives. Always disconnect the cable before stashing the drive in a drawer or bag. The USB connection is the weakest point in the external drive, and if you break the port, you won’t be able to access your data until you find a new enclosure.
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The Seagate Backup Plus Slim comes with a two-year warranty—Western Digital, Seagate’s biggest competitor, usually provides three-year warranties—and our perusal of Amazon reviews turned up more complaints about Seagate’s customer service than about WD’s. However, a two-year warranty should be sufficient, and several drives we’ve tested have only one-year warranties, so we don’t think this is a dealbreaker.
Seagate also sells two- and three-year data recovery plans, but we’ve seen several reviewers complain about long waits and a lack of communication from Seagate customer service. Instead, we recommend taking 15 minutes to set up an automatic backup that sends your files to an external drive and encrypted cloud storage without any regular action from you. Data recovery plans never guarantee success, and a thorough backup system is the only way to prevent data loss.
Our pick doesn’t have encryption to protect your data from prying eyes. While the option to encrypt would be nice, it isn’t a dealbreaker for most people. If you really need encryption, use an encryption utility like Veracrypt (or Bitlocker) or consider a portable solid-state drive.
More storage, less portability: 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable
Also great
4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable
The 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable is a reliable drive that offers more storage space for less money per terabyte than our pick, but it’s larger and heavier.
Buying Options
If you care more about price and storage space than size, you should get the 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable. It costs less per terabyte than the 2 TB Backup Plus Slim, and it was about as fast when reading and writing HD Tune transfer tests. The 4 TB model was slower in our other tests though, and it’s much thicker and heavier than the Slim. (But don’t buy the 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Fast by mistake. We don’t recommend that drive, because with two 2 TB drives inside, it has higher potential to fail.)
Seagate sells a 5 TB model that’s the same dimensions and weight as the 4 TB version, and we found the larger capacity to be about 5 percent faster in our 2016 tests. It’s about the same price per terabyte right now, so you should buy it if you need the extra space in a portable drive. But if you want the fastest, most cost-effective drive and don’t care about portability, take a look at our desktop hard drive pick instead. It’s cheaper per terabyte and faster than the Backup Plus Portable, though it requires an AC adapter.
The 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus Portable was nearly as reliable as our top pick: We found a 10-percent failure rate out of 1,477 Amazon reviews. It costs around $40 more than the 2 TB Seagate Backup Plus Slim, making it considerably cheaper per terabyte, too.
The Backup Plus Portable was a little faster than the Backup Plus Slim in the HD Tune benchmark, achieving results of 101.1 MB/s read and 88.1 MB/s write—13 MB/s and 1.7 MB/s faster, respectively, than the Slim. (Its write speed is not fast enough to separate it from the Slim, though.) The Portable performed respectably in our Blu-ray and Time Machine tests, but the Slim made better time. Both models are fast and reliable, and you should expect to see similar everyday performance from these drives.
The Portable’s USB port can wobble like the Backup Plus Slim’s can. Don’t store the drive with the cord attached.Photo: Daniela Gorny
The Backup Plus Portable (bottom) is thicker and heavier than the Backup Plus Slim (top).Photo: Daniela Gorny
The Portable’s USB port can wobble like the Backup Plus Slim’s can. Don’t store the drive with the cord attached.Photo: Daniela Gorny
The Backup Plus Portable (bottom) is thicker and heavier than the Backup Plus Slim (top).Photo: Daniela Gorny
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The extra capacity comes with a minor downside: The Portable is larger and heavier than the Slim. Measuring 4.51 by 3.07 by 0.81 inches and weighing 8.6 ounces, the Portable is almost twice as thick and heavy as the Slim. Otherwise the Portable’s build quality is identical to the Slim’s, down to the slightly wobbly USB port.
The Backup Plus Portable comes with the exact same software as the Slim, and you can read our thoughts on that in the section above.
PCMag gave the Portable an Editors’ Choice awardin January 2016, and AnandTech called it “one of the most cost-effective and easily portable storage media” in August 2015. The 2 TB and 4 TB Slim models share a review pool on Amazon; they have a 4.1 star rating out of 15,892 reviews.
What about wireless portable hard drives?
We don’t think wireless portable hard drives are useful for most people, but the WD My Passport Wireless Pro 2 TB is our pick for professional photographers on the move. The drive’s SD card slot (a feature other wireless hard drives lack) can automatically copy the contents of a memory card to its internal hard disk, and built-in Wi-Fi makes the images available to devices running iOS, Android, macOS, or Windows. It’s also available in a 3 TB capacity.
What to look forward to
Seagate released new versions of the Backup Plus Slim (STHN2000) and Backup Plus Portable (STHP4000), as well as the all-new Backup Plus Ultra Touch (STHH2000), which includes hardware encryption and a USB-C dongle. The new Plus Slim (STHN2000) and new Plus Portable (STHP4000) both performed slightly better than the current picks in this guide. The new Plus Slim (STHN2000) averaged 5 percent faster in read speeds and 9 percent faster in write speeds than the previous Plus Slim (STDR2000). We had similar results with the 4 TB Plus Portable, with the new Plus Portable (STHP4000) averaging 8 percent faster in read speeds than the old Plus Portable (STDR4000), but the two had nearly identical write speeds.
However, our current picks have far more Amazon reviews at this writing—think thousands compared to tens—which gives us a much better idea of a drive’s failure rate. Until we have more reliability data, we still recommend the older versions. If speed is the most important factor for you, pick up a portable SSD instead.
Toshiba has also released a new Canvio Slim. We have not tested the 2 TB model yet, but it has the same small-review-pool problem as the Seagate models. We’ll take a look at it again once it has more reviews.
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The competition
The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim was briefly our top pick from November 2016 to late January 2017 because it was the lightest, thinnest, fastest portable hard drive we’d tested, and it had a reported failure rate of just 4.2 percent. Since then, however, the failure rate has gone way up: In early May 2018, we calculated a rate of 18.5 percent based on Amazon reviews. Anything above 10 percent is cause for concern, and we can’t recommend it based on that failure rate.
The 2 TB Western Digital My Passport and 2 TB WD Elements are bigger than the Slim by 0.2 inches wide and nearly 0.4 inches thick, and they’re heftier by around 3 ounces. They were slower in most of our file transfer tests, too, although they were about as fast as our top pick in Time Machine testing.
Like the other WD drives we tested, the 2 TB Easystore was bigger than the Slim. It fell behind the Seagate Backup Plus Slim in HD Tune write tests by about 4 MB/s, and it was a little slower in Blu-ray tests, although its differences fell within normal variability. It was as quick as the Slim in Time Machine testing, too. But it’s only available only at Best Buy, and the price fluctuates more than we’d like.
The 2 TB Toshiba Canvio Premium and 2 TB Toshiba Canvio Advance are both as thin as our top pick, but their speeds were wildly inconsistent in our tests—both gave us some of the best Blu-ray scores and the very worst Time Machine speeds—and we have serious concerns about the drives’ performance.
The Seagate Expansion is a decent choice if you want to expand your gaming console’s storage or don’t need software, but in our tests, the Seagate Backup Plus Slim was faster and costs the same per terabyte. Plus, the Expansion is larger and heavier than the Slim, and it comes with a short one-year warranty.
We haven’t tested the Seagate Game Drive for Xbox, but it’s frequently more expensive than the Seagate Backup Plus Slim, it’s a little bigger on all sides, and it weighs about an ounce heavier, too. It has a 10-percent reported failure rate. We don’t love its bright green color scheme for most people, but we’ll look into testing it for our next update.
Transcend’s 2 TB StoreJet 25M3 is larger, heavier, and more expensive per terabyte than our top pick, the Seagate Backup Plus Slim.
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WD’s My Passport X is a gaming-focused drive with a short, one-year warranty and no software. Of all the drives we tested in 2015, it had the slowest HD Tune reads and writes—82.5 MB/s and 77.4 MB/s, respectively—and it’s larger and heavier than our picks.
The Toshiba Canvio Basics has a one-year warranty, no software, and a bulkier design than the Slim.
At the end of 2016, we tested three promising, affordable rugged hard drives: the Silicon Power Armor A80, Silicon Power Armor A65, and Silicon Power Armor A85. All three drives are rated to survive going up to 1 meter (about 3.3 feet) underwater for up to 30 minutes, and rated to survive 26 drops on their various surfaces from 4 feet, but none of them survived these conditions in our real-world testing. We don’t recommend paying extra money for a bulkier, heavier drive that doesn’t protect your information like it says it will. We eliminated 10 other rugged drives in our previous update that lack both water and drop protection, which left us with the G-Technology G-Drive ev ATC, the ioSafe Rugged Portable, and the LaCie Rugged RAID, all of which cost too much for most people.
LaCie’s Rugged Triple and Mini are both too expensive to compete with our top pick, and they lack the water protection necessary to consider them for a rugged option. The LaCie Rugged USB-C fails to qualify for a rugged pick on the same grounds.
Footnotes
In late 2016, the Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim beat out the Slim as our top pick, and the Slim became our runner-up. But three months later, when the Ultra Slim’s reported failure rate skyrocketed, we restored the Slim as our top pick.
Jump back.
Sources
Max Page, Seagate Backup Plus Slim External USB 3.0 2TB Hard Drive Review, PCSTATS, September 21, 2016
Dong Ngo, Seagate Backup Plus/Slim portable drive review: A fast portable drive with massive storage space, CNET, March 21, 2014
Lyle Smith, Seagate Backup Plus Slim Portable Drive Review, StorageReview.com, March 21, 2014
Joel Santo Domingo, Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive, PCMag, January 21, 2016
Ganesh T S, Seagate Backup Plus Portable 4 TB USB 3.0 Drive Review, AnandTech, August 4, 2015
Alan Henry, Windows Encryption Showdown: VeraCrypt vs Bitlocker, Lifehacker, May 22, 2016