The Best Black Friday External Hard Drive and SSD Deals

Many Black Friday shoppers look for big-ticket items like TVs and laptops, but what about a small but crucial items that safeguard your digital files? Storage devices—whether that’s an HDD or SSD, internal or external—also see discounts during the holiday sales season, so you can get the most gigs for your bucks. Whether you’re upgrading an aging storage device or looking for a superfast backup drive, now is a great time to save.

Before you buy, there are four main types of storage and memory to choose from when making your Black Friday deal decision.

External HDD Black Friday Deals

External drives are a cost-effective way to store important files and transfer data between multiple machines. External HDDs are usually plug-and-play solutions that hook into your laptop or other supported device for easy access to to documents, photos, and videos. The one drawback: the moving parts inside, which are more prone to damage compared to the solid-state drives.

External SSD Black Friday Deals

An external SSD, whether internal or external, is going to be more expensive than an external HDD, but it can’t be beat in terms of speed. An SSD is about four times faster than your average HDD, but depending on the size of the job you have in mind, you may want to opt for higher megabytes per second (MBps). As far as connectivity goes, USB 3.0 is becoming the industry standard, but if you have a computer that supports Thunderbolt connections, opt for that device.

Internal SSD Black Friday Deals

Internal memory can be tricky to purchase since every machine’s specs are different and the types of memory they support may vary. But if you’ve got the technical skill and some time to spare, you’ll save more money. Internal SSDs come in two forms—M.2 cards and 2.5” drives. SSDs read and write faster, use less power, have no moving parts and they’re quieter. That said, they don’t hold quite as much as a traditional HDD.

Internal HDD Black Friday Deals

Internal SSDs may be faster overall, but when it comes to storing massive amounts of information in one place for the lowest cost it’s tough to beat a 3.5-inch internal HDD. Desktops are usually easier to work on than laptops when adding internal storage; just slot in a new drive with a few quick connections. Your dollar goes farther with an HDD but at a tradeoff of speed, so look for a drive with a faster transfer rate and larger cache space. Ultimately, the decision comes down to the amount of memory you want to add and how much your budget will allow.