Need to expand the local storage on your PC or Mac for music and movies, or all the pics and videos you collect from your phone? The traditional answer has been an external hard drive. The newer, better one is a portable solid-state drive (SSD).
Once prohibitively expensive, SSDs of all stripes, internal and external, have plunged in price over the past few years. Nowadays, pocket-size, USB-powered external SSDs deliver as much as 10 times the speed of portable hard drives, and much greater durability. They have no metal platters to spin up, nor any read/write heads that need to travel to a specific point on a platter to find the file you need. And a lack of moving parts makes mobile SSDs smaller, slimmer, and better suited to frequent travel and accidental drops than even ruggedized hard drives.
Below, check out our favorite models we’ve tested from all our recent SSD reviews. Then read on for a detailed guide to how to shop for the portable SSD that best meets your needs. We’ll finish this guide with a spec breakout of all of our top picks.
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More About Our Picks
Best External SSD for Most Users
Bottom Line:
The ADATA SE800 external SSD is everything you want in a shirt-pocket solid-state drive: sleek, tough, affordable, and snappy. It will make an excellent addition to your kit.
Pros
- Small, light, and fast.
- Highly durable.
- Reasonable cost per gigabyte.
- USB-C and USB-A cables included.
Cons
- The provided cables are on the short side.
Why We Picked It
Its price per gigabyte is on the high side, but the ADATA SE800 is worth the money. The 2.8-by-1.7-inch shirt-pocket SSD is not only speedy but almost indestructible, with an IP68 ingress protection rating that means it’s both dustproof and waterproof (surviving for half an hour five feet underwater). This brushed-aluminum beauty comes with dual cables so it plugs into both USB Type-A and USB Type-C ports with no adapters or dongles required, though the cables might be a little short for desktop use (they’re fine with a laptop).
Who It’s For
If you don’t take your laptop outside, you might not need a drive built to survive rainy days and four-foot drops, but it’s nice to know your data has the extra protection the SE800 affords. Unless you’re on a tight budget, it’s hard to beat this sleek SSD.
Best Budget External SSD
Bottom Line:
The Crucial X8 SSD is a sturdy little beauty that offers excellent performance and plenty of storage in a tiny package at an affordable price. It’s highly recommended for videophiles, gamers, and other data maniacs.
Pros
- Small and sturdy.
- Stylish all-metal chassis with rubberized ends.
- Attractive cost per gigabyte.
- Solid performance.
- Includes a USB-C cable and USB-C-to-USB-A adapter.
- Compatible with a wide range of devices.
- Three-year warranty.
Cons
- No activity light.
- No backup utility.
- USB-A dongle less elegant than a dedicated cable.
Why We Picked It
At 16.5 cents per gigabyte, the 1TB Crucial X8 is a pocket SSD that almost anyone can afford. It’s not ruggedized in the sense of being waterproof or dustproof, but it’ll shrug off a 7.5-foot drop onto a carpeted floor if you’re ever playing catch with your photos and videos, and can withstand a shock of 1,500 Gs. (You’ll be a thin layer of goo, but your last thought can be the consolation that your data’s all right.)
Who It’s For
The X8 is a no-frills SSD—it doesn’t have a data-access light or come with a backup software utility, and it makes do with a USB Type-C-to-A adapter instead of supplying dual discrete cables. But it delivers swift performance at a sensible price.
WD Black P50 Game Drive SSD
Best External SSD for Gamers
Bottom Line:
The WD Black P50 Game Drive SSD is a visually striking, no-compromises repository for massive game files, though you’ll need a PC with rare USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support to harness its speeds to the fullest.
Pros
- USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support offers blazing speeds
- Durable, shock-resistant enclosure
- Five-year warranty
- Separate USB Type-C and Type-A cables included
Cons
- Expensive
- A bit bulky
- Gen 2×2 ports are uncommon (though drive is backward-compatible)
Why We Picked It
The WD Black P50 Game Drive is relatively bulky for a portable solid-state drive (0.55 by 4.7 by 2.4 inches), styled like a black rectangular shipping container with ribbed sides and hex screws in each corner. But it’s more than a industrial-kitsch fashion statement—thanks to a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface, the P50’s rated peak read speed is a blistering 2,000MBps, fast enough to supplement the primary storage of your gaming PC. It also comes with both USB Type-C and USB Type-A cables, and it carries a lengthy five-year warranty.
Who It’s For
The drawback to the WD Black is that USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 ports that allow its full performance potential are rare, found on only a few elite desktop motherboards and usually added via expansion cards. (The drive, of course, works fine with slower ports; it just doesn’t see the peak speed benefit.) But if you want an SSD that’s as swift as it is stylish, look no further.
Lexar SL660 Blaze Game Portable SSD
A Solid Alternative to the WD Black P50 Game Drive SSD
Bottom Line:
The RGB-illuminated Lexar SL660 Blaze Game Portable SSD supports the fast USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface (though your PC may not) and generally performs well, though your growing game library may quickly fill its 1TB max capacity.
Pros
- USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support and 256-bit AES hardware encryption
- Sturdy aluminum frame, detachable stand, and carrying pouch
- Strong PCMark 10 Storage score
- Tasteful RGB lighting
- Five-year warranty
Cons
- Sequential write speed well below its rating in our tests
- Top capacity is just 1TB
- Requires a PC with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 support for best results
Why We Picked It
It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that bling, but Lexar’s SL660 Blaze Game Portable SSD has more to offer than a handsome removable stand, protective pouch, and snazzy RGB lighting that’ll complement a tricked-out gaming rig. Its USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface puts it at the top of the SSD speed ladder, and Lexar throws in 256-bit AES hardware encryption and a five-year warranty.
Who It’s For
Like the WD Black P50, the SL660 won’t deliver its maximum performance unless your PC is one of the few with a USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port, and its peak capacity of 1TB is actually a tad small considering today’s bulky games—you might prefer a 2TB or 4TB drive from another vendor. But if you’re a style-conscious, speed-freak gamer, this SSD has your name on it.
WD Black D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD
Best External SSD (With Docking Features) for Gamers
Bottom Line:
If you’ve got the cash, the WD Black D50 Game Dock NVMe SSD nets you an industrial-cool, speedy drive/docking station with up to 2TB of storage and a slew of ports. But if your PC lacks Thunderbolt 3, fuhgeddaboutit.
Pros
- Bristling with ports
- Up to 2TB capacity
- Very fast sequential reads and writes for an external drive
- Provides up to 87-watt power delivery
- RGB lighting
Cons
- Expensive
- Requires a computer with Thunderbolt 3 port
- No HDMI port
Why We Picked It
You can forget the WD Black D50 Game Dock if your PC doesn’t have a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 port, but if your system has the interface to support it, the D50 combines up to 2TB of high-speed storage with a plethora of ports for other peripherals and monitors: two USB 3.2 Type-C ports (one front, one rear), three USB 3.2 Type-A ports (one front, two rear), a front audio jack, two Thunderbolt 3 ports (one with 87 watts of USB power delivery), an Ethernet jack, and a DisplayPort 1.4 video output. The external device has a 4.7-inch-square footprint and the same black-shipping-container styling as the WD Black P50 Game Drive SSD.
Who It’s For
The D50 Game Dock would be even more useful if it had an HDMI monitor port, but it offers some of the fastest sequential reads and writes of any external drive, along with show-off RGB lighting. It’s a clever combination of game or movie storage and docking station.
SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD V2
Best Rugged External SSD
Bottom Line:
With decent speed, data encryption, and some protection from the elements, all at a reasonable price, SanDisk’s Extreme Portable SSD V2 is a solid external SSD for frequent travelers and content creators alike.
Pros
- Solid speed compared with its peers
- IP55 water- and dust-resistance rating
- Competitively priced
- Five-year warranty
Cons
- Unprotected USB Type-C port
- Dongle-style adapter for USB Type-A ports instead of a second cable
Why We Picked It
Clip SanDisk’s Extreme Portable SSD V2 to your backpack or belt via its carabiner loop, and you can head out into the field with confidence. The 1.8-ounce drive boasts an IP55 ruggedness rating, meaning it’s dust- and water-resistant (though you shouldn’t take it into a sandstorm or leave it immersed in water for long) and can survive a fall from 6.5 feet. The SSD carries a reassuring five-year warranty, and it offers password protection and 256-bit AES hardware encryption, Plus, its USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 interface is more than speedy enough for most applications (though slower than drives based on the less common USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 spec).
Who It’s For
Our only gripe with the Extreme Portable SSD V2 is that it comes with a USB Type-C-to-A adapter instead of a second cable, so you’ll have to worry about losing the dongle as well as the tiny drive itself. Otherwise, it’s a reasonably priced, reasonably rugged, reasonable performer.
Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch
Best External SSD (With Biometric Locking) for Traveling Executives
Bottom Line:
Offering excellent performance and easy-to-use security, Samsung’s credit-card-sized, fingerprint-reading Portable SSD T7 Touch is a versatile external solid-state drive.
Pros
- Built-in fingerprint reader and LED status indicator.
- Compact size.
- Fast performance.
- Available in capacities up to 2TB.
- Three-year warranty.
Cons
- Relatively expensive.
- Requires software for fingerprint unlocking on a PC or Mac.
Why We Picked It
The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch is a tiny, 2-ounce aluminum rectangle that plugs into a USB 3.2 Gen 2 port. (Samsung provides both USB Type-C and USB Type-A cables so you needn’t fuss with a dongle.) It combines quick performance with roomy storage.
So far, we could be describing almost any portable solid-state drive, but the T7 Touch protects your data in a way few others can: with a built-in fingerprint reader that ensures your sensitive files are for your eyes only. Technically, fingerprints aren’t as secure as complex passwords, but they’re a lot more convenient, and you can’t forget them.
Who It’s For
If you need plug-and-play access to your documents on any nearby PC, the T7 Touch isn’t for you—you must have Samsung’s Windows, macOS, or Android software installed to use the fingerprint reader. But if you’re looking for a mix of security and speed, your corporate or personal secrets are safe with this drive.
Best External SSD for Maximum Data Security
Bottom Line:
The iStorage DiskAshur M2 portable SSD packs a wealth of security features to protect your data—and it’s a proper value, too. It is impervious to the elements, can survive being run over, and costs less than similar security-focused SSDs.
Pros
- AES-XTS 256-bit full-disk hardware encryption
- IP68 ruggedness rating
- Compatible with Windows, macOS, Linux, Chrome, Android, and more
- Supports an administrator PIN, plus separate user PINs
- No software to install
- Aggressively priced for a security-focused SSD
Cons
- More expensive per gigabyte than standard external SSDs
- Much slower transfer rates than less-security-minded drives
Why We Picked It
Worried about your data falling into the wrong hands, or falling onto a rocky trail or into a puddle or pond? The iStorage DiskAshur M2 has you covered: Not only can this 0.48-by-4.2-by-1.8-inch gadget survive a half-hour bath in 1.5 meters of water or being run over by a 2.7-ton truck, it has a built-in numeric keypad that means your files can’t be accessed without the proper user or administrator PIN. You can configure the M2 as a read-only drive and create a self-destruct code that obliterates the data, encryption key, and all PINs forever, though the latter isn’t strictly necessary—any attempt to physically crack open the device and get at its memory chips would turn it into useless shrapnel.
Who It’s For
With such formidable security, you might expect the iStorage drive to cost a mint, but it’s actually quite reasonably priced, though it’s far from the fastest portable SSD available. If you’re paranoid about your personal or company documents, put the DiskAshur under your pillow and sleep tight.
Kingston XS2000 Portable SSD
Best Very Small External SSD
Bottom Line:
What the tiny Kingston XS2000 Portable SSD lacks in size, it makes up for in speed and durability. This external drive is a top choice if you travel and work with large files.
Pros
- Highly portable
- Semi-ruggedized, with durability features
- Good scores in our performance benchmarks
- Capable of high speeds with the proper hardware
- Available in capacities up to 2TB
Cons
- Requires uncommon USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port for peak speeds
- Lacks SSD management software and hardware-based encryption
- Sequential write speeds a bit below its rating
Why We Picked It
It’s not like most external SSDs need to be carried in both hands or a briefcase, but Kingston’s XS2000 is positively tiny—0.5 by 1.3 by 2.7 inches and about an ounce, barely bigger than most USB flash drives yet offering up to 2TB of storage. It’s also tough enough to earn an IP55 ingress protection rating against sand, dirt, or rain, though it shouldn’t be immersed in water, and its USB-C 3.2 Gen 2×2 interface makes it faster than the average SSD. It’s unlikely that your PC has a port that actually supports the Kingston’s peak speed, however.
Who It’s For
The XS2000 is a great choice as a general-purpose ultraportable drive, as long as you don’t need frills like hardware-based data encryption. Our only caveat? Take what we always say about how easy it is to accidentally lose a portable SSD, and double it.
Best External SSD for Mac Pros in the Field
Bottom Line:
The LaCie Rugged SSD Pro external drive is designed for professional videographers and others who work in the field with Thunderbolt 3-equipped computers (most often Macs). Small, light, and even mailable, it earns the right to add “extremely” in front of “fast and rugged.”
Pros
- Field-leading speed
- Also works with USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2 ports
- Extreme ruggedness against dust, water, drops, crush pressure
- Five-year warranty
Cons
- High price per gigabyte
- Cable is a bit short
Why We Picked It
The LaCie Rugged SSD Pro takes a Seagate FireCuda NVMe solid-state drive, connects it to a Thunderbolt 3 interface, and puts it in a silicone-wrapped, crush-resistant aluminum case with a colossal IP67 ruggedness rating—dust-tight and able to survive 30 minutes in shallow water, without even having to close the usual rubber flap over the Thunderbolt 3 port. That adds up to a somewhat specialized device, best appreciated by videographers shooting outdoors with MacBook laptops (the kind most likely to have Thunderbolt ports), but a terrific mix of speed and sturdiness.
Who It’s For
The LaCie isn’t cheap; its price per gigabyte is easily beaten by more general-purpose portable SSDs and even rugged rivals like the ADATA SE800 (though the latter’s USB port must be covered before taking a dip). But it’s tailor-made for Apple content creators.
SanDisk Professional G-Drive SSD
A Solid Alternative to the LaCie Rugged SSD Pro
Bottom Line:
It’s more expensive than many of our favorite USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSDs, but if you’re a Mac user looking for a rugged external drive, the SanDisk Professional G-Drive SSD is a standout choice.
Pros
- High (IP67) rating for water and dust resistance
- Crush- and drop-resistant
- Mac Time Machine backup-compatible
- Includes both Mac and Windows software for 256-bit AES encryption
- Fast folder transfers
- Five-year warranty
Cons
- A bit pricey for a USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD
- Must be reformatted to work with a Windows PC
Why We Picked It
SanDisk’s Professional G-Drive SSD targets Mac users—it’s preformatted with HFS+ to work with Time Machine backups, and must be reformatted if you prefer Windows’ NTFS or exFAT. It’s also crushproof (up to a ton), drop-proof (up to 9.7 feet), dustproof, and waterproof for anything up to half an hour at a depth of three feet. The G-Drive is relatively expensive, though not unreasonably so, and offers quick performance and both Mac and Windows software for 256-bit AES data encryption.
Who It’s For
The SanDisk’s USB 3.2 Gen 2 interface (both USB-C and USB-A cables are included) works with both USB and Thunderbolt ports. It’s fine for a Windows laptop user, but ideal for a MacBook traveler braving the elements.
External SSDs: How to Buy the Right One
As you can see above, there’s a wide variety of portable SSDs to pick from. As you shop, you’ll need to pay attention to capacity, size and weight, and a drive’s interface or connection to your PC, as well as whether you need one with a rugged casing.
First: Here’s why you want an SSD versus a hard drive. Unlike a hard drive, which stores data on those spinning platters accessed by a moving magnetic head, a solid-state drive uses a collection of “persistent” flash memory cells to save data. These are similar to the silicon that makes up a computer’s RAM, but they retain your data when electrical power is cut off.
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
Since hard drives are mechanical devices that use mature technology, you can get relatively large amounts of storage capacity for the money. But the same tech that makes hard drives a tantalizing value becomes their biggest liability when used on the go. If you drop the drive, you could damage the interior mechanism and make your data inaccessible. By contrast, if you jolt an SSD while you’re reading or writing data, there is no risk that your files will become corrupted and unreadable.
Is an External SSD Faster Than an External Hard Drive?
Yes: Again, hard drives are slower because they have to physically access your data. Just how much faster is it to read data from flash cells than from particular points on spinning platters? Typical throughput for consumer hard drives is in the range of 100MBps to 200MBps. (One factor is spin rate—among external drives, 5,400rpm units are more common and more affordable than 7,200rpm.)
Our typical benchmark-test results for even run-of-the-mill external SSDs show speeds in excess of 400MBps. Practically speaking, this means you can move gigabytes of data (say, a 4GB feature film, or a year’s worth of family photos) to your external SSD in seconds rather than the minutes it would take with an external hard drive.
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
Still, you do pay for that speed and durability. Want a 2TB portable hard drive? You can find one from major brands such as Seagate and Western Digital for as little as $60. A 2TB external SSD, on the other hand, will run you about $250 to $300. You’ll pay four or five times as much for the same amount of storage. If speed, resilience, and portability are critical to you, all that extra money is probably worth it. If they’re not, proceed with care. When considering whether to buy an external SSD, make sure you know what you’re paying a premium for.
External SSDs are now readily available and cheaper than they were a few years ago, but it will probably be a while before they are a complete replacement for hard drives. Physically larger external drives designed to stay on your desk or in a server closet still mostly use 3.5-inch platter drives inside, taking advantage of their higher capacities and much lower prices per gigabyte compared with SSDs.
What Is the Best External SSD Interface?
External solid-state drives are, essentially, internal SSDs (the same kind that power laptops or live inside desktops) with an outer shell and some bridging electronics. As a result, external drives use one of two internal “bus types” that, in part, dictate their peak speed: Serial ATA (SATA), or PCI Express (PCIe). The latter is usually associated these days with Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), a protocol that is optimized for the characteristics of SSDs and speeds up data transfers.
SATA-based drives tend to be a little cheaper; they’re also slower, but just fine for most users’ everyday applications. SATA-based SSDs typically top out at around 500MBps for peak read and write speeds, just a bit below the ceiling of the USB 3.0 interface. (Much more about that in a moment.) However, if you’re going to be transferring large files such as videos often, you may well want to spring for a PCIe/NVMe-based external SSD. That also ties in with the port you’ll plug your SSD into.
Sellers of portable SSDs seldom indicate if the drive is SATA- or PCIe-based. However, checking the specs can be a dead giveaway. If the drive tops out at sequential read and write speeds between 400MBps and 550MBps, it’s very likely SATA-based. Speeds of 800MBps or higher indicate a PCIe-based drive.
What Is the Right Kind of USB for Your External SSD?
Arguably more important than the type of storage mechanism inside an external SSD is how it connects to your PC or Mac. Almost all external SSDs today plug into either some flavor of USB port, or a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 port.
Alas, there are enough different flavors of USB to make your head spin—made worse by the confusing nomenclature surrounding USB these days. For example, today’s USB 3.2 standard is for all intents and purposes identical to USB 3.1, simply renamed. (It gets even more confusing with the latest kind of USB: The forthcoming USB4 will absorb Thunderbolt.) That said, you’ll still see older USB terminology on your PC or Mac and on many SSDs, so you need to know what term correlates to what.
To begin with, you can forget about USB 2.0, whose theoretical bandwidth of 60 megabytes per second (60MBps) is a bottleneck even for a platter drive. (These ports still exist on desktops and laptops, but don’t use one with any portable drive. All USB-interface external SSDs will support some flavor of USB 3.) The most commonly used port at your computer’s end for external drives of all stripes is USB 3.0, which offers a theoretical peak bandwidth of 640MBps. Until recently, most SSDs’ real-world transfer speeds topped out somewhere in the range of 450MBps or below, so these ports were fine.
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
In addition to 640MBps, you’ll also see USB 3.0’s theoretical data rate described as 5Gbps. (That’s gigabits, not gigabytes, per second.) You also may see this interface dubbed “USB 3.1 Gen 1” or “SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps” (in practice, all three are the same thing), to differentiate it from “USB 3.1 Gen 2” or “SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps,” which raises the ceiling to (you guessed it!) 10Gbps. USB 3.1 Gen 2 is the latest version widely available in consumer external SSDs at this writing. PCIe external SSDs can take advantage of the extra 5Gbps of bandwidth, but you need to have a USB port that supports the spec to see the extra speed benefit. (And yes, we are talking about “USB 3.1” as opposed to “USB 3.2.” Bear with us.)
In 2019, the USB Implementers’ Forum announced that the USB 3.1 flavors were being rebranded as “USB 3.2.” With that change, you’ll want to know these four modes: 5Gbps (“USB 3.2 Gen 1”), 10Gbps (“USB 3.2 Gen 2×1,” and Gen 1×2, the former achieving the 10Gbps speed on one “lane,” the latter via two 5Gbps lanes), and 20Gbps (“USB 3.2 Gen 2×2,” aka “SuperSpeed USB 20Gbps”). All of these versions of USB are backward-compatible with the USB 3.0 ports on your PC; performance will just bounce down to the slower of the two (the drive’s supported spec, or that of the system-side port).
You won’t see many USB 3.2 Gen 2×2-capable ports on PCs so far (some late-model high-end desktop motherboards have one), but look to that new USB spec to matter more as the 2020s move on.
Really, all this calls for a little chart to keep it straight…
As you can see, some USB specs are tied to certain system-side physical USB connectors. We’ll get into that in a moment.
Can I Use Thunderbolt for an External SSD?
Today’s two versions of the Thunderbolt interface, Thunderbolt 3 and 4, each offers a blazing top bandwidth of 40Gbps. (The improvements with Thunderbolt 4 over 3 involve security, power transmission for charging a laptop, and higher display resolution for connected monitors, not speed.) Compatible ports are found on all late-model MacBooks and a growing number of midrange-to-upscale Windows laptops. The physical connector is the same as USB-C, but Thunderbolt SSDs are not backward-compatible with USB Type-C ports that lack Thunderbolt support; look for the little lightning-bolt symbol next to the port.
(Credit: Zlata Ivleva)
Thunderbolt is the least common external SSD interface, and drives that use it are often geared toward Mac users since macOS laptops were quicker than their Windows rivals to move to Thunderbolt. You’ll find it on resolutely speed-focused drives such as the Samsung Portable SSD X5 and some specialized desktop-style drives that may contain multiple SSDs in a RAID format.
Most workaday SSDs don’t come close to saturating this interface, so there’s no point in paying a premium for a Thunderbolt drive unless you specifically need the port and the speed because of your computer. You can plug a USB-C drive into a Thunderbolt port, so you’re not obliged to buy a Thunderbolt drive if you don’t need the speed but have the port.
The Physical USB Port: USB Type-A vs Type-C, and More
Got interface fatigue yet? Alas, that’s not the last thing to consider around USB and Thunderbolt!
System-side physical USB ports these days take the form of USB Type-A (the familiar, older rectangular kind) and USB Type-C (smaller and roughly oval). This physical type is not necessarily an indicator of which specific USB transfer-rate spec the port supports. But you need to make sure you can plug in what you get.
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Many SSDs come with cables for both kinds (Type-A and Type-C) at the computer end, or one cable plus an adapter. Two full cables is generally best, as adapters can be awkward and easy to lose. You’ll want to match what comes in the box with the ports your PC has (and has free). Also, match specs; spending extra, for example, for a 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSD if you only have 5Gbps-capable ports may be pointless.
Also: Don’t confuse the system-side interface with the connector that joins the cable to the drive itself. On most newer portable SSDs, the connector at the SSD end is a USB Type-C port (the same as the kind you might find system-side)…
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On others, though, the connector might be a Micro-USB Type-B, which is a flat, wide connector that is different from any USB port you’ll see on a laptop or desktop.
Is a Rugged External SSD Worth It?
Indeed, if you carry your drive around frequently, you’ll at least want to pay attention to how rugged the drive is. Some models include plastic bumpers, and some even meet military standards for shock and dust protection. Look for support for Ingress Protection ratings such as IP68, explained at the previous link.
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And of course, if you’re carrying your drive around with you, you want it to look nice. Some come in multiple colors, while most are small and slim enough to be tucked into a shirt pocket.
Perhaps the only thing you don’t need to weigh too heavily is the warranty. If your drive breaks because you damaged it, the warranty likely won’t cover it. Even if the drive fails because of a manufacturing defect, most warranties simply replace the drive and don’t cover the cost of recovery services that attempt to rescue your data from the device. A long warranty is well and good, but the real value in a drive usually lies in what you have on it.
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This is also where a spec known as the “terabytes written” rating (or TBW) comes in. It refers to how much data can be written to a drive over its life before some cells on that drive begin to fail. The entire drive itself won’t stop functioning, but rather, less and less storage will be made available as time goes on.
How to Tell What Is the Best External SSD?
Here are three key things to look out for when shopping for an external SSD:
COST PER GIGABYTE. The way to calculate relative value on drives like these is to perform some simple math and figure the cost per gigabyte based on the price of a given drive on the day you’re shopping. Because SSD pricing fluctuates all the time, relative value does, too.
Generally, the higher a drive’s capacity, the cheaper it will be per gigabyte. But that’s not always true; sometimes the very highest-capacity drives come at a per-gigabyte price premium. The basement for budget external SSDs at this writing was about 12 to 15 cents per gigabyte, mostly from second- or third-tier vendors. Calculate your bottom-line price when comparing a host of drives.
RUGGEDIZATION. The degree of ruggedness does vary from drive to drive, with drives like the ADATA SE800 leading the field at the moment among mainstream-price external SSDs. IP68 certification is a good spec to look for if you’re serious about waterproof and dustproof drives.
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Some models, though, like a few from Apricorn’s Fortress series, combine major ruggedness with physical and electrical security; it’s almost impossible to crack open those drives to get at the components and chips inside without destroying them.
CARRY WEIGHT. Most SSDs weigh a negligible couple of ounces. The carabiner retention loop of SanDisk’s Extreme family of external SSDs is especially handy, because many SSDs are small and light enough that losing them is an easy and expensive mistake.
Can You Put an SSD in an External Enclosure?
If none of the drives we’ve selected for this roundup sounds appealing to you (or you already own an extra internal SSD), there’s one more option available: SSD enclosures. These are plastic or metal housings into which you can put your own SATA 2.5-inch or M.2 solid-state drive to take with you on the go.
Enclosures come in 2.5-inch form factors (into which you would put a 2.5-inch SATA SSD) or M.2 ones. The stick-style M.2 SSD is much smaller and lighter, but know that M.2 drives themselves come in both SATA and PCIe bus flavors. You need to be sure your enclosure supports the bus type of M.2 drive you’re putting in it.
Also, just because you put a PCIe NVMe drive in an enclosure doesn’t mean you should magically expect it to go any faster than a standard external SSD. Any drive placed in an enclosure is still subject to the peak USB speed supported by the enclosure’s own electronics and controller, and by the USB protocol supported by the port you plug it into.
Though there are exceptions, most enclosures are not as durable or rugged as major-maker portable SSDs are. This can be a drawback for those who take their SSDs into dangerous environments (think wildlife photographers or first responders), so be sure that before you go this route, you know what your drive will be exposed to. Your data could be at greater risk for corruption than it would be in an SSD purpose-built to withstand the elements.
So, What Is the Best External SSD to Buy?
Our best SSD picks vary widely in features and price, but all should all deliver plenty of speed and peace of mind, if that’s what you want from your portable storage. Our summary reviews above and spec chart below are sure to expose at least one model that is perfect for you.
Don’t need (or don’t want to spring for) an SSD? Then check out our roundup of the best external hard drives. If you’re building or upgrading your desktop or laptop, read about how to buy the best M.2 SSDs, as well as the best SSDs for upgrading your laptop.
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