WD 12 TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive - USB 3.0, Black

Product Information

For capacity, traditional hard drives (HDDs) offer a lot more options, but SSDs are generally able to house the same amount of storage in a smaller amount of space. The SanDisk Professional G-Drive is especially well-suited for video editing. Thanks to its super-fast transfer speeds, even transferring large projects don't take long.

A tiny yet highly capable external SSD, the Crucial X9 Pro scored well in our benchmarks and comes in capacities up to 4TB. Its interface supports the USB 3.2 Gen 2 standard, which affords near-universal compatibility if your computer has a USB port (although you’ll need an adapter to connect to a USB-A port). The X9 Pro’s basic ruggedization features and 256-bit AES encryption protect it from tumbles as well as both meteorological and human threats while you’re traveling. Who It’s For What sets this drive apart aside from the gaming aesthetics is its total compatibility. Since it comes pre-formatted with the ExFAT file system in addition to being compatible with PCs and Macs it's plug-and-play compatible with the Sony PlayStation 4, PS5 and the Microsoft Xbox One. 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. This is my this HONORABLE MENTION BUY because the Seagate Expansion 12TB External Hard Drive is a reliable, easy-to-use external hard drive.Also know that you can find external drives that do way more than just store your data. Some include SD card readers to offload footage from a camera or drone in the field, while a few specialized models have built-in Wi-Fi and can double as a little media server, able to connect to more than one device at a time.

This hard drive offers drag-and-drop file saving, making it a breeze to use. Plus, it's compatible with both Windows and Mac computers. No need to reformat for use with Time Machine. Best of all, it's available at a great price point. 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. Not only is it faster to read and write data stored in flash cells, but it's also safer. Because there is no spinning platter or moving magnetic head, if you bump the SSD while you're accessing its data, there is no risk that your files will become corrupted and unreadable. (Credit: Molly Flores) Don’t underestimate the Kingston XS2000 based on its size. While it’s tiny – less than 7cm long – it’s also ludicrously speedy, posting sequential read/write speeds of 2012MB/sec and 1854MB/sec on the USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 port of our test rig. It’s substantially slower over an old-school USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A port, or even USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C, but if you’ve got the connectivity to run it at full speed, you’ll see lightning-fast file transfers or be able to run demanding games and apps straight from the drive.

Is a Rugged Hard Drive Worth It?

If you're in the market for a new hard drive, the SanDisk Professional 12TB G-DRIVE Enterprise-Class Desktop Hard Drive is a GREAT BUY that you won't regret. When it comes to hard drives, as in many things in life and tech, faster is better. However, modern hard drives are so fast that you probably won’t notice a massive difference in speed unless you are moving large video files. Last but not least, the 24TB WDBFBE0240JBK-NESN is designed for those who need the absolute largest amount of storage possible. If your primary objective is to get the most space for your data possible, , this is the one for you!

Note that various vendors use different nomenclatures. WD confusingly has two categories - external drives and portable drives - but includes products in the latter category in the former one while archrival Seagate categorizes them as desktop drives and portable drives. You will note that they removed the word "hard" and that's for a good reason: increasingly portable drives are based on flash components and in a near future - given the rapid drop in hardware pricing - we wouldn't be surprised to see multiple SSDs combined in a "desktop drive" How to choose the best external hard drive for you External hard drives come in various storage space amounts any from 1 terabyte all the way up to 24 terabytes and almost everything between. What does an external hard drive do?Designed especially for Xbox, this hard drive has the storage capacity to save up to 300 games! It even comes with a 1-month Xbox game pass and comes with the same writing speed as the G-drive, 7200rpm (250 mb/s). It has two USB A charging ports, so people love to use it for XBOX and PC. 12TB External Hard Drive - FAQs 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. That said, as a platter-based hard drive, it's best equipped to store a game library; you're better off loading the games you're currently playing from an SSD. If you conservatively figure an average game size of 100GB, the 4TB version tested here can hold about 40 titles, serving as the stylish main repository of your collection for years to come, and for a much more modest outlay than you'd spend on an SSD of similar capacity. Who It's For The Crucial X9 Pro is a competitively priced, highly portable external SSD that should appeal to most anyone. The X9 Pro is great for travelers, or indeed anyone who wants a fast, reasonably rugged and secure portable SSD.