External Hard Drives

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Best External Hard Drives

Take your files with you wherever you go with an external hard drive. Here at ebuyer, we stock the best external hard drives from industry-leading brands, including Western Digital, Seagate, and SanDisk. Not only will the best external hard drive boast a massive storage capacity, it will also be rugged and reliable for on-the-go computing. Whether you plan to carry an external HDD around in a backpack while travelling or you're just looking to easily transfer files between laptops and desktops, shop the best external storage hard drive options right here on this page. You're sure to find the best HDD external solutions for your needs.

Why Do I Need an External Hard Drive?

In a word - convenience. External hard drives are the easiest way to add additional storage capacity to a computer. While you could invest in a secondary internal solution, you'd also have to install it. And for the average computer user, opening up a desktop's case or laptop's chassis and installing the drive may be a bit too finicky.

On the other hand, an external HDD is a simple, plug-and-play device. Connect a portable HDD to your computer like any other USB-powered peripheral or accessory, format it to your computer's file system if needs be, and you're good to go. It's as simple as that.

And if you opt for an external HDD over an internal one, you'll be able to easily take all your files and media with you on-the-go. They're also more dependable than a cloud-storge solution as you can access your data wherever you are, without an internet connection. Perfect for working on a train or in a hotel with agonisingly slow Wi-Fi, or no Wi-Fi at all, for example.

An external HDD is an incredibly useful bit of kit to have, particularly for those who're looking to create a portable back-up of their computer's data. Or, you can use a portable HDD to easily and massively expand the storage capacity of your PC or Mac, giving you the extra space you might need to house high-res videos, decades' worth of family photos, or every piece of a major project.

How Do External Hard Drives Work?

Data is read from and written to a hard drive by aligning an actuator arm with a spinning platter, like a vinyl record player. However, while internal hard drives then transfer this data over a motherboard's SATA interface, external hard drives do it over USB. Really, an external HDD is just an internal HDD, but housed within a portable, USB-powered chassis.

The best portable HDDs will be protected by a shock-absorbent cover, making them ideal for safely transporting important digital files or simply taking movies round to a friend's house. External HDDs typically have smaller capacities than internal ones, with the most readily available capacities being 2TB and 4TB, but this is still plenty of storage for most users' needs.

External Hard Drives vs External Solid-State Drives

For those familiar with computer storage devices, you're likely aware of solid-state drives. While a external hard drive is what's known as mechanical-storage device, an external solid-state drive is a digital-storage device. You won't find any moving pieces in an external SDD, but rather flash storage modules soldered to a mainboard. As there's no mechanical operation taking place with SSDs, they can be considerably faster than hard drives. Not only that, but they're also more durable, more energy-efficient, and completely silent.

So, why would you buy an external HDD? Put simply, you get more storage capacity for your money. You'll pay a fair bit less for a portable HDD of the exact same capacity as a portable SSD. If you simply need as many terabytes as possible, for as little cost as possible, then you should be looking at external HDDs. This makes a portable HDD a great low-cost, high-capacity back-up storage solution. Though, it could take a while to fill up an external HDD if you've got terabytes' worth of data to transfer over.

External Hard Drives at ebuyer

We've a huge range of external hard drives from the industry's best brands, including Western Digital, Seagate, and more. Browse our range and find the best external HDD for your needs. Spread the cost of your purchase with our flexible finance offers. And if you want your new portable HDD by tomorrow, next-day delivery is also available.