External Solid State Drives (17 products)

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External Solid-State Drives vs External Hard Drives

While you'll pay a bit more of a premium for an external solid-state drive of the same storage capacity as an external hard drive, we'd say it's worth it.

Access Times and Transfer Speeds

For one, and most importantly, it'll take a fraction of the time to transfer all your files to and from an external solid-state drive. Although external hard drives are readily available in massive capacities of up to twenty terabytes, perfect for backing up a vast amount of data, they can be agonisingly slow at times, particularly when you're trying to transfer a lot of little files. That's because, as covered over on the main storage page, HDDs are mechanical storage devices. As opposed to SSDs, which are digital storage devices.

Data is read from and written from a hard drive by aligning an actuator arm with a spinning platter, like a vinyl record player. When a HDD has to transfer a large quantity of small files, however, this arm will move back and forth across the platter constantly, slowing the HDD's access times to a crawl. If you're backing up an expansive music library or years' worth of family photos, for example, it could take hours to fill up an external HDD, with most of the time just being spent moving the arm into position repeatedly.

In comparison, external solid-state drives can be accessed near-instantaneously. External SSDs have no moving pieces, but rather just flash storage modules soldered to a mainboard, effectively lending them zero seek times. There's no waiting around for a mechanical operation to take place. Data can be read and written off these modules as soon as it's requested.

Not only does this help overall transfer times tremendously, but the increased performance also lets you work straight off an external solid-state drive if needs be. For example, let's say you're a video editor. Rather than transferring a multi-gigabyte video from an external SSD to your computer's internal storage, you can just edit the video directly from the super-fast portable SSD, saving you even more time.

Portability, Durability, and Noise

Performance isn't the only advantage external solid-state drives have over external hard drives. The day-to-day experience of using external SSDs is much better, too, with their all-digital design being both lighter and more durable.

You've got to be quite cautious when handing an external HDD, especially in the middle of operation, as all its moving pieces are a potential point of failure. Even a slight bump to an external HDD can send its actuator arm scratching over its spinning platter, damaging it.

Of course, an external SSD isn't indestructible. But if you're picking up an external storage device to be used on-the-go, you can feel more confident slinging an portable SSD in a backpack without fear of data loss. Speaking of, your average smartphone nowadays is bigger than most external HDDs, so you'll hardly notice their size or weight. Many of our portable SSDs boast robust chassis with drop protection and water resistance; they're the perfect travel companions.

It's also worth mentioning that, on account of them having no moving pieces, external SSDs are completely silent. No longer will you have to endure the grating 'ticking' noise of a hard drive's actuator arm endlessly repositioning itself.

How Do External Solid-State Drives Connect?

Like most peripherals and accessories nowadays, external solid-state drives connect to a computer via USB-A or USB-C. This allows you to hook an external SSD up to a number of devices: laptops, desktops, and so on. While most portable SSDs are compatible with Apple laptops and desktops, they may need to be re-formatted to an Apple-support file system first. USB 3.1 Gen2 and USB 3.2 Gen2 - the newest iterations of the USB interface standard - both operate at 10Gbps, ensuring an external SSD can run at its fastest possible speeds.

External Solid-State Drives at Ebuyer

From slim, portable drives to ultra-rugged models, we stock a wide range of external solid-state drives from all the best brands, including Samsung, Crucial, SanDisk, and more. Spread the cost of your purchase with our flexible finance offers. Pick up an external SSD at Ebuyer today and spread the cost of your purchase with our flexible finance offers. And if you want your new external SSD by tomorrow, next-day delivery is also available.