How to choose the right external hard drive?

The shopping team 10:45 a.m., June 20, 2022

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The editorial staff of Europe 1 did not participate in the production of this article. 

Despite the democratization of SSDs and the omnipresence of online storage services, the external hard drive retains all its interest.

Thanks to the miniaturization and versatility of the USB 3.2 standard, there are very large capacity hard drives, up to 4 TB, powered by a simple USB cable, with excellent portability, all without reaching the still high prices. external SSDs.

And if an external hard drive obviously does not offer the same access speed, since it is limited by its mechanical elements, it is still fast enough to save a large amount of data in a reasonable time and to store it. reliably and securely.

Whether it's to expand your console's game library, back up your photo collection or always have your most important files,

the best external hard drives available on the market.

Summary

• Seagate FireCuda Gaming 1 TB, an efficient drive for gamers

• LaCie Mobile Drive 1 TB, a USB-C hard drive designed for Mac and PC

• Seagate Basic 2 TB, the easiest to use 

• Toshiba Canvio Basics 4 TB, a large capacity hard drive

• WD My Book 4 TB, the secure option

External hard drive: 5 models to store your data

Seagate FireCuda Gaming 1 TB, an efficient drive for gamers

Players need more and more storage space.

Games keep taking up more and more space and it's not uncommon to fill 100GB with a single title.

To extend the capacity of your console or to free up space on the main drive of a gaming laptop, the Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive 1 TB is a USB 3.2 Gen 1 external hard drive designed for gamers, even the smallest ones. details.

Thus, it synchronizes with the Razer Chroma system to display a colorful atmosphere with 3 RGB LEDs, and it is available in capacities up to 5 TB, enough to store the largest games.

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LaCie Mobile Drive 1 TB, a USB-C hard drive designed for Mac and PC

Connectivity can be a problem when buying an external hard drive.

Many models still use USB-A, still very present in the PC world but not necessarily on Mac.

LaCie is a manufacturer well known to Apple users and in its range of hard drives, the LaCie Mobile Drive 1 TB offers Thunderbolt 3 compatible USB-C connectivity. Fans of the brand will find a characteristic design with clean lines, and if LaCie is a brand popular with Mac users, the hard drive is fully compatible with a PC. 

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Seagate Basic 2 TB, the easiest to use 

In terms of external hard drive, Seagate is one of the most affordable references and the Seagate Basic goes, as its name suggests, straight to the point.

Its design is extremely sober and fine.

It has a USB 3.0 port compatible with a Windows PC as well as a Mac by simply formatting in a macOS compatible system.

Seagate does not install any backup software on its drive: everything is ready to use and you can simply back up your files directly from Explorer or Finder.

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Toshiba Canvio Basics 4 TB, a large capacity hard drive

The Toshiba Canvio Basics series of hard drives offers reliability and ease of use for a drive with a maximum capacity of 4 TB, enough to save all your personal data on a single drive.

The interface used by the Toshiba Canvio Basics 4 TB is USB 3.2 Gen 1 standard and allows a maximum transfer speed of 5 Gbits/s.

If you want to use the external hard drive with an older PC, it's also possible: the drive is compatible with the USB 2.0 standard and if you lose speed, you keep the large storage capacity.

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WD My Book 4 TB, the secure option

Western Digital has been offering its MyBook hard drives for a long time now, and they've been a safe bet for automatic backups, especially for the Mac's Time Machine system.

The external hard drive comes in a wide variety of capacities, and this 4TB model is one of the least bulky!

The WD Backup automatic backup solution allows you to immediately use the disk to keep your data safe with password protection and hardware encryption.

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What should you pay attention to when buying an external hard drive?

Buying an external hard drive usually comes with no surprises.

Nevertheless, it is important to pay attention to certain criteria when choosing.

First of all, obviously, the storage capacity one needs is essential.

Generally, on an external hard drive, we are on rather high capacities with a minimum of 1 TB which already makes it possible to store more than 6.6 million pages of text, more than 250,000 photos in 12 megapixels, or 500 hours of HD video.

The power mode can vary, however: while most external hard drives from 1 to 4 TB can operate independently with a USB cable, some require a power supply.

For the connection, also pay attention to the USB standard of the disk.

Generally, an external drive works in USB 3.0 with backward compatibility with USB 2.0.

Drive compatibility with different systems is generally assured, but you may need to format a drive to be compatible with Apple's HFS+ or APFS system for use on a Mac.

Finally, the physical size of the disk is to be taken into account, depending on the needs: extended storage at home can be satisfied with a rather large disk which will remain on the desk.

On the other hand, for mobile use, it is preferable to opt for a small disk which may not have the same performance but which will guarantee good portability.

What are the differences between an external hard drive and an external SSD?

An external hard drive is technologically different from an external SSD.

The hard drive is a technology that has been around for decades that stores data magnetically on a platter with a reading head.

An SSD does not use any mechanism: the data is stored in memory chips.

An SSD can reach data access speeds much higher than those of a hard disk, limited by the rotational speed and the need to go to "find" the data in the right place.  

On the other hand, if an external SSD is a very fast storage solution, it is much more expensive for the same capacity and requires a recent PC with a USB-C or Thunderbolt port to be exploited to the maximum. 

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