External hard drive best buy: Don’t delay, backup today

Don’t wait for disaster to strike: get your PC backups storage sorted now with our annual super guide. Portable hard drives are the most popular way to get more digital storage and their compact size means they’re easy to take with you. We tested 12.

DESPITE MANY OF us relying heavily on the cloud these days, if you’re one to keep a lot of videos, photos and music, a hard drive is an indispensable piece of kit. For professional photographers, that hard drive might be a My Passport Wireless Pro that’ll wirelessly sync with a camera to store photos as they’re taken. For cinematographers who want to work directly off the drive, a portable SSD is probably going to be the best bet, best buy. But for most, the afford ability and large capacity of external hard drives is hard to pass up.

Following the integration of USB Type-C into the latest high-end ultrabooks, the new cabling standard has finally started to trickle down into external hard drive ranges. USB 3.1 (Type-C) is theoretically capable of carrying twice the data of USB 3.0, but when the older standard is capable of transferring data at 5Gbps, the upgrade is purely for compatibility and perception, offering no real technical boosts to a portable hard drive. Yet, despite the lack of usefulness to this category, many of the pricier models have started including the Type-C connection in their devices. Seagate did manage to put the extra current carrying capacity of the USB Type-C connection to hard drive unit that doesn’t require its own power adapter, but in the portable drive space, it seems more of a status symbol still.

HOW WE TESTED

Benchmarks were tested using a USB 3.0 Type-A connection on a Surface Pro 4 running full Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. The disk speed results were determined using a 2015 version of Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.4 running all sequential, 512B and 4KB benchmarks through five test instances of 1,000MB of data. The only exception to this is if the drive was formatted for use with macOS, in which case, we ran BlackMaic Diskspeed Test to find sequential read and write speeds on a 2014 13-inch MacBook Air.

Seagate Backup Plus Portable 5TB Review

Size really does matter.

SEAGATE’S LATEST BACKUP Plus has an absurdly large 5TB capacity. While there’s only a slower 5,400rpm internal drive under the hood, the high data density means it was able to achieve a 10% speed boost over comparable drives. The sequential read and write speeds were a high 143MB/sand 134MB/s, using Crystal Disk Mark 3.0.4, but the scores fell back to more normal levels for smaller 512KB files (at 44MB/s and 70MB/s). The USB 3.0 Type-A to micro-B cable gives the drive ample power, and remains compatible with older USB 2.0 computers. The Backup Plus provides an unparalleled cost-to-capacity ratio of 6.4 cents per GB. And with 200GB of OneDrive storage and Seagate’s suite of backup software to boot, it’s hard to fault the 5TB Backup Plus Portable in any real way.

Rating 5/5

CRITICAL SPECS

5TB storage; USB 3.0. USB 2.0; 11.4 x 7.6 x 2cm; 247g

Seagate Backup Plus Fast 4TB Review

A compelling but slightly pricier option.

NOT TO BE confused with Seagate’s standard 4TB (TERABYTE HARD DRIVE) portable drive, this chunky model is heavier and larger than most on the market. But there’s actually two 2TB drives inside in a RAID configuration, which means it’s also very fast (up to 250MB/s) — that’s provided, of course, you’ve got a USB 3.0 connection and you’re copying to or from a similarly speedy drive, like an internal SSD. There’s a two-headed Y-cable in the box, which you’ll need to use for connecting to USB 2.0 ports. Seagate’s Dashboard software is included, one of the most comprehensive backup apps on offer. Of course, higher-end features cost, so this one’s not cheap. You do get what you pay for, though.

Rating 4.5/5

CRITICAL SPECS

4TB storage; USB 3.0. micro USB; included USB2.0 adaptor cable; 11.7 x 8.3 x 2.2cm; 307g

Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim 2TB – SEAGATE 2TB Review

Teeing off with an even slimmer drive.

SEAGATE DECIDED THAT a shiny metallic gold or silver topside with a golf ball pattern was the key to its latest Backup Plus Ultra Slim drives, hoping the lunar-like surface will accentuate the 3mm reduction in width from the existing range. But more noticeable is the drive’s slight boost in read and write speeds when compared with the Backup Plus Slim. The Backup Plus Ultra Slim showed 15MB per second boosts for sequential read and write speeds on the Backup Plus Slim models, which roughly corresponds to the 10% price difference. The cost per GB is reasonable on this drive and the weight and size live up to its title.

Rating 4.5/5

CRITICAL SPECS

2TB storage (1TB also available); USB 3.0. micro USB; 11.3 x 7.6 x 0.96cm; 159g

WD My Passport Ultra 3TB Review

Reasonably priced and good at the basics.

THE MY PASSPORT Ultra is Western Digital’s ultra portable offering at 150g — the second lightest we’ve tested. Apart from introducing a ‘New’ upgraded model that boosted speed slightly, this drive hasn’t changed much. It’s reasonably priced with the 500GB model, though you can get the 1TB Canvio Connect II from Toshiba for the same price. The hardware here is top notch, with an attractive external design, hardware-based 256-bit AES encryption and the software suite is a good package. The new My Passport Ultras net respectable sequential read and write speeds of 124.5 and 123MB/s, respectively, and the wide range of available colors are sure to suit anyone.

Rating 4.5/5

CRITICAL SPECS

3TB storage (500GB. 1TB and 2TB also available); USB 3.0, micro USB; 11x 8.1 x 1.5cm; 150g

Toshiba Canvio Connect II 1TB Review

Stuck in the middle.

THOUGH THE MARKETING spiel for the Canvio Connect will have you thinking the drive has some kind of wireless data transfer capability, it’s nothing more than the bundled software that allows for the remote access of files and, even then, its not remote access of files stored on the portable drive. The drive itself is reasonably commonplace in other ways, with the usual 10.9cm, 7.8cm and 1.4cm dimensions, plus a nicely light 149g weight. The tested speeds also stick closely to what we expected, with 116MB/s sequential read and write speeds with a similarly unsurprising small file read and writes speeds of 41MB/s and 49MB/s. There weren’t any downsides, well other than it being a little dull.

CRITICAL SPECS

1TB (500GB. 2TB. 2.5TB. 3TB also available); USB 3.0. micro USB; 10.9 x 7.8 x 1.4cm; 149g

Rating 3.5/5

Toshiba Canvio Slim II 1TB Review

An average performer.

A BRUSHED-ALUMINUM CHASSIS, compact design and low 150g weight make this nice to look at and hold. It’s even a tad smaller than WD’s My Passport Ultra design. Unlike the Canvio Basics line, you get some software — both encryption and backup are handled with third-party tools and Toshiba has also bundled in an NTFS driver for Macs, so you can use this drive without reformating it. We’ve noticed some online retailers discounting this 1TB model, it’s a bit of a steal. We’re presuming this particular line’s nearly at the end of its shelf-life, with fewer retailers stocking it; so if you want to pick one up for that price, you’d better get a wriggle on.

CRITICAL SPECS

1TB; USB 3.0. micro USB; 10.7 x 7.6 x 1.3cm; 150g

Rating 3.5/5

WD My Passport Pro 2TB – Western Digital 2TB Hard Drive Review

A lightning fast dual drive model.

WITH THE ARRIVAL of portable SSDs that can reach over 450MB/S write speeds, dual hard disk portable drives are going to have a hard time if they want to remain competitive. This model uses a thunderbolt connection and a dual drive in RAID 0 configuration to read and write speeds over the 200MB/s mark, around double the speeds of a hard disk drive. The use of thunderbolt and a the HFS+J disk format peg this drive as one specifically for Mac users. It still hits a unique price, speed and capacity point when you consider, for the same money, you could only afford a 512GB portable SSD.

CRITICAL SPECS

2TB (4TB also available); Thunderbolt; 14.3 x 8.9 x 2.8cm; 450g

Rating 3.5/5

G-Drive ev ATC 1TB Review

The mac user’s impervious storage unit.

THE EV ATC range is the fastest ‘rugged’ drive we’ve ever seen. When you look at the sequential read speeds, it’s even at the heels of the fastest single portable drive we’ve tested. G-Drive’s current range is aimed at Mac users; the drives don’t even register on Windows Devices straight out of the box. The ev ATC has a unique design with the main hard drive being ensconced by a removable waterproof casing that includes an inbuilt Thunderbolt casing, allowing you to transfer files without having to remove it. Punching out sequential read and write speeds of 137MB/s and BOMB/s, respectively, and coming with a USB 3.0 cable, this speedy drive is hard to fault in any way.

CRITICAL SPECS

1TB; Thunderbolt. USB 3.0; 20.4 x 5.4 x 5.2cm; 372g

Rating 3/5

G-Drive Mobile USB-C Drive 1TB Review

Fast but not great.

THE G-DRIVE USB-C mobile drive from G-Technology has a little more to boast about than some of the company’s other offerings, but it’s still worth prefacing that the USB-C standard doesn’t offer improved transfer rates over and above USB 3.0. That said, the G-Drive Mobile USB-C Drive is packing a fast 7,200rpm disk drive that pushes sequential transfer rates to 135MB/s when reading and 128MB/s while writing.

The G-Drives are formatted specifically for Mac, so for PCs, you will have to manually format the drive before you can use it.

It is better than the Mobile USB/ Firewire model but it’s far from being good value in terms of available hard drives.

CRITICAL SPECS

1TB; USB 3.0, USB 3.1; 12.9 x 8.2 x 1.3cm

Rating 3/5

Toshiba Canvio Basics 2TB Review

A bare essentials option.

FOR THE LAST few years, Toshiba’s Canvio Basics drives have been excellent-value options, with this family of models often selling below the equivalent WD and Seagate units. That margin has narrowed to almost nothing in recent months, however, and poor availability does dull the appeal. The name (‘Basics’) denotes something important — there’s no software included (backup or otherwise), so you’ll need to sort out your own, like SyncBack Free. You’ll also need to reformat it if you want to use it on a Mac. Performance was largely average with transfer speeds of around 116MB/s tor reads and 114MB/s when writing.

CRITICAL SPECS

2TB (500GB, 1TB also available); USB 3.0. micro USB; 11.9 x 7.9 x 1.5cm; 210g

Rating 3/5

LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive 4TB Review

Cinto the (expensive) future.

BEING ONE OF the only portable drives here with the option of USB Type-C to C transfers and the only hard drive to be designed by a sports car manufacturer, we were expecting the Porsche Design Mobile Drive from LaCie to be a speedy little device.

Despite it being the fastest single portable hard drive we’ve tested, transfer rates are still leagues away from actually needing the new USB 3.1 protocol. At 137MB/s and 134MB/s sequential read and write speeds, Porsche Design Mobile Drive is between two and three times slower than the speediest flash drives. When you put it up against Seagate’s 2TB Backup Plus Ultra Slim drive, it’s less than 5% faster overall.

CRITICAL SPECS

4TB (2TB also available); USB 3.0. USB 3.1; 12.2 x 8.2 x 0.7cm; 315g

Rating 2.5/5

G-Drive Mobile USB/ FireWire 1TB Review

Can this drive really handle ?

SLIGHTLY CHUNKIER THAN your average ultra-portable drive, the G-Drive isn’t going to be breaking any records for how compact it is and considering it weighs in at 283g, it’s also notably heavier than most of the other drives we tested. The G-Drive Mobile USB is one of the only portable drives we’ve seen with two firewires and a USB output, so even though it is encased in a stock-standard metal enclosure, it does have at least one unique feature.

Unfortunately, the 5,400rpm disk drive is a little slower than what we’re used to, with sequential read and write speeds at around 105MB/s and 102MB/s, some 20-30% slower than your standard 7,200rpm-equipped portable drives.

CRITICAL SPECS

1TB (500GB also available); USB 3.0. FireWire; 12.7 x 8.3 x 1.8cm; 177g

Rating 2/5

[JOEL BURGESS & PAUL TAYLOR]