WD 12TB Elements Desktop External Hard Drive, USB 3.0 external hard drive for plug-and-play storage - WDBWLG0120HBK-NESN

Product Information

The SK Hynix Beetle is a drive to be seen with, a great conversation starter. The Beetle is small and light enough to be taken anywhere, and it offers some protection from tumbles. Its speed is comparable to other USB 3.2 Gen 2 SSDs we have reviewed. It’s priced a little higher per gigabyte than most external SSDs, but since its capacity maxes out at 1TB, you can still have this gem without it busting your budget. If you love hanging on to those big files, this is the drive for you. With two Thunderbolt 3 ports and 1 USB C port, this drive is incredibly reliable. It allows you to daisy chain up to five additional devices, connecting multiple drives, with multiple displays, hard drives, or computers. External SSDs are now readily available and cheaper than they were a few years ago, but it will probably be a while before they are a complete replacement for hard drives. Physically larger external drives designed to stay on your desk or in a server closet still mostly use 3.5-inch platter drives inside, taking advantage of their vast capacities and much lower prices per gigabyte compared with SSDs.

This is my MUST BUY because The SanDisk Professional 12TB G-DRIVE PRO is an enterprise-class desktop hard drive that offers superior performance and reliability.

Do you need a desktop drive or a portable drive? How much storage capacity do you need? What kind of connection do you need? What adapter should come with a new external hard drive? Most workaday SSDs don't come close to saturating this interface, so there's no point in paying a premium for a Thunderbolt drive unless you specifically need the port and the speed because of your computer. You can plug a USB-C drive into a Thunderbolt port, so you're not obliged to buy a Thunderbolt drive if you don't need the speed but have the port. The drive is a shade expensive, and the integrated carrying loop is too big to easily fit on a standard keychain.Otherwise, this is an excellent storage device that's ideal for heavy everyday use. 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.

Perhaps the only thing you don't need to pay all that much attention to is the warranty. Sounds counter-intuitive, perhaps? Sure, a long warranty is nice. But if your drive breaks because you dropped it, the warranty likely won't cover that, anyway. 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 broken drive. The real value lies in what's on your drive, not the drive itself. It is also well suited as long-term multimedia storage hooked up to a PC or large-screen smart TV from Sony or a recent Samsung as well - some smart TVs support NTFS and FAT32 or NTFS and ExFat, very rarely do they support all three file systems. 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.

LaCie Rugged SSD Pro

Actual user capacity may be less depending on the operating environment), making it perfect for storing all your important files, photos, and videos. 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. 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