Before you rush out to buy yourself some new storage, or maybe a hard drive for backup purposes, you’ll want to look at some of our highly recommended options.
There’s a lot to consider when it comes to buying additional storage and it’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the different interfaces, capacities and types of hard drive available. Before you rush out to buy yourself some new storage, or maybe a hard drive for backup purposes, you’ll want to look at some of our highly recommended options.
If you’re after a reliable portable hard drive for transporting your images on the move, or if you’re in the market for a desktop version, check out these superb options.
G-Technology G-Drive Mini 1TB
Price: £155
Website: www.g-technology.com
With its slick aluminium construction, HFS+ formatting and built-in Time Machine compatibility this 2.5in portable hard drive is primarily designed for Apple computers, although Windows users can easily reformat it to NTFS or FAT32. Given its obvious Apple leanings, it’s a little surprising that the G-Drive Mini doesn’t offer Thunderbolt connectivity. Ultimately this isn’t cause for concern, as the drive packs one USB 3.0 and two Firewire 800 ports on the back. One further area where it stands out is its 7,200rpm platter, which helps to make it one of the fastest portable HDDs on the market.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1x USB 3.0 / 2x FireWire 800
Rotational Speed 7,200rpm
Max Write Speed 120MB/s
Dimensions 126 x 81 x 23mm
Weight 517g
Compatibility Mac and Windows
LaCie Rugged Mini 1TB
Price: £85
Website: www.lacie.com/uk
This rugged portable drive is ideal for those who regularly travel with their drive, and want to protect their data against knocks and bumps. In the home they are also an insurance policy against mischievous or curious children. Its aluminium case is further protected within a thick rubberised sleeve that makes the 2.5in LaCie Rugged shockproof to drops of up to 1.2m and crushproof to a weight of one tonne. There’s also built-in password protection software that uses AES 256-bit encryption. Connectivity extends to one USB 3.0 port and one Thunderbolt port – these also power the drive.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1x USB 3.0 / 1x Thunderbolt
Rotational Speed 5,400rpm
Max Write Speed 85MB/s
Dimensions 89 x 140 x 24mm
Weight 240g
Compatibility Mac and Windows
Western Digital My Passport Wireless 1TB
Price: £140
Website: www.wdc.com/en
The big selling point of the My Passport Wireless is that it comes with a rechargeable li-ion battery and built-in SD card reader. This means that it can be used on location instead of a computer to back your images up almost as soon as you’ve captured them. The device also supports FTP, which enables photographers with a compatible Wi-fi camera to upload images directly to the drive without having to remove the card. Used as a portable Wi-fi hub up to eight individual Android and iOS devices can simultaneously access content stored on it using Western Digital’s free My Cloud app.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1 x USB 3.0 / SD card slot / Wi-Fi
Rotational Speed 5,200rpm
Max Write Speed 114MB/s
Dimensions 127 x 86 x 24mm
Weight 272g
Compatibility Mac, Windows, Android, iOS
Samsung Portable T1 SSD 1TB
Price: £430
Website: www.samsung.com
Released only a couple of months ago the T1 neatly showcases the practical benefits of Samsung’s innovative Vertical-NAND flash technology that stacks individual flash memory cells on top of one another to increase capacity, lower power consumption and reduce the chances of cell-to-cell interference. The end result is something that’s incredible tiny. It’s also one of the fastest consumer-grade portable drives on the market, with claimed read speeds of up to 450MB/s. Our only niggle is that for all the wondrous technology inside, the exterior feels a bit flimsy for the price.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1x USB 3.0
Rotational Speed n/a
Max Write Speed 450MB/s
Dimensions 71 x 92 x 53mm
Weight 26g
Compatibility Mac and Windows
Seagate Backup Plus Slim 1TB
Price: £50
Website: www.seagate.com
The Seagate Backup Plus Slim offers a convenient way to archive your entire digital life. This is down to the intuitive Dashboard software, which allows you to configure your drive to back-up not just locally-stored files, but also all the images and videos you’ve uploaded to popular social media sites. You can also use the Dashboard to upload files stored on the drive to a range of sites. While the drive is formatted with the NTFS file system, an OS X driver is pre-loaded, allowing Mac users to use it straight out of the box. You can always reformat the drive to HFS+ or FAT32 if you wish.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1x USB 3.0
Rotational Speed 5,400rpm
Max Write Speed 119MB/s
Dimensions 114 x 76 x 12mm
Weight 159g
Compatibility Mac and Windows
G-Technology G-Drive 4TB
Price: £280
Website: www.g-technology.com
This is essentially the bigger, desktop-orientated brother of the G-Drive Mini on the facing page and is designed for creative professionals in need of an ultra-high capacity drive with lightning-fast transfer speeds. Like its smaller sibling, the G-Drive is encased in brushed aluminium and is formatted with the HFS+ file system for out-of-the-box use with Macs and full compatibility with Apple’s Time Machine backup software. Internally, it sports a 4TB HDD that rotates at 7,200rpm, enabling read/write speeds of up to 165MB/s – more than enough zip to keep the most demanding power users happy.
Key specs:
Connectivity 2x USB 3.0 / 1x Firewire 800
Rotational Speed 7,200rpm
Max Read Speed 165MB/s
Dimensions 235 x 13 x 46mm
Weight 1.4kg
Compatibility Mac and Windows
Western Digital My Cloud 4TB
Price: £150
Website: www.wdc.com/en
This stylish NAS drive enables you to create your own cloud-based storage service from the security of your own home. You’ll also benefit from much more storage without incurring monthly charges. In fact, you’ll save money in the long run – My Cloud costs about the same as a 12-month unlimited subscription plan from Dropbox! And uploading files to a local drive on your home network is much quicker than uploading them over the internet. Note, though, that the drive needs to be positioned within a cable’s length of your broadband router in order to connect to your home network.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1x USB 3.0 / Gigabit Ethernet
Rotational Speed n/a
Max Write Speed 50MB/s (over network)
Dimensions 170 x 49 x 139mm
Weight 960g
Compatibility Mac and Windows
Seagate Personal Cloud 4TB
Price: £160
Website: www.seagate.com
The Personal Cloud NAS drive needs to be next to your router in order to connect the gigabit ethernet cable, and then you’ll be able to back up files and access stored content over your home wireless network. Away from home you can access the drive via the internet simply by using your password. It also offers full tablet/smartphone functionality via the Seagate Media app and can also stream content directly to compatible Smart TVs. The drive is pretty easy to install and operate, and there’s also a ‘2-Bay’ version that comes with an extra set of drives for mirroring data to two drives for added security.
Key specs:
Connectivity Gigabit Ethernet / Wireless / 1x USB 3.0 / 1x USB 2.0
Rotational Speed n/a
Max Read Speed 85MB/s
Dimensions 48x235x119mm
Weight 1.15kg
Compatibility Mac and Windows
LaCie Porsche Design Desktop 4TB
Price: £150
Website: www.lacie.com/uk
With its 5mm-thick aluminium casing and HFS+ formatting this stylish desktop drive is primarily designed for Mac users. It offers out-of-the-box compatibility with Apple’s built-in Time Machine backup software, although Windows users can of course reformat the drive to NTFS or FAT32. Once up and running you can use the bundled Intego Backup software to schedule your back-ups, and the Public-Private software to create private partitions on the drive for your most important files. LaCie also offers a ‘Porsche Design Mobile’ version that draws power from its USB connection.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1x USB 3.0
Rotational Speed 5,400rpm
Max Read Speed 110MB/s
Dimensions 120 x 190 x 38mm
Weight 1kg
Compatibility Mac and Windows
Buffalo DriveStation Duo 4TB
Price: £290
Website: www.buffalo-technology.com
This high-capacity desktop drive comes with the full Buffalo Tools suite of backup software, including the TurboPC and TurboCopy applications, to enhance transfer speed performance. You also get Buffalo’s NovaBACKUP application that can back up the contents of up to ten Windows PCs and one server – making the DriveStation Duo ideal for home offices and small businesses. For Mac users there’s support for Time Machine. And the big selling point is RAID1 capability, enabling you to automatically mirror the same files on two separate drives inside the unit – doubling your data’s safety.
Key specs:
Connectivity 1x USB 3.0
Rotational Speed 7,200rpm
Max Read Speed 225MB/s
Dimensions 86 x 127 x 204mm
Weight 2kg
Compatibility Mac and Windows
Drobo 5N
Price: £415
Website: www.drobo.com
If you’re looking for a high-end, business-grade NAS drive, then the Drobo 5N ticks all the boxes. The drive does not come with any drives installed, so you’ll need to buy these separately. But it does come with five bays, each of which can accept a 3.5in HDD or SSD of your choice. Better still, Drobo’s BeyondRAID technology allows you to fill the bays with different brands and capacities of HDD/SSD, then configure/partition them as you wish. Its one gigabit ethernet port attaches to your router. From here file transfers to and from the unit are made over your home network as per a regular NAS drive.
Key specs:
Connectivity Gigabit ethernet
Rotational Speed n/a
Max Write Speed n/a
Dimensions 59 x 73 x 103mm
Weight 3.86kg
Compatibility Mac and Windows