External Hard Drives

Find a smart external hard drive for photos, videos, and countless other files!

An external USB hard drive is almost indispensable for some people, as it is one of the best ways to store personal files and move them from device to device.

Although cloud technology is in great focus, many still choose to store their files offline, as it is still considered the safest.

You cannot control the publicly available cloud systems, such as Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud, etc.

However, you can do that with an external hard drive, which you can store at home and keep files on.

Get more space on your computer with an external hard drive

Whether you are a photographer, family man, workhorse, or anything else, you may find that your computer does not have enough space for the many files you want to store.

This is especially true for laptops, which often do not have the capacity for large storage on their internal drive.

Therefore, it may be necessary to connect an external hard drive and transfer files when the space on your computer is about to be used up.

This will often help to make your computer faster, especially if it has almost used all its storage space.

Below you will find a table with examples of how many files you can store of specific types on external hard drives of different sizes.

The calculations are based on 4K video with approximately 350 MB per minute on an iPhone, as well as an average image size of 4 MB per image. Additionally, about 5-10% is lost, as it cannot be stored on most external hard drives.

The numbers we found apply to newer smartphones, but may vary depending on the type of camera you use, always remember to check how large your individual files actually are to get a better overview of how many you have space for.

GB stands for gigabyte, while TB stands for terabyte (1000 gigabytes make 1 terabyte).

Even if you have a hard drive of 1TB, you will often notice it only indicates you have 930 GB of space.

This is simply due to the way a computer reads and stores data; it interprets it differently than we perceive the numbers, which is why 1000 GB becomes 930 GB in practice.

If you choose the very large type of external hard drive, you will have space for an incredible amount of files, even the very large files can be stored in abundance with an external hard drive of several terabytes.

If, however, you only need an external hard drive for smaller files such as photos, you do not need the very large hard drive to have space for thousands of images.

Choose the right USB type for your external hard drive (Speed)

Choosing a USB hard drive is very straightforward for most, but for those who want to be completely secure in getting the best of the best, you should investigate a number of specifications before choosing a hard drive.

Here, especially the USB type you connect the hard drive with matters, as this can significantly affect the transfer speed of your hard drive to your device.

When you read the description of one of our products here on the site, you will see that they have different USB titles.

Here you can find USB 3.0, USB 3.1, and USB 3.2 standards, for example.

Most would probably think that the USB 3.2 standard is the best, as it is the newest if you follow the obvious order, but this is actually not always the case.

To complicate things further, the USB standard has gone through some changes over the years, meaning there's extreme confusion in the categorization of the standards.

For example, USB 3.0 and USB 3.2 are actually the exact same, and both are USB 3.2 generation 1.

On the other hand, USB 3.1 is actually USB 3.2 generation 2.

USB 3.1 is therefore better than devices that use 3.2 generation 1, in fact, twice as fast.

Fortunately, this confusion will be resolved when the new USB 4.0 standard comes into play, and hopefully make it easier to understand the standards going forward.

If you are still unsure about how USB standards work, you can get much more info in our complete USB video guide here:

SSD External hard drive - lightning-fast solution

For those who want the best in speed for their external hard drive, you should definitely choose an SSD external hard drive.

SSD stands for “Solid State Drive” and is another way to store data that is many times faster than standard HDD hard drives.

This has led to many newer computers being equipped with SSD drives as standard, as it is simply the fastest available.

Furthermore, SSD Hard Drives have become cheaper in recent times and are no longer something only the wealthiest can afford.

SSD drives are both installed directly in computers, but are also available as external hard drives for those who need extra space.

SSD technology ensures lightning-fast transfer of all types of files, and will make even the largest and heaviest transfers incredibly fast.

You will definitely notice the difference in speed if you have previously transferred large files from an HDD external hard drive and switch to a new and modern SSD USB hard drive.

Best external hard drive for gaming - what to choose?

Are you a gamer, and have a long list of games installed on your computer, you may easily find that there is not the desired space you need for your many games.

Here, a solution could be to acquire an external hard drive, as it saves you the hassle of having to install a new hard drive in your computer.

If you game on a laptop, this is also often the only solution, as it is very difficult to install new hardware on a laptop due to its construction.

With an external hard drive, you can simply transfer the folders with your games and open them directly from the hard drive when you want to.

You can also transfer games you are not currently playing, but want to play again later.

Thus, you do not need to delete them and reinstall every time you switch from game to game.

SSD hard drive - best for gaming!

If you ask most gamers, they will probably tell you that their gaming computer uses an SSD hard drive.

This is because, as previously mentioned, SSD technology is much faster than the HDD drives we are used to from the past.

The same goes for external hard drives for gaming.

Computer games are among the types of files that take up the most space, and therefore it is nice to be able to transfer them as quickly as possible - and you can do this with an SSD hard drive.

Thus, you can quickly and easily transfer games from your computer's hard drive to an external hard drive, and vice versa when you want to play those games again.

External hard drive not working - how to fix it

If you find that your external hard drive does not appear on your computer when you insert it into a functioning USB port, it may be due to it being formatted incorrectly for your operating system.

External hard drives use different file formats when reading files for Microsoft, Mac, and Linux and other operating systems.

If your hard drive is formatted for the Windows operating system with the so-called “NTFS” file system, it will not be visible and readable on a Mac computer.

The same is true the other way; if your external USB drive is not formatted for Windows but Mac, it may be completely invisible when you try to open it on a Windows computer.

Fortunately, there is a file system that works for all operating systems, called “exFAT”.

This file system is not always selected by default, and therefore in some cases, you may need to format your external hard drive yourself so that it works on both Mac, Windows, and other operating systems.

Below you will find two quick guides on how to format your hard drive on Windows or Mac computer.

Formatting an external hard drive on Windows

Overall, it is actually very easy to format your external hard drive so that it works properly.

You just need to follow these quick steps, and then your hard drive will be formatted to the file type you want:

1. Take all the files from your external hard drive and safely store them on a computer or in a well-functioning cloud database.
2. Connect your external hard drive to your Windows computer.
3. You will now be asked if you want to open the hard drive file, but this is not necessary for formatting.
4. Instead, click on your file explorer and navigate to “This PC”.
5. Here you will see the connected hard drive, assuming it is formatted for Windows.
6. Right-click on the hard drive and click “Format” or “Reformat”.
7. You can now choose the file system you want to use; we suggest exFAT if you want to use the hard drive on various operating systems.
8. Now click “Start” and the formatting will be performed.

If you cannot see your hard drive when you connect it to your Windows computer, it may be because it is formatted to only work on Mac computers.

Therefore, you should follow the formatting instructions for Mac below, so it can also be used on the Windows operating system.

Formatting an external hard drive on Mac

When you want to format an external hard drive on a Mac computer, the procedure is slightly different than on Windows, but overall very similar.

Follow this quick guide if you want to format an external hard drive on your Mac computer:

1. Start by making a backup of the files you want to keep before formatting the hard drive.
2. Connect the external hard drive to your Mac computer.
3. Type “Disk Utility” in the search field on your Mac computer and open it.
4. Select the connected external hard drive in the left menu.
5. Click on the “Erase” tab.
6. Here you select “Format” and choose the file system “exFAT” if you want to be able to use the hard drive on all operating systems.
7. Now click “Erase” to format the hard drive - !!This will also delete all files on the hard drive!!
8. Your external hard drive should now work on both Windows, Mac, and other operating systems.

If your external USB hard drive cannot be opened or seen on your Mac computer, it is most likely formatted for Windows.

Therefore, you will need to find a Windows computer and format the hard drive there, and remember to select “exFAT” or another file system that is compatible with Mac if OS is your preferred operating system.

Follow the guide for formatting on Windows in the section above if your external hard drive can only be opened on the Windows operating system.

You can also read our blog post with a complete guide to formatting external hard drives right here: Formatting external hard drive for both Mac and Windows