Five things to look out for

1

Conventional hard disk drives use sensitive moving parts – but not SSDs, making them much less vulnerable.

2

Some drives are preconfigured for macOS or Windows. This can usually be changed with the right software.

3

Don’t expect an SSD to transfer a large batch of image files as fast as it’ll shift a single video file of the same size.

4

All portable SSDs are powered by their USB connection, so don’t require a separate power brick.

5

Many manufacturers also bundle extras like backup software, data encryption or even cloud storage.