Help me buy… a desktop HD

We pick the very best external hard drives for photographers

Run out of storage on your laptop or desktop computer? Or do you just need an easy, cost-effective way to backup your files? An external hard drive (HD) is the perfect solution. They offer the most storage capacity for the lowest cost and are easy to use. If you’re planning on using your external storage when you’re on the go, we’d suggest a portable hard drive or SSD instead, as they’re smaller and don’t require a power supply. But for at-home desktop use, the drives on this list are the way to go. Several forms of external hard drives are available right now:

External desktop drives

An external HD offers loads of storage space, and are great for most users. Even the lowest-capacity desktop drives now typically offer at least 2TB of space, with top-end drives packing up to a whopping 16TB or more of storage.

RAID drives

Redundant Array of Independent Disks – this means an external drive that contains two or more HDS. But this isn’t just to give you even more storage space. With two HDS inside and a controller processor, when you backup to a RAID drive, it automatically copies your data to both HDS. Should one of the disks fail, you have all your files on the other disk.

NAS drives

Network Attached Storage – these can be connected to your internet router so they can be accessed from anywhere you can get an internet connection. You log in to the drive from a computer or mobile device using your username and password. Then you can view, upload or download your files wherever. Sound good? There’s just one thing you should know… NAS drives are often sold without any actual HDS inside. The idea is you fit your own so you can choose the right amount of storage space to suit your needs and budget.