Best External Hard Drive and SSD for 2022: Mac, PC, PS4, PS5 and Xbox – CNET [CNET]

February 22, 2022 David Carnoy technology

Game consoles today have a variant that offers 1TB drives (equivalent to approximately 1,000GB of hard drive storage), but the storage gets full quickly if you aren’t taking games off the drive while adding more to the drive. As for the PCs, they don’t come with much internal storage unless you are spending a hefty sum. They usually come with 256GB or 512GB. You can manage your storage by finding the best external hard drive and solid-state drive for your needs. External storage is an excellent way of maximizing performance without maxing out the budget.

A traditional hard drive or mechanical drive that uses “old” hard drive technology (mechanical platters and a moving read-write head to access data) is adequate for the majority of users, thanks to speedier USB-C and USB 3.0 (as well as 3.1/3.2) interfaces. Prices have dropped significantly in the last few years, with even the high-capacity, state of the art, all-around best external hard drive models tipping the scales at 5TB but costing just over $100. A solid-state drive doesn’t have moving parts and the external SSD drive has up to four times faster read and write speed, but it costs a lot more per gigabyte.

Most of the options on this list of the best external hard drive models will work across platforms — whether you have a Windows PC, Mac computer, PlayStation or Xbox — so long as the drives are correctly formatted for the right platform. But a lot of the time they’ll be designated as working with a specific platform out of the box and sometimes come with backup software that’s platform-specific. Unless otherwise indicated, all the PC drives mentioned here are compatible with Windows but can be formatted for a Mac. Many of them include cables or adapters to accommodate USB-C and USB-A ports. But if they don’t happen to be included, you can easily buy dongles for about $10.

And remember: A single backup doesn’t cut it. Ideally, you’ll want redundant backups either off-site or using cloud storage for key data and large files (such as family photos) in case of theft or fire. And make sure to encrypt your data, too.

One important note for console gamers is that the newer PS5 and Xbox Series X (and Series S) consoles are much more restrictive about using external drives. The PS5 can store and play PS4 games from an external drive, but not PS5 games; the Xbox Series X can store Series X games, but you’ll have to transfer them to the main SSD to actually play them. The Xbox Series X offers a proprietary Seagate-made storage expansion card and you can now install an M.2 SSD in your PS5 to expand storage for PS5 games.

With those caveats noted, our current top picks for the best external hard disk drive and external solid-state drive are below. These (or nearly identical models with less storage capacity) have been used or anecdotally tested by CNET editors. We’ll update our list of the best external hard drives and SSDs as we test new products.