The Good Storage For Laptop In 2024

Harlan Ellison By, Harlan Ellison
Updated
Good Storage For Laptop
Good Storage For Laptop

The Rundown

1. Best Overall: Seagate Portable 2TB HDD

The Seagate Portable 2TB HDD is the perfect way to store and access your important digital content on the go. It's a USB external hard drive with 2TB of storage capacity, making it large enough to store a massive amount of music, photos, videos, and documents. Read Review

2. Runner Up: WD 5TB Elements Portable HDD

The WD 5TB Elements Portable HDD is the perfect solution for storing and transferring your media files quickly and easily. With 5TB of storage space, this HDD can store up to 5 terabytes of data in one convenient device. Read Review

3. Best Quality: WD 2TB My Passport Portable External HDD

The WD 2TB My Passport Portable External HDD is an essential storage device for anyone wanting to protect their digital life. Its slim design makes it easy to take anywhere, while its powerful software makes it easy to manage and back up your data. Read Review

4. Best Efficient: Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB Portable External HDD

The Toshiba Canvio Basics 1TB Portable External HDD is the perfect solution for easily storing and backing up your important files. With a sleek profile design featuring a matte, smudge-resistant finish, this external hard drive is sure to look great on your desk. Read Review

5. Best Unique: Maxone 320GB Ultra Slim Portable External HDD

The Maxone 320GB Ultra Slim Portable External HDD is a powerful and stylish storage device perfect for on-the-go use. Its ultra slim design allows it to easily fit in a pocket or bag, making it the perfect companion for your laptop or other mobile device. Read Review

If you have a laptop, you need good storage to keep it running smoothly and ensure your data is safe and secure. Good storage for your laptop can come in the form of a hard drive, an external drive, or even a cloud storage service. All these options provide different benefits, and depending on your needs, one might be better for your laptop.

In this article, we'll explore the different types of storage for laptops, their advantages, and how to ensure your laptop is properly stored. We'll also look at choosing the best storage option for your laptop. Finally, we'll look at the most popular storage solutions for laptops today. By the end of this article, you'll better understand laptop storage and which option is best for your laptop.

After nearly hours of research, we were able to come up with many top products from prominent brands like Seagate, Western digital, Toshiba, Maxone, Wd_black, Unionsine, Lacie, Maxdigitaldata, Suhsai. Among them, we think the good storage for laptop is Seagate Portable 2TB HDD. This external hard drive with 2TB of storage capacity is large enough to store a massive amount of music, photos, videos, and documents. Alternatively, if you're looking for another option, you may go with WD 5TB Elements Portable HDD. Explore with us right here.

Our Top Picks

TOP Choice #1 Seagate Portable 2TB HDD
Our Score:
9.8
Seagate

The Seagate Portable Drive is the ultimate solution for individuals seeking a convenient and reliable method to store and access vast content while on the go. With a massive storage capacity of 2TB, this drive offers ample space to accommodate all your files, documents, media, and more. Whether you're a professional constantly on the move or a student with a vast collection of educational materials, this portable drive has got you covered.

Additionally, this drive ensures compatibility with your preferred operating system. Gone are the days of complicated backup processes. With this external hard drive, all it takes is a simple drag and drop to safeguard your valuable data. The intuitive and user-friendly interface makes backing up your files a snap, allowing you to focus on what matters most. Setting up this drive is also effortless. Connecting it to your computer using the 18-inch USB 3.0 cable automatically recognizes the industry without additional software. However, it's a bit difficult to set up with a Mac laptop.

TOP Choice #2 WD 5TB Elements Portable HDD
Our Score:
9.6
Western Digital

The WD Elements portable hard drive is ideal for individuals seeking extra storage space to accommodate their videos, music, photos, and files. With an impressive data transfer rate of 5Gbps, this external hard drive ensures swift and efficient data transfers. Its USB 3.0 compatibility guarantees high-speed file transfers while maintaining backward compatibility with USB 2.0 devices for added convenience.

Aside from providing ample storage capacity, this portable hard drive also enhances the performance of your PC. You can improve your laptop's overall performance by freeing up space on your internal hard drive and transferring files to this external drive. Its plug-and-play functionality allows immediate use straight out of the box, offering great user-friendliness. Simply connect it to your Windows PC, and you're all set. However, it's worth noting that the drive may occasionally become hot during extensive file transfers.

TOP Choice #3 WD 2TB My Passport Portable External HDD
Our Score:
9.5
Western Digital

The highly efficient Slim Design software presents a sleek and compact solution for device management and backup, accompanied by robust password protection. This exceptional hard drive allows you to manage effortlessly and back up valuable data easily. Providing a seamless and intuitive interface ensures a hassle-free experience for individuals seeking reliable data management solutions.

One notable feature of this hard drive is its advanced security measures, employing the industry-standard 256-bit AES hardware encryption. This cutting-edge encryption technology guarantees the utmost protection for sensitive information, ensuring that your data remains safe and secure at all times. With this, you can have peace of mind knowing that your personal files, documents, and multimedia content are shielded from unauthorized access. Furthermore, it boasts exceptional connectivity options, including a SuperSpeed USB 3.0 port, which offers lightning-fast data transfer speeds of up to 5Gbps. Nonetheless, it doesn't have an indicator light when doing a backup.

Are you looking to add extra storage to your PC or compatible devices effortlessly and with style? Look no further than this sleek and slim portable hard drive. It features a matte, smudge-resistant finish and requires no external AC power cord, offering a simple plug-and-play solution for expanding your device's storage capacity.

On top of that, this portable hard drive is USB 2.0 compatible and doesn't need any installation software, ensuring immediate usability. In addition, it comes formatted with NTFS for seamless compatibility with Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 8.1, and Windows 7, making it suitable for a wide range of devices. This portable hard drive covers you whether you want to store music, videos, or photos or need more space for files and documents. The only minor downside is that copying large files might be a bit slow.

Want a portable hard drive that can handle your busy schedule and not let you down? This model is the slimmest and most scratch-resistant option available, made entirely of aluminum, and measuring just 0.4 inches in thickness. Built to last, this hard drive can withstand the wear and tear of daily use while remaining calm and quiet during operation. Compatible with various devices, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux, Xbox, and PS4, it's the perfect game drive for profound gamers who demand high performance and reliability. 

But that's not all - this hard drive is also an excellent choice for improving PC performance. The laptop's USB 3.0 technology is much faster than USB 2.0 backup drives, providing lightning-fast transfer speeds of up to 5 Gbit/s. So whether you're transferring large files or streaming high-quality media, this hard drive covers you. Plus, it's effortless to use - plug and play, with no external power supply or software installation required. Nonetheless, this device may become slow sometimes. 

6 WD_BLACK 5TB P10 Portable HDD
Our Score:
9.1
WD_BLACK

The WD BLACK drive is ideal for gamers with an extensive game collection. Its generous 5 TB storage capacity can hold up to 125 games, ensuring you can keep all your favorites at hand. Its portable design allows you to carry your games and important documents wherever you go, while the sleek metal top grants easy access to your growing game library, leaving space for both cherished classics and new releases.

The hard drive boasts impressive performance, featuring a SuperSpeed interface reaching up to 5Gbps and an 18-inch (457mm) USB Type-A to Micro-B connection. It is fully compatible with Xbox Series X/S, allowing you to store and play Xbox One games and archive Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S games. Additionally, it supports PlayStation 5, enabling you to store and play PS4 games and archive PS5 games. However, while it's an excellent choice for gamers, it's important to note that it can host Xbox X/S games but cannot directly play them.

7 Seagate IronWolf 12TB HDD
Our Score:
9.0
Seagate

The IronWolf internal hard drive is built to handle the workload of a multi-user NAS environment with up to 8 bays, ensuring the highest levels of performance and durability. This hard drive offers a seamless data transfer rate of 6Gbps, ensuring swift and efficient operations. This massive 12TB storage solution unlocked vast storage capabilities. With a cache size of up to 256MB, this drive is engineered to store more data while delivering lightning-fast access speeds.

Tailored for NAS enclosures, this drive is built to withstand the rigors of 24/7 operation. It excels in providing not only outstanding performance but also enhanced durability. This drive ensures a prolonged lifespan and minimizes noise and vibration by reducing wear and tear, allowing for a peaceful working environment. It offers uninterrupted operations, eliminating lags and downtime, thereby maximizing productivity. With a remarkable Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) of 1 million hours, the drive provides long-term reliability, giving users the peace of mind they need. However, it's a bit noisy.

8 UnionSine 320GB 2.5" Ultra Slim HDD
Our Score:
8.9
UnionSine

【Compatibility】Compatible with PS4/xbox one/Windows/Linux/Mac/Android / stable and fast loading on game consoles no difference from fast transmission when using on PC

【Double anti-interference】-The external hard drive chip adds a signal shielding layer, the transmission speed of the hard disk will be faster than other hard disks, stable and undisturbed

【What You Get 】- 1 x Portable Hard Drive, 1 x USB 3.0 Cable, 1 x User Manual, Gift-type shell packaging ,Three-year manufacturer's warranty and free technical support services

Use seamlessly with Mac, Windows, USB-C, and USB 3. 0

Enjoy 5TB of enormous capacity for photos, playlists, docs, and more

Turn footage into flawless productions with one free month of Adobe Creative Cloud All Apps Plan

10 MaxDigitalData 500GB Hard Drive
Our Score:
8.4
MaxDigitalData

500GB Capacity, 5400RPM, 8MB Cache, 2.5inch SATA 6.0Gb/s, 7mm slim - MD500GLSA854S

Works for Any 2.5in SATA System / Devices

Build your own 500GB Portable USB HDD (USB Enclosure required)

Product Images, Product Titles, Product Highlights from Amazon Product Advertising API

What to Look For in a good storage for laptop?

The good storage for laptop is a product type that many customers feel hesitant to select because of the challenges in evaluating its features. It comes to trust! When studying a significant purchase, many factors must be considered. Our good storage for laptop knowledge will help you make an ideal decision.

Our article here will highlight some outstanding items and provide solutions to FAQs and guides to buying. You should keep in mind some main criteria of good storage for laptop below:

Performance

Transfer speed is the feature that most people notice on a daily basis. We evaluated each drive with tests that replicated different real-world uses, and we focused on the drives that consistently outperformed the other contenders. Drives that did well on some tests but failed others were unreliable and not worth purchasing.

External Vs. Internal HDD

The main advantage of external hard disks is their portability. Which also makes them perfect backups in case your PC is compromised. Desktop PCs allow you room to add extra hard disks, but if you are using a laptop or other gaming device, you will have to replace your existing hard drive.

Reliability

All hard drives eventually die, and there’s no definitive answer on when that day will come. We recommend replacing your backup drives between the third and sixth years of use, if possible. Unfortunately, it’s difficult to get metrics on which hard drive models are more reliable over the long run, and even so, there will always be outliers and failures that occur sooner than expected.

Size Of The Disk

I understand that you are buying the hard disk in order to eliminate the need to delete some files when you install a new game or add modifications. Also, at a time when a single game can take up to 100GB, Call of Duty WWII is 90GB; it only makes sense that you select the hard disk that will allow you sufficient storage space.

Cache Memory

This is a cache that functions much like Computer RAM Memory. It stores important files temporarily so that it takes less time to access them on the disk. The larger the cache size, the faster the hard disk will be. However, the difference is not major, and as such, this should not be the biggest determiner.

Rotation Speed

Did you know that hard drives store information on spinning magnetic plates? The faster these plates spin, the faster the load and access time. The rotation is measured in RPM (Rotations per Minute), and although we recommend hard disks with 7200RPM, 5400RPM is still a good option.

Speed

HDDs, or hard drives, contain spinning disks that read and write your data. The faster these disks spin—rated in rotations per minute (RPM)—the faster the drive can access data and transfer it to your computer.

FAQs

What is the difference between an SSD and an HDD?

An SSD (Solid State Drive) is a storage device that uses flash memory instead of spinning platters to store data. It is much faster than an HDD (Hard Disk Drive) and usually more expensive. An HDD is a storage device that uses spinning platters to store data. It is cheaper than an SSD but not as fast.

What is the best storage option for a laptop?

The best storage option for a laptop depends on your usage and budget. If you need fast performance, an SSD is the best option. If you need more storage space, an HDD is the better choice.

What type of storage is available for laptops?

Laptops typically come with hard disk drives (HDD) or solid-state drives (SSD). HDDs are larger and cheaper but are slower than SSDs. SSDs are faster and more reliable but are more expensive and have less storage capacity.

How much storage do I need for my laptop?

The amount of storage you need for a laptop depends on what you plan to use it for. You'll likely need more storage if you plan to store large amounts of data or media, such as movies and music. If you use your laptop primarily for web browsing, you’ll likely need less storage.


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About Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison

Harlan Ellison is a writer and audio equipment enthusiast. He's particularly interested in home theater HiFi audio, and he has been the editor of The Audio Insights since its inception. Harlan is known for his sharp wit and scathing critiques, but he also has a great love of music and audio gear. When he's not writing or editing, Harlan can be found listening to music or watching movies with his wife.