Best Buy External Memory Storage
A portable hard drive or SSD is a do-it-all storage device, one that can carry huge libraries of files and share them amongst PCs, Macs, tablets and phones. It can also hold full system backup files that restore your computer's OS and software should you experience a crash. Getting the best external hard drive or best external SSD for your specific needs is an important shopping decision, balancing price, performance, features and even durability.
best buy external memory storage
But with dozens of portable storage options available, how do you know which is the right external drive to buy? Should you opt for a speedier, more rugged (and more expensive) external SSD instead of a portable hard drive made up of comparatively fragile spinning platters and an actuator arm? Or could a slower, roomier and much cheaper portable hard drive be adequate for your storage needs?
To help you pick the right storage device for your needs, we test and review dozens of drives as they become available and publish our list of specific recommendations for the best portable SSDs and hard drives on this page.
If you're looking for a less expensive, more-DIY alternative you can also create your own external drive with one of the best SSD and hard drive enclosures. You could also go for one of the best Flash drives, which are all pocket-friendly but usually not as performant as SSDs.
That said, G-Technology's recent ArmorLock drive gives Samsung a run for its secure storage money, by using an app and key that's stored on your Android or iOS phone to unlock your drive. It may not be as convenient as swiping your finger across a sensor on your external SSD, but it might just be more secure.
And if you have an M.2 drive that you've swapped out of a gaming laptop, ultrabook or upgraded away from in your gaming PC, we've recently looked at NVMe enclosures from MyDigitalSSD and Pluggable. If you have a SATA-based M.2 drive that you'd like to turn into a portable drive, Silverstone's MS09 enclosure lets you do just that. And if you're keen on building your own speedy external SSD but don't have a drive handy to use, the recent WD Blue SN550 is a good candidate for that task. It's only available in capacities up to 1TB, but it's plenty speedy for external storage, and the more spacious model is already selling for as little as $115 at various online outlets.
Whether you're shopping for one of the best external storage drives or one that didn't quite make our list, you may find savings by checking out the latest Crucial promo codes, Newegg promo codes, Amazon promo codes, Corsair coupon codes, Samsung promo codes or Micro Center coupons.
The best Xbox Series X hard drives are an excellent addition to your console loadout. Whether it's the officially licenced Seagate expansion card, or an external drive, there are plenty of ways to enhance the Xbox Series X's storage. Of course, the products we've rounded up below will also work for the Series S, and might even come in more handy on the "Game Pass machine" due to the limited storage of that console.
Unfortunately, there's no M.2 port in the Xbox Series X or S, which means you won't quite get the benefits of the best SSDs for gaming like PS5 owners do. Having said that, you do have a similar amount of storage space out of the box. Just like the PS5, the 1TB claimed on the packaging actually equates more to around 802GB once the OS and general bloat is factored in. As for the Series S, you're cutting that down by half. So, either way, either console can really benefit from one of the best external hard drives.
The fastest solution available to you is undoubtedly going to be the officially licensed Seagate Storage Expansion card. This allows for native performance that's on par with the Xbox Series X's very own internal SSD. It's the closest the Xbox Series gets to matching the best PS5 SSD expansions, and the best part is, you don't need to worry about overly-complicated DIY. Keep in mind that you cannot boot Xbox Series X games off of an external hard drive, whether it's an SSD or HDD, so we tend to view these options more as expanded storage for unused or last gen games.
If you boosted the storage of your previous Xbox, you may still be able to use one of the best Xbox One external hard drives. For now though, allow us to walk you through the best Xbox Series X hard drives.
Putting the price tag for 1TB (920GB usable) aside for one moment, the official Seagate Storage Expansion Card for Xbox Series X is the best option for expanding your storage with no compromises on performance.
But this early into the console's life, there's a strong case for you not really needing it yet. You can still fit a fair few games on the default storage and the other Xbox Series X external storage solutions on this page will give you even more GB for less money and we'd use them as a holding bay for your Series X games and to run most older Xbox One titles. We did cut Red Dead Redemption 2's loading times in half on this card compared to something like the WD Black P10 though.
And when the Series X arrived, we simply plugged the P10 straight in and started playing our games again. Although we did shift some over to the Series X itself to take advantage of those increased loading speeds offered by the console's SSD. So yes, the speeds on the P10 are just the standard rates of an HDD of around 130Mbps, but given the large capacities you can get for a fraction of the cost of the official SSD expansion card mentioned above, we think this is the best external hard drive (HDD) for the Xbox Series X.
The P50 is one of the best external drives for any device right now, let alone specific consoles or gaming platforms. This is mostly due to the fact that, at it's core, this is as close to having a PC NVMe SSD in a case, plugged into your external console ports. It genuinely offers speeds and performances that are usually only seen in those drives within the best gaming PCs and on best SSD for gaming lists. All encased within a unit that has a quality, cool design, and a robust build.
When it comes to speeds, what you're told you're getting and what happens is pretty much bang on. Its incredible performance for an external SSD and the stated speeds of 'up to 2000MB/s' were on the money in our testing. Real-world performance-wise, the P50 gives you everything a high-quality external SSD should do: games were loaded incredibly quickly, files were retrieved in the snap of a finger, and the performance levels were incredibly consistent. It's a sure-fire SSD that will rapidly improve your gaming experience by reducing your time looking at loading screens and increasing the time actually playing. A true winner, and definitely one of the best Xbox Series X hard drives.
This Pro variant of the portable SSD is a great match for gaming on the Xbox Series XS consoles. It's far from cheap, but the transfer speeds are the best we've seen on everything we've tested on the Series X with the exception of Seagate's bespoke memory card mentioned earlier.
You don't have to fork out for the official Seagate memory card for the Xbox Series X to get improved load times on your Xbox One games, instead, you can opt for an external USB SSD, and Samsung makes some of the very best, with the T5 series offering the best gigabyte to cost ratio for our liking.
All said and done though, if your main reason for increasing storage options on your Xbox Series X is to have somewhere to enjoy your Game Pass/Xbox One library, and you're happy to juggle the internal SSD space for just Series X games, then a Samsung T5 is a great option if you want to cut down on those load times. If you're not fussed about faster loading, then pick a regular external HDD from this page and save a lot of cash.
Seagate has been making great value portable hard drives for a while now and is one of the go-to brands on both Xbox and PlayStation in recent years. It also makes a few limited-edition branded models like the Last of Us Part 2 model as found on our best PS4 external hard drives guide, while over on Xbox there's a bright green version or there's this Halo Game Drive.
We'd always recommend that you get an SSD, if you can afford it. SSD, even externally, massively outperforms the fastest HDD. While it is more expensive than a typical HDD, we'd say it's worth the extra money for the transfer, read, and write speeds you get. If you're looking for larger capacity drives for more than just games, HDD is much cheaper, and we'd definitely recommend HDD in those cases. Overall though, we'd say the best Xbox Series X hard drives are SSD ones.
Your best bet is the official Seagate storage expansion for Xbox Series X, since it's the closest thing to additional internal SSD storage as you'll get. You'll also be able to play Series X games on this drive, since it can keep to the sequential read and write speeds of the internal SSD. For external drives though, we'd always recommend SSD over HDD, simply due to the performance. HDD struggles to reach read and write speeds of 200MB/s, and SSD smashes that by thousands of MB/s depending on the drive, however, will be slowed down somewhat by the USB connection.
TL;DR: As of April 30, you can save up to $70 off a selection of gaming storage drives and memory cards(Opens in a new tab) during the latest Best Buy sale. That includes storage options compatible with your PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch(Opens in a new tab), or Xbox One.
Never run out of space again when you save up to $70 off select storage drives and memory cards(Opens in a new tab) for your gaming consoles when you shop at Best Buy. The current list of storage options on sale includes some of the most popular brands, such as Western Digital(Opens in a new tab) and SanDisk(Opens in a new tab). And not only do you get a great deal from Best Buy today, you also get fast and free delivery options including contactless curbside pickup(Opens in a new tab). Just double-check the specific drive you have in mind to make sure they're in stock at your local Best Buy. But most items also qualify for free shipping within the next week as well. 041b061a72