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5 Best External Drives To Run Games From [2024 Guide]

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Updated onJanuary 8, 2024

updated onJanuary 8, 2024

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Whether you have anSSDinstalled on alaptopor have a gaming console, modern Triple-A titles take a lot of space on the hard drive, as a result, your gaming setup can run out of space in no time.

Buying anexternal hard drivefor yourPCor laptop allows you to get that extrastoragerequired to be flexible with your games and media files.

In this article, we have listed the bestexternal hard driveforPCsand gaming consoles to run games off of.

Note:Deals are subject to change. Keep in mind that the price tag often varies. We recommend going on the vendor’s website to check the price. Some of the products may be out of stock by the time you’ve made your purchasing decision. So, hurry up and hit the buy button.

Which are the best external drives for gamers?

Which are the best external drives for gamers?

Samsung T5 Portable SSD

Samsung T5 Portable SSD is for those power users who want reliable performance and don’t want to compromise with the speed of their external hard drive and are ready to spend a premium.

Samsung T5 Portable SSD offers 1TB of storage with a claimed superfast Read and Write speed of up to 540 MB/s to reduce the game loading time.

For connectivity, it comes with both USB Type-C and USB Type-A cables. Samsung has also equipped the SSD drive with an optional password and hardware encryption option.

WD 4TB My Passport

For a sub $100 device, WD 4TB My Passport offers a ton of storage at a good price. It may not be as compact the Samsung’s SSD, but for an HDD, it is compact enough.

WD bundle’s My Passport external hard drive with its Automatic backup software along with password protection and hardware encryption features.

For connectivity, it comes with a standard USB 3.0 port that is compatible with the USB 2.0 interface as well.

LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt

LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt is made for those who take their external hard drive’s durability seriously and prefer a device that can withstand some rough usage.

LaCie Rugged STFR1000800 offers 5TB of storage space with a shock, dust, and splash resistant shell protecting the data inside. For connectivity, it has a USB Type-C port along with the legacy USB 3.0 adapter included in the box.

Seagate Backup Plus Hub

Apart from the massive storage on offer, Seagate Backup Plus Hub comes with two additional USB 3.0 ports to connect external USB devices as well as for charging your smartphone.

Seagate Backup Plus Hub offers 8TB of storage for a premium. It also requires an external power source to power the device making it ideal for a desktop setup.

Seagate Expansion Desktop 8TB

If you want to go big without breaking the bank, the Seagate Expansion Desktop 8TB offers a massive amount of storage for a reasonable price. However, this is more of a desktop hard drive as it requires an external power source to power the device.

Despite its size, Seagate Expansion Desktop 8TB offers performance similar to WD My Passport hard drive with a sustained Read Write speed of 150MB/s.

For connectivity, it comes with USB 3.0 port but misses out on backup software and password protection.

Depending on how you are planning to use your external hard drive, go for either the faster SSDs or stick to the HDDs that offer more storage for less price.

Here are thebest  SSDs for gaming.

External HDDs are good because games are getting bigger and bigger.

Check out this list of thebest external HDDs for gamingthat you can buy.

Consumer-grade HDDs can go up as much as 32TB or more, but thoseat around 5 TBare the biggest that still have an acceptable price tag.

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Tashreef Shareef

Tashreef Shareef is a software developer turned tech writer. He discovered his interest in technology after reading a tech magazine accidentally. Now he writes about everything tech from Windows to iOS and streaming services to IoT at WindowsReport.

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