Sony 2TB Professional External USB Rugged Hard Drive with Thunderbolt The next portable drive on the list is the SanDisk Extreme 510, which comes with an SSD designed for creative professionals by delivering sequential read speeds of up to 430 MB/s, as well as sequential write speeds of up to 400 MB/s. First up is the instantly-recognizable bright orange LaCie Rugged, which is getting a new model called the Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C. It will be offered with 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB hard drive options.
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Contents
You may be asking:
![External External](https://www.shutterstock.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2017/02/LaCie2.jpg)
Jun 17, 2020 The Adata HD710 is certainly an eye catching rugged hard drive, and it's also one of the best, thanks to a durable case made of a unique silicone material that includes military-grade shock.
What’s the point of a durable, rugged hard drives? Why should I take the time to look for something like that, when there are plenty of standard products on the market that seem perfectly fine?
Well, since hard drives are typically used to store or backup important (even essential) files, it’s critically important that they last and don’t break.
And this can be a concern for many people–especially for those who need to regularly transport their hard drives, exposing them to wear and tear and transit-related bumps and jostling. Similarly, those who worry about random disasters happening like floods or fires destroying all of their data will need something that can survive those situations.
So what is there to be done? Download adobe premiere cc.
Well, fortunately, there are many hard drives on the market that have been designed to withstand shock, water (including extended submersion), heat, cold, and even fire. Generally, these are standard hard drives with extremely durable casings or shells surrounding them.
Rugged hard drives in different price ranges
Here are a few examples:
LowAverageHigh$53.99$308.06$1200Silicon Power Rugged Armor A80 IEC 529 IPX7 Shockproof Hard Drive on Amazon ioSafe Solo G3 1 TB 3.5 External Hard Drive on Amazon ioSafe Rugged Portable SSD, 1 TB on ioSafe
What can the best ruggedized hard drives withstand without being damaged?
- Cold
- Heat
- Water
- Fire
- Dust
- Shock
- Pressure
If you are one of those people who absolutely needs to bring your important files along with you while in the most busy, hectic, or even climatically challenging situations, you’ll want to make sure to buy a rugged hard drive.
Avoid losing thousands of photos, your entire music library, or the novel you’ve been working on for the last year, just by dropping your hard drive and damaging its internal components.
Tips for purchasing a durable ruggedized hard drive
- Keep in mind that external hard drives generally cost, on average, about 10 to 50 cents per gigabyte.
- Depending on the amount of data you need to store, weigh the benefits of using a hard drive or cloud-based storage. If you are in the market for a rugged hard drive, making sure you don’t lose your data is clearly a priority–and that makes cloud-based storage a great option, since it won’t be anywhere near as vulnerable to damage as the vast majority of external hard drives. So it’s worth considering. In a comparison of the cost of using a hard drive for storage vs. cloud storage:[1]
- If you’re backing up small amounts of data, from 0 to 20GB, online backup is cheaper.
- Backing up a medium amount of data, from 100 to 500 GB, is cheaper with an external hard drive. In this price range, an online service costs about 42 cents per GB, while a hard drive costs about 41 cents per GB; the hard drive does not need to be paid for yearly, however, making it the more affordable option.
- For backups of 500 GB to 1 TB, they’re about even in cost. For three years of use, cloud-based storage will cost about 36 cents per GB and an external hard drive will cost about 21 cents per GB, but the cloud-based storage is more secure.
- For storage of more than 1 TB, which relatively few people will need, cloud-based storage is the more cost-effective option. 3 years of online storage will only cost about 4 cents per GB, while an external hard drive will be about 12 cents per GB.
- Be aware of what particular protections you’re looking for. Are you worried about flooding risk? Then you’ll want to take special care to find a hard drive that can withstand periods of submersion in deep water. On the other hand, are you looking for a portable hard drive to bring with you everywhere you go, one that can withstand shocks, falls, and crushing weights? Look for a hard drive that’s rated to withstand these types of stresses. Working in a high-altitude location? Find a hard drive that’s rated to withstand high altitudes. Some hard drives will offer all of these, as well as being fireproof, dustproof, freezeproof, and so forth, but be sure to find the right product for your specific needs.
- Purchase a product with more space than you currently need, if at all possible. In the long run, it’s undeniably cheaper to plan ahead buy one good quality, 500 GB hard drive, than to buy one 250 GB hard drive and then buy another for more storage after a year.
- Get a hard drive with USB 3.0, because even if your current computer doesn’t work with USB 3.0, the newest computers are, and most hard drives with this new USB can still use USB 2.0 if necessary until you inevitably replace your computer.
- Purchase a product with a good warranty. It may cost more, but it’s a lot better than having to replace a product if it breaks within a year or so of you purchasing it. The best warranties last as long as 5 years, which offers considerable peace of mind.
Caring for your hard drive
![Rugged Rugged](https://www.imore.com/sites/imore.com/files/styles/xlarge/public/field/image/2017/03/best-hard-drive-hero.jpg?itok=8DXHGXxO)
- Watch out for dust–a coating of dust can cause heat buildup, which is bad for hard drives. Luckily, durable hard drives are usually more resistant to high temperatures, but it’s still a good idea to keep your hard drive clean by regularly wiping it down and using canned air to blow away dust that’s trapped in vents.
- Use surge protectors to protect your hard drive from power surges, which can cause damage to electronics, including hard drives.
- Store it on a flat surface. Magnetic external hard drives have spinning pieces, as well as a magnetic needle, and work by moving close to the spinning pieces without ever touching them. If the hard drive is at an angle, the needle might be in the wrong place and this can affect the functioning of the hard drive.
- Only use your external hard drive for final saves of whatever you’re working on, rather than for each individual save of a document you’re currently editing; otherwise, the hard drive gets worn out more quickly than necessary.
- Make sure that each time you disconnect your external hard drive from your computer, you eject it from your computer (this is done in different ways on different operating systems). Never unplug the hard drive while it is in use. This prevents the data on the hard drive from being damaged.
- Keep your hard drive away from things that affect the temperature and humidity of the air: air conditioners, drafty windows, radiators, space heaters, humidifiers, etc.
- If the area around your hard drive is very warm and it isn’t properly vented, use a small fan to keep the air moving.
- Use a backup for your hard drive in case it breaks, so that you won’t lose all the important files stored on it.
- Listen for unusual sounds, which may be a sign that your hard drive is in danger of failure.
Keep reading to learn about the most durable hard drives on the market, in a range of prices:
Brand & Model | What makes it durable? | Other features | Rating | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|
Silicon Power Rugged Armor A80 IEC 529 IPX7 Shockproof Hard Drive |
|
| 4.5 / 5 | $53.99 |
ADATA SE730 Gen 2 Type-C Solid State Drive, 250 GB |
|
| 4.4 / 5 | Price not available |
Samsung T1 Portable 500GB USB 3.0 External SSD |
|
| 4.1 / 5 | $129.99 |
SanDisk Extreme 510 Portable SSD, 480 GB |
|
| 4.1 / 5 | $147.28 |
G-Technology G-DRIVE with Thunderbolt Portable Hard Drive, 1 TB |
|
| 3.9 / 5 | |
CalDigit Tuff Rugged Hard Drive |
|
| 4.1 / 5 | |
Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC USB 3.0 Rugged Hard Drive, 2 TB |
|
| 4.4 / 5 | $143.49 |
ioSafe Solo G3 1 TB 3.5 External Hard Drive |
|
| / 5 | $308.06 |
LaCie Rugged RAID, 4 TB |
|
| 4.1 / 5 | $231.25 |
ioSafe Rugged Portable SSD, 500 GB |
|
| Unlisted | $650 |
ioSafe Rugged Portable SSD, 1 TB |
|
| Unlisted | $1200 |
A durable, ruggedized hard drive is an essential product for anyone who needs to do more with their hard drive than keep it carefully protected in one spot, without any risk of it ever falling or being exposed to the slightest environmental perils. This may very well be the majority of hard drive owners, considering how useful it is to be able to transport your hard drive on a regular basis without risk or worry. If you’re part of that group, consider purchasing one of these impressively durable hard drives.
- Check out this article comparing cloud storage and external hard drives.
- Here’s a guide on how to buy an external hard drive.
- For more general product recommendations, PC Mag offers a guide to the best external hard drives of 2017.
Related Posts
It's a Great Time to Go for a Drive
Storage has never been more plentiful or less expensive. For as little as $50, you can add a terabyte (TB) to your laptop or desktop via an external drive. That's enough to house hundreds of movie files or hundreds of thousands of MP3s or photos. Every computer you can buy, from huge desktop towers to budget-price Windows tablets, can connect to at least one hard drive, with no complex installation required. And if you're lucky enough to have multiple I/O ports, you can hook up many more. But which to choose? Here's everything you need to consider when shopping for an external hard drive.
Hard Drive Types
There are two types of external drives. Desktop-class drives, with 3.5-inch mechanisms inside, require a power adapter. They are designed to stay in one place, typically on your desk at home or at the office. If you're buying a desktop-class drive for video or lots of file transfers, look for one with a built-in fan, as the extra cooling will extend the drive's life expectancy. Download ios for windows. Notebook-class (aka pocket or portable) hard drives are usually 2.5-inch mechanisms powered through the connector cable. You can slip a 2.5-inch model into a coat and even some pants pockets.
Desktop-class models currently top out at 8TB per mechanism, but some drive manufacturers put two or more mechanisms into a chassis for more storage (for example, two 4TB drives for a total of 8TB of storage). Notebook-class drives come in capacities up to 4TB, but capacities from 500GB to 2TB are most common.
A word about multiple drives: You can increase capacity, speed, or data protection by buying an external RAID array, but multiple drives add expense and (some) complexity. Once you connect a single-volume external RAID array to your PC or Mac, it will show up and act as any other external drive. After that, it can become more complex. You should consider a drive with support for RAID levels 1, 5, or 10 if you're storing really important data that you can't afford to lose. There are other RAID levels for speed and capacity, and both software and hardware RAID implementations. Read our primer, RAID Levels Explained, for a more in-depth explanation.
Another type of external storage is the solid-state drive (or SSD), which uses a type of flash memory to store data rather than spinning platters. These drives are faster, and in most cases cost quite a bit more than external hard drives. Check out The Best SSDs for our recommendations. Want to know more about how hard drives and SSDs compare? Check out SSD vs. HDD: What's the Difference?
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Best Rugged External Hard Drive 2017 Ford
External drives connect to PCs and Macs via external cables. USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports are almost always present, though there are also newer connectors like USB-C. USB 3.0 provides fast transfer speeds (up to 5Gbps theoretical throughput) and a minimum of fuss, since it's backward-compatible and almost all desktop and laptop PCs come with USB ports. The newer USB-C standard is faster still (10Gbps, or twice the speed of USB 3.0) and supported using the smaller and more convenient USB-C connector, but right now it is still somewhat uncommon to find on drives.
You may find older external SATA (eSATA) or FireWire ports on some drives, though they can't reach the speeds that USB 3.0 or USB-C can. Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2 use the Mini DisplayPort connector and promise even faster speeds (up to 20Gbps), but have largely been supplanted by USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 3, which boast blazing throughput of 40Gbps (assuming your computer supports the technology). Although Thunderbolt, which was originally developed by Intel and championed by Apple, has been something of a niche player, the inclusion of only USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 ports on Apple's new MacBook Pro laptops could easily spur wider-spread adoption this year.
Compressor 4 download. The external drives we've reviewed all have USB connectivity of one sort or another, but it's important to check that the drive you're considering is compatible with your computer. A handful of USB memory sticks and hard drives are currently available with both USB 3.0 and USB-C support via two separate connectors. Optional adapters will let you use older USB drives with PCs with newer USB-C ports.
How Important Is Drive Speed?
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While a 7,200rpm drive is inherently faster than a 5,400rpm drive, the real answer would be 'it depends.' If you are transferring lots of files over a speedy interface like USB 3.0/USB-C or Thunderbolt, then by all means go for the 7,200rpm drive. But if you're limited to USB 2.0 or FireWire, then I would trade speed for capacity and get the largest 5,400rpm drive your budget allows. USB 2.0 and FireWire 800 are older interfaces that work fine with a 5,400rpm drive. If all-out speed is your goal, running multiple drives over Thunderbolt 3 is the fastest (and costliest) way, with a single SSD connected via Thunderbolt 1/2 or USB 3.0/3.1 as next fastest, and so on.
Other Factors
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Do you care what your drive looks like? You can buy different colored drives for each family member, for example. Included software is a factor if you don't already have a local or online backup plan. If you're simply using the drive as an extra storage container, or if you're using the backup software built into Windows or macOS, the software bundled with the drive isn't as important. Warranty length is also a big factor in our ratings: Drives can and will fail. That cheap drive you found on a deal site may only come with a one-year warranty. Look for a three- or five-year warranty if you're hard on your drives.
To get you started toward the right add-on backup/storage solution, below are 10 of the best drives we've tested recently at a variety of prices and capacities. For more options, take a look at our lists of the best network-attached storage (NAS) devices and cloud storage services.
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Featured External Hard Drive Reviews
Best Rugged Hard Drive
CalDigit Tuff Review
$179.99 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% Not only is the CalDigit Tuff a rugged hard drive designed to survive extreme conditions, it's also a terrific value. Read the full reviewLaCie 5big Thunderbolt 2 Review
$3999.00 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The LaCie 5big Thunderbolt 2 is a powerful external hard drive system capable of holding up to 40TB of data individually, and more than a petabyte when connected together. But it doesn't come cheap, and it lacks USB ports. Read the full reviewSeagate Backup Plus Portable Drive Review
$149.99 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The Seagate Backup Plus Portable Drive gives you 4 terabytes of speedy storage you can take with you, as well as a personal cloud, all for a very reasonable price. Read the full reviewBuffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC Review
$129.99 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The 1-terabyte Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC has a built-in cable you can't lose, a rugged chassis that will survive a rough daily commute, and an NFC card and reader add some security to this portable hard drive. Read the full reviewCalDigit T4 RAID Review
$1199.00 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% Boasting throughput rates of higher than 500MBps and a 6TB formatted capacity, the CalDigit T4 RAID is a speedy, spacious drive that's well equipped for quickly tackling multitrack audio and 4K video projects. Read the full reviewLaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive Review
$149.95 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The 2TB LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive is a thin and super-fast portable hard drive that is not only attractive, but also USB-C compatible. Read the full reviewPromise Pegasus2 R2+ Review
$749.00 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The 6TB Promise Pegasus2 R2+ is a versatile external drive for Thunderbolt 2-equipped Macs and PCs. It uses a two-drive RAID array for speed and capacity, but it can be supplemented with removable hard-drive pods or its included media card reader. Read the full reviewSeagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim Review
$99.99 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim is an external hard drive that provides 2TB of storage space, quick data transfer speeds, and a sharp, super-slim design for just $100. Read the full reviewSeagate Innov8 Review
$349.99 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% Aimed at power users and those with big media collections, the Seagate Innov8 is an external hard drive that packs 8TB of storage and connects via fast USB-C. Read the full reviewWestern Digital My Passport (2016, 4TB) Review
$159.99 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The 4TB Western Digital My Passport is a solid portable hard drive that combines capacity and value with funky design and good performance. Read the full reviewG-Technology G-Drive ev ATC With Thunderbolt Review
$229.95 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The G-Technology G-Drive ev ATC is a rugged external hard drive with a removable enclosure that's made for traveling users who regularly find themselves at the mercy of the elements. Read the full reviewTranscend Storejet 300 for Mac Review
$188.99 MSRP
%displayPrice% at %seller% The 2-terabyte Transcend Storejet 300 for Mac has both Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces, which can be convenient if all of your USB ports are occupied. But you'll pay for that flexibility. Read the full review