When would you want an SSD over a spinning drive? The answer is almost always yes-if you can afford it. That said, I have several SSDs that are more than 5 years old, and I've used them for daily backups throughout that time.

Just how much faster depends on how you use it. Every write operation to an SSD-that is, when you save something to it-slightly degrades the individual NAND cells that make up the drive, which wears it out somewhat faster than a spinning drive. The disadvantage is that they can wear out faster. They also lack moving parts, which means they'll withstand the bumps and falls of life in a bag on the road better than spinning drives. If speed trumps price, then you want to look at the solid-state drives we've listed here. The takeaway is simple: Stick with names you know.

Backblaze goes through massive amounts of hard drives backing up customers' data, and its report is worth reading.

This is based partly on experience and partly on the drive failure data that Backblaze has been publishing for years now. I suggest sticking with known brands that have a good reputation like Seagate, Western Digital, and the others featured here. Drives don't last forever, but some definitely last longer than others. Go for the cheapest drive you can find-up to a point. If you're making nightly backups, then speed probably doesn't matter. Picking the right hard drive comes down to balancing three things: speed, size, and price. (Take all claims of “military standard” with a grain of salt-there’s no one actually doing independent tests, which is not to pick on OWC, as every “rugged” drive maker claims things like this.) What impressed me the most about this drive, though, is how incredibly cool it stays even under a heavy load (like editing 4K video footage straight from the drive). It’s IP67-rated and reasonably drop-proof. For most, the 2-TB model is plenty, though still pricey at $400. It’s even faster and comes in sizes up to 4 TB, though the latter will set you back a staggering $900. If you want a larger drive, both physically and in terms of storage capacity, OWC’s Envoy Pro FX ($280 for 1 TB) makes a great choice as well. I also like that you can swap out the drive inside the aluminum casing (it's easy to unscrew), which means two years from now, you can pick up a faster bare SSD and drop it in the Elektron. It's tough to pick a winner here because there are many solid options, but OWC's Elektron drive narrowly beat others in benchmark tests. If you need a drive that can stand up to life in a backpack or camera bag, get wet, or handle a drop onto hard surfaces, OWC drives are your best choice.

Solid state external drive for mac