To protect yourself from this risk, its important to back up your data.
The alternative is to use an external hard drive as a backup unit.
For the best transfer speeds, it’s crucial that you connect it to a USB 3.0 port.
The Samsung T5 SSD
The Samsung T5 SSD is a tiny external drive.
It measures just 57.3mm, 74mm, 10.5mm, and weighs just 51 grams.
This makes it incredibly easy to transport, but also could make it slightly easier to lose.
Its compatible with Android devices, so you back up your photos straight from your phone.
With no moving parts and a metal exterior, its drop resistant to up to 2 metres.
The main downside is that it can be a little pricey, especially for the higher capacities.
The drive comes in one and two terabyte capacities and connects via a thunderbolt-3 compatible USB-C port.
Multiple devices can even connect at one time and stream video files.
you’re able to plug SD cards in directly and backup their data with a single button.
The Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC
USB 3.0 connections are also supported but there is no USB-C port.
The drive can survive drops of up to a metre, even while in operation.
It comes in three capacities between 500GB and 2TB.
The drive comes with optional AES-256 hardware encryption that uses a password to unlock.
Its also drop resistant from up to 2-metres.
This does, however, mean that the drive thermal throttles when performing longer transfers.
Those were our recommendations for the best external hard drives of 2021.
Have you got one of the drives we recommended, how has your experience been with it?
