A 1TB External Hard Drive

Whether you’re looking for a cheap 1tb external hard drive or one of the best external hard drives available on the market we’re pretty sure we have the right hard drive for you. With several years of experience in both reviewing hardware compononents and going through quite a number of external hard drives myself I’d say I have a good grasp of what to look for in the best 1TB external hard drive.

The main thing you’ll notice on this site is we don’t specifically look at one external hard drive. We’re not owned or paid by any of the big hard drive names so we’re free to review and suggest any hard drive we choose. We also know that different people need different features from their hard drives so we look at various options trying to find you the best one.
1tb external hard driveYou might also notice that most of our reviews are rated pretty highly. We don’t, for example, look at a lacie 1tb external hard drive? and review that individual model saying whether it’s good or bad. Instead we look for the best 1tb external hard drive for backups or the cheapest 1tb external hard drive. Perhaps a 1tb external hard drive with the fastest file transfers or the most secure. There’s also of course the best overall hard drive but you see what I mean?

There’s at least hundreds of poor quality and over priced external hard drives out there. You could pay more for a low quality 500gb external hard drive than you might for some of the better 1tb drives. But we don’t bother reviewing dries like these. It wastes our time saying the same old thing about hard drives we don’t suggest you use – and it wastes your time reading them. Instead we find good external hard drives and suggest them instead. Saves us both time and helps you find a better external hard drive to suit you needs without having to trawl through a load of useless ones first.

Best 1tb External Hard Drive

So there’s no one best 1tb external hard drive really. They all have different qualities and features and that suits different people. We look at the individual features of each drive and suggest it as an alternative depending on what you need. If you don’t really have something specific in mind from your hard drive then there’s also the quiz to help you find the best 1tb external hard drive to suit you and our #1 rated hard drive which we feel is a good solid choice in any situation.

There’s a lot of features we look for in an external hard drive. Whether you want a small usb powered external hard drive or USB stick to carry around in your pocket or a beefy 1 terabyte external hard drive the same standards still apply.

  • Capacity

This is usually pretty straight forward if you want a 1 tb drive. But there’s other choices from a 500 gig external hard drive up to a 2 terabyte external hard drive and they actually go much higher. Although it gets pretty expensive if you go any higher than that and it really makes more fiscal sense to buy two smaller ones than one big one if you’re going over 3 terabytes.
You want to make sure you have enough room for the files you want to hold and it’s always better to go bigger rather than smaller. So get an idea of how much storage space you think you’ll need and then add some to it. This way you not only have some ‘wiggle’ room but you also guard yourself against needing to upgrade so closely in the future. It’ll save you bother and money as it’s much cheaper to get one a little bigger now then buy a completly new one later. Again, unless you are going over 3 tb but that’s a different scenario for most people.

  • Transfer Speeds

Some people don’t mind sitting waiting around for their files to transfer but it drives others mad. It’s also situational but basically it’s a better idea to have a hard drive which is going to transfer files faster than slower. This comes down to the connections (mainly whether it’s USB 2.0 or 3.0 since FireWire is pretty much dead these days) and the read/write speed of the hard drive itself.
I usually put capacity and security ahead of this feature myself but that’s because I’d rather wait a little longer than risk having my 1tb external hard drive break down on me.

  • Security

Security in an external hard drive is two-fold. Firstly you want good rugged durability in the drive itself. A lot of the older and poorer quality external hard drives on the market would easily break down under too much stress. In fact a lot of them would break down locked in an air tight safe on the moon. What you want is an external hard drive which can take a beating. I don’t necessarily? mean you need to be able to run over it in your car (although with some of them – that’s an option) but you don’t need it breaking apart after dropping off your desk.
The other side of security for a 1 tb external hard drive is features like encryption and password protection. The risk you run with any external hard drive is that it can be stolen or accidently mistaken for another. Encrypting or password protecting your files means your more sensitive data won’t be seen by unwanted eyes.

  • Portability

This is more important for some people than it is others. Some will want to carry their external hard drives around in their bags or pockets while others will have theirs firmly on the desk. Size and weight is important to look at but you really want to consider how rugged the drive is as well if you want to carry it around. Also consider getting a hard drive cover if you’re carrying it around and something which is not on a thin base if it’s destined for your desk. A lot of hard drives have been damaged by falling one too many times because of a thin base.

  • Compatibility

Much less of an issue these days but still a feature. If you want the best 1tb external hard drive then you want to make sure it’s compatible with current operating systems and not just the one you use. You want to be able to transfer files with other computers if need by so you at least want Windows and Apple Mac compatibility. Most hard drives will say on the side what they work with and, as I say, this is much less of an issue now.

Get a 1tb External Hard Drive?

So once you have a firm idea of what you want and you’ve looked through our reviews where do you go? Well there’s on place that has a WD 2tb external hard drive or a cheap verbatim 1tb external hard drive. In fact is has deals almost daily, a huge selection and thousands of reviews from users of each hard drive. It’s the place that we use for pretty much everything electronic and you probably already have an account with them – that’s right we’re talking about Amazon.
Every one of our reviews links directly over to that hard drive on Amazon. We use them ourselves and they are probably one of the biggest names in online shopping so you get great delivery and peace of mind. For the best 1tb external hard drive quality, price and choice you’re best to look there.