

But modern ones are faster, more stylish, and often more durable than their counterparts from a few years ago. In an era when many gigabytes of cloud storage storage cost a mere few dollars per month, and trim, slim external SSDs are getting cheaper, external hard drives, based on spinning platter disks, might appear less essential than they once were. Read our editorial mission (Opens in a new window) & see how we test (Opens in a new window). Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions.
