Hard Drives

You've found your way to the part of our website where you should be if you need a new external hard drive or internal hard drives. Like with all of our categories we're here to find the best external hard drive deals, and help you compare the specifications of the various hard drives currently available. If you want a top quality external hard drive then brands such as Samsung, Western Digital, Seagate and Toshiba are eager to provide one for you. The cost of hard drives has come down a lot recently, you can get a one terrabyte (1TB) external hard drive for under £60, 1tb internal hard drives are available for under £50. An external hard drive is handy to keep a backup of important data, as it's much easier to connect an external hard drive up to a computer than internal hard drives are. To help you get the best deal we've also attached any relevant vouchers and coupons to each offer if we have one available. To help your external hard drive hunt further, we have collect vouchers and coupons from around the internet and attached them to relevant offers. ... View more - View less

View the Hard Drives Buyers Guide

5792 Results from 14 retailers

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- Origin Storage - Hard drive - 146 GB - internal - Ultra320 SCSI - 68 pin HD D-Sub - 15000 rpm
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- £326.61
- Marketing description is not available...
- £326.61
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 1-2 Weeks
- Dell - FDD filler panel
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- £14.40
- The F3 floppy filler panel fills the empty slot meant for a floppy drive in your Dell systems, when you do not...
- £14.40
  P&P: N.A.
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 5-7 Days
- Kingston 128GB SSDNow V+ 180 SATA2 1.8"
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- £169.99
- **SSDNow V+ 180 Drive** *Dramatically increase the performance of existing systems.* Kingston? introduces its...
- £169.99
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: 1 To 3 Working Days
- 3.5 Usb Esata To Sata Hard Drive Laptop Enclosure Caddy
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- £914.20
- high quality 3 5 sata ii i to usb 2 0 external hard drive enclosure caddy case with fan high quality 3 5 sata...
- £914.20
  inc P&P - £919.20
  
  Availability: In stock
- Intenso Portable External Hard Drive, USB 2.0, 1TB, Black
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- £109.95
- Take files anywhere in style with the Intenso Portable External Hard Drive USB 2.0 with protection suite...
- £109.95
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock
- Platinum 104130 MyDrive 1TB Usb 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive - Poison Green
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- £101.87
- Platinum 104130 MyDrive 1TB Usb 3.0 Portable External Hard Drive - Poison Green
- £101.87
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
- Western Digital Elements External Hard Drive - 1TB
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- £77.99
- Pre-formatted for Windows (Mac users can reformat for their own operating system) the black Western Digital...
- £77.99
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: 1 to 3 days • Warranty: See Site
- Western Digital WDBACG0010HCH-EESN
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- £199.95
- The Western Digital My Book Live is a NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive and media server which supports...
- £199.95
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: Check Site • Warranty: 1 Year
- Hitachi Lifestudio 500GB Mobile Plus USB Hard Drive with Dock Station and Smart 4GB USB key with auto-sync - Graphite
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- £160
- LifeStudio Mobile Plus Graphite Identische Artikel: HLSMPEA5001ABB - Hitachi 500GB USB 2.0
- £160
  inc P&P - £164.59
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
- g_technology G-Technology 750GB G-DRIVE mobile USB Portable Hard Drive
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- £114.95
- The G-DRIVE mobile USB hard drive is the ideal travel companion for your new Apple MacBook. Weighing in at...
- £114.95
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: In Stock • Warranty: See Site
- Iosafe Rugged 500Gb Portable USB 3.0 Hard Drive
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- £179.99
- Iosafe Rugged 500Gb Portable Usb 3.0 Hard Drive
- £179.99
  inc P&P - £184.78
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: 2-3 Days
- Freecom Mobile Drive Classic 3.0 - 500 GB portable external hard drive, black
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- £63
- Solid, compact and stylish, the Freecom Mobile Drive Classic 3.0 is a portable external hard drive...
- £63
  inc P&P - £66.30
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: 1-2 days
- HP 3.5 1tb Hpusb3
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- £79.99
- HP SimpleSave external hard drive series offers customers simple and automatic backup for photos. video. music...
- £79.99
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock
- Dell PowerVault™ MD1200 PowerVault MD1200 Base
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- £2,079
- PowerVault MD1200 Base - 3Yr ProSupport and Next Business Day On-Site Service
- £2,079
  inc P&P - £2,139
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually ships in 10-15 days
- Origin Storage - Hard drive - 73 GB - hot-swap - SCSI - 80 pin Centronics (SCA-2) - 15000 rpm
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- £280.24
- Origin Storage is a global supplier of IT storage solutions and components. The company's product...
- £280.24
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 1-2 Weeks
- Origin Storage 73GB 15k PE *300-500 series - SCSI Hotswap HD Kit with Caddy
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- £280.24
- Origin Storage is a global supplier of IT storage solutions and components. The company's product...
- £280.24
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 1-2 Weeks
- Origin Storage - Hard drive - 146 GB - hot-swap - SCSI - 80 pin Centronics (SCA-2) - 15000 rpm
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- £447.38
- Origin Storage is a global supplier of IT storage solutions and components. The company's product...
- £447.38
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: Within 24 Hours
- Origin Storage - Hard drive - 146 GB - hot-swap - SCSI - 15000 rpm
  Visit Store
- £447.38
- Marketing description is not available...
- £447.38
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 1-2 Weeks
- Origin Storage - Hard drive - 73 GB - hot-swap - Ultra320 SCSI - 80 pin Centronics (SCA-2) - 15000 rpm
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- £280.24
- Marketing description is not available...
- £280.24
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 1-2 Weeks
- Quantum LTO-2 Half-Height CL1001-SB - Tape drive - LTO Ultrium (200 GB / 400 GB) - Ultrium 2 - SCSI LVD - internal - 5.25
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- £759.56
- For budget and space-constrained IT environments, the Quantum LTO-2 HH provides exceptional performance and...
- £759.56
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 1-2 Weeks
- Dell - 32 GB - SATA - Solid State Drive - Kit
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- £584.99
- The Dell™; 32 GB Hard Drive offers an ideal data storage solution for your Dell™; Systems. In addition...
- £584.99
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 5-7 Days
- Dell SDLT Tape Cleaning Cartridge, Single, Dell-branded (KIT)
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- £41
- Many causes of recording or read errors are temporary and can be corrected by cleaning the tape drive. Regular...
- £41
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 24-48 Hours
- Dell 200 LTO4 WORM Media Labels 1-200 (Kit)
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- £65
- The LTO4 Worm Media Labels from Dell™; take complete care of your label-handling needs. The pack includes...
- £65
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 5-7 Days
- Dell LTO2-L / LTO3 Tape Tape Magazine for Dell PowerVault PV124T FS Servers
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- £200
- Compact and highly reliable, Dell™; LTO2-L / LTO3 Tape Magazine are an ideal solution to high-volume backup...
- £200
  P&P: Free
  
  Availability: In stock • Delivered: Usually Ships In: 5-7 Days

Buying Guide - External Drives

Written by Pure Content

Types/sizes

An external drive or external HDD is a convenient back-up system for your data that is generally very easy to use. An external drive can be kept separate from your computer, meaning that the external drive data can be used on any computer if and when this becomes necessary.

couple on laptops

An external drive or external HDD can typically store far more data than most other domestic data storage systems, such as CD-ROM or the older technology floppy disk. Unless you have a particularly large amount of data for storing on your external drive, you will be likely to need only the one external drive on which to periodically back up data from the main hard drive of your computer. You could even use an external drive to back up data from a number of computers, making it a way of combining filing systems before transferring the data to a new computer.

Although there are different varieties of external drive, the most common types of external HDD for a domestic user will be the desktop external drive and the portable external drive. As the names suggest, the difference between these two types of external HDD is essentially one of mobility: one external drive is designed to be kept in one place, attached to a computer via USB connection, while the other external drive is designed to be moved from one location to the next. These can easily be carried in a bag for when you need to take your external HDD with you whilst on the move. For an office situation with a number of interconnected computers, a network external drive is also available, so that the external drive or external HDD can be shared between the different computers on the office network.

Storage explained

The way in which your computer stores most of its data is via an internal hard drive, which is housed within either the desktop or the laptop computer. The internal hard drive is used to store more permanent data, such as the operating system and any applications used regularly. As a result, right from the start a good portion of your available storage space is taken up by your system's minimum requirements. In addition, the system often builds up more and more data as it operates, from updating itself and carrying out antivirus checks, not to mention the growing number of documents that you will be likely create and save throughout the lifetime of the computer.

Modern user applications also use increasingly large amounts of storage space for the data that they produce, whether this is in the form of images, graphics, video, or highly formatted documents and other media. All this means that the hard disk within your computer will fill up quickly, and if you have the same computer for a number of years, the accumulated data can become very substantial.

Solutions such as storage on a CD-ROM or floppy disk have been used for smaller segments of data, such as a selection of files or images, but to conveniently and reliably back up all your data from your computer, a storage space with a larger capacity is needed, and that is where the external drive or external HDD comes into play.

External drive or external HDD models are similar to the hard disk inside your computer, but with an external HDD, none of the operating system software or application files are required, as the external drive is usually run by your computer over a USB or FireWire interface. In short, you are free to copy whatever data you need onto the external drive, and the external drive will not automatically fill up with system data. Furthermore, as technology has advanced, external hard drive models on the market are able to store more and more data, meaning that it is even easier to make a full backup of all your personal data onto your external drive.

Connections

When you decide on the connection type between your computer and your external drive, you are likely to base this on the connection sockets that are already available on your computer. Even so, if you want to use a connection of a specific type for your external drive it is often possible to have a port for this added to the circuit board on your machine.

hard drive

Typically, however, your choice of connection type between your computer and your external drive will be between a USB interface and a FireWire interface. It is likely that a modern computer will be fitted with a number of USB ports, so this choice is the safer option for your external drive or external HDD if you are uncertain of compatibility. Even if you have an older computer with just one or two USB ports, it is possible to buy a USB hub, which is a fairly cheap way of splitting the USB connection, effectively providing you with several USB connections that you can use for your external drive, in the same way that you can purchase electrical extension cables for more than one electrical socket.

FireWire is a more recent type of connection and is convenient for extremely large files, such as long videos or large multimedia files, as the FireWire connection allows for a much faster data transfer rate. Not all computers are necessarily fitted with a FireWire port however, so you should check this before you commit to a FireWire interface for your external drive.

Speed

In terms of the way that your external drive works, the main thing to look for apart from storage volume is rotation speed, as this shows the efficiency of external hard disks in the same way as for internal hard disks. The higher the speed of the rotation of any external hard drive, the faster they can work to transfer data to and from the computer.

In general terms, the internal hard disk of a typical home computer is likely to have a rotation speed in the area of 7,200 rotations per minute (rpm), and that can act as your comparison point when looking at the rotation speed of an external HDD. Other computers may have rotation speeds that are faster or slower, as may the external drive, but you certainly should try not to get an external drive with a rotation speed of less than 5,400 rpm, as this would almost certainly reduce the efficiency of the connection with your computer.

An external drive or external HDD rotation speed of more than 7,200 rpm, such as up to 10,000 rpm, is possible if you have a particular need for fast data transfer, but an external drive with this sort of rotation speed is also likely to have less memory space available for data storage.

With a regular external drive rotation speed, you can usually find a desktop external drive with a storage capacity of up to a terabyte of space (1,000 gigabytes), or a portable external drive with a storage capacity of up to 500 gigabytes. Network external drive hard disks have greater storage capacities still, but domestic users will seldom require such capacity unless they have particularly great storage demands, for example, high definition video files or other media that require extremely large file sizes.

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