Solid-state drives are computer storage drives that use flash-based technology, which is faster and less prone to wear than older hard disk technology. Traditional hard drives rely on a disk that spins in order to read and write data. Solid-state drives, on the other hand, have no moving parts, making them sturdier over time.

In terms of the technology they employ, external SSDs are quite similar to USB flash drives while providing more gigabytes of storage than the smaller thumbnail flash drive.

While there are many external portable hard drives that use disk technology, investing in a solid-state drive can give you more stable and reliable long-term storage for everything from family photo collections and personal documents to music libraries and video games. In fact, for gaming, there are internal and external gaming drives that are specifically compatible with gaming consoles so you can store large video game collections.

You will find a portable SSD highly convenient if you want to keep your computer running more smoothly while handling a lot of data. For instance, if you are using photo editing software or music editing software, you can use an external SSD to access your most-used files quickly and easily without filling up your computer’s internal storage space.

An external solid-state drive can also give you a place to store valuable documents and materials away from the internet and not on a laptop you use regularly. When you connect your portable SSD to a computer, protect your materials by ensuring that you use anti-malware on your computing devices.

Choosing the best external SSD largely comes down to deciding on the storage capacity you want. You may benefit from a single large SSD card, such as a 2TB-7TB SSD, or you might want multiple smaller drives each devoted to a different category of storage. Having multiple portable SSDs can be a good choice if you are using drives to share data with collaborators.