Group test: what's the best desktop hard drive?

5. WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo

• Reviewed on: 26 July 12
• RRP: £399 inc VAT
• Rating:

Huge storage and terrific performance make the WD Thunderbolt Duo an easy recommendation for anyone who needs fast, capacious storage on the desktop. It doesn’t have the premium build quality of the counterpart Thunderbolt RAID drive from WD’s newly acquired sub-brand Hitachi, and its eco drives make it a touch slower, but it runs quieter and costs around £100 less for the same capacity.

4. iStorage diskAshur DT 3TB

• Reviewed on: 20 July 12
• RRP: £279 inc VAT
• Rating:

If you need a static secure storage with very high capacity, the iStorage diskAshur DT comes highly recommended. It’s a smart and tidily crafted unit with easy to operate locking mechanism that will keep data safe under AES-256 lock and key. Priced from £179 for the 1TB version, it’s good value too.

3. G-Technology G-RAID with Thunderbolt 8TB

• Reviewed on: 27 April 12
• RRP: £720 inc VAT
• Rating:

The more time we spent testing this unit, the more respect we had for its incredible performance. Relatively quiet in use, the G-Technology G-RAID with Thunderbolt nevertheless proved to be a powerhouse in both capacity and performance. With that huge 8TB of storage on offer, accessible at real-world speeds consistently exceeding 300 MBps, the G-RAID offers size and speed that should satisfy any media professional or Mac power user.

2. WD My Passport Edge for Mac 500GB

• Reviewed on: 20 November 12
• RRP: £69.99 inc VAT
• Rating:

The WD My Passport Edge for Mac 500GB is a fast and stylish portable drive, embued with category-defining build quality and attractively slim dimensions. This covetable piece of storage technology is also competitively priced given its performance and supreme finish.

1. Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable Drive

• Reviewed on: 12 January 11
• RRP: £139.78 inc VAT
• Rating:

The Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable Drive is a fantastically versatile storage system. It allows an investment in compact and portable hard drives up to huge capacities, that can then be easily connected to any computer with a USB 2.0, USB 3.0, FireWire or eSATA connector. No other hard drive manufacturer has devised a system so simple yet effective. We hope to test the network adaptor kit in a later review. In our tests, the 1.5TB version of the Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex Ultra-portable Drive had incredibly quick performance, nigh-on 100MBps with USB 3.0, and it was also one of the fastest FireWire 800 drives we’ve tested too. This drive comes heartily recommended.