External Storage Guide
USB drives, SD cards, hard drives, SSDs, and the cloud — what each one is for, and which to buy.
The short version
- •For one envelope of tax files: a USB flash drive.
- •For a full computer backup: an external hard drive.
- •For working with video or fast transfers: an external SSD.
- •For phone photos and ongoing backup: cloud storage.
- •SD cards mostly live inside cameras, dashcams, and the Switch.
Watch out for fake drives on Amazon
Many cheap "1TB" or "2TB" USB drives sold by no-name sellers are counterfeit — they show the wrong size to your computer and lose your files. For storage, buy only from sellers marked "Sold by Amazon," or shop at Best Buy or Costco. SanDisk, Samsung, and Western Digital are the safe brand names.
The five types, side by side
When to pick what
Backing up phone photos before getting a new phone
iCloud or Google Photos moves the pictures over for you when you sign in on the new phone. Save a second copy to a USB drive or SD card so you have one offline too.
Sending tax records to an accountant
A small SanDisk Ultra Fit holds many years of tax PDFs and slips into an envelope. Put a label on it. Most accountants prefer a drive over emailing sensitive files.
Archiving old documents and family papers
A 2TB WD Easystore costs about $80 and holds decades of scans. Pair it with a cloud account so a fire or a flood does not take everything.
Moving big files (videos, photo libraries) between devices
A SanDisk Extreme Portable copies a full photo library in minutes, not hours. The speed makes a real difference once files are bigger than a few gigabytes.
Ongoing backup so I do not have to think about it
iCloud, Google One, or OneDrive runs in the background. $3 a month for 200 GB covers a phone and a laptop for most people.
Quick Tip: the 3-2-1 rule
For anything you cannot afford to lose (photos, tax records, family videos), keep:
- •3 copies of the file
- •On 2 different kinds of storage (your computer plus an external drive, for example)
- •1 copy off-site (cloud, or a drive at a relative's house)
A burglary, a fire, or a hard-drive failure cannot wipe out all three at once.
A few buying notes
- •Modern computers use USB-C ports. If your laptop is from 2020 or newer, look for a drive with a USB-C end (or a small adapter).
- •iPhones and most Android phones do not have a USB-A port. To plug in a flash drive, you need one with a Lightning, USB-C, or micro-USB end.
- •For a Mac, set the drive to "ExFAT" format if you also want to use it on a Windows computer. Most drives come this way out of the box.
- •Hard drives last 3 to 5 years on average. Plan to replace yours, and do not store the only copy of anything important on a drive that is older than that.