If you are confused between an external SSD, an external hard drive, and a USB flash drive, it is to look at your requirements. USB flash drives aren’t generally used for long-term storage and are as good as portable drives. The external hard drives and SSDs, on the other hand, are great for long-term usage but are generally more expensive than the flash drives.
External SSDs are much more beneficial regarding read/write performance than any other portable storage medium. External Solid State drives are the most expensive of these three types of portable storage devices. They are generally up to 10x faster than the hard drives.
The flash drives and external hard drives generally offer similar read/write speeds but the external hard drives are good for long-term usage as compared to the flash drives. There are various situations where each of these will fit perfectly. So, let’s see which one fits perfectly as per your needs.
Who should choose External SSD?
External SSDs are solid-state drives fabricated inside a casing which makes them ideal for external usage as portable storage drives. They generally connect to our systems through the USB ports. However, there could be NVMe or SATA drives inside them storing the data.
External SSDs are great for those who want higher read/write speeds. If you want to move data frequently which happens generally for video editing, gaming, etc, these drives are great. Running your applications from these drives externally is also an option.
Usually, you get to see external SSDs with 1000MB/s speed. But, the drives like Samsung T9 Pro and Crucial X10 are now reaching up to 2000 MB/s of sequential read/write speed as the faster USB variants are arriving.
They are usually available in pretty large sizes i.e. 4TB and 8TB. The external SSDs are much more durable to shocks as compared to the external hard drives. Along with this, you get much more features like encryption and OTG.
But, as we discussed earlier, external SSDs are the expensive than external hard drives and flash drives. 100$ is a normal price for a 1TB consumer-grade external SSD. Some modern SSDs with the same storage space but with extra features may cost you nearly around 150$. Surprisingly, there are drives that may cost you more than 200$ for their 1TB variants.
Who should choose External HDD?
External hard drives are the best if you want a large storage volume generally for backup or raw data storage. These drives are not made for the best performance but for the best cost-per-GB. They are great for long-term storage because flash memory (used in both SSDs and flash drives) tends to lose data if you keep it without power for long periods of time. In this matter, hard drives are the best as long as you are not giving them physical shocks.
External hard drives are the best cost-effective storage mediums with the best value for money. But, you can’t expect to move big files with a speed of 900MB/s like SSDs. Reaching near around 150 MB/s read/write speed is considered good with hard drives. So, if you are OK with it, you are good to go with any popular external hard drive.
Who should choose Flash Drives?
If you are looking for external drives with a smaller size, small storage capacity, and relatively cheaper price, you can go for flash drives. However, I have mentioned in this article that you should not consider flash drives for long-term storage. They are great for on-the-go transfer but not suitable for storing sensitive data for long durations.
They are ideal for sharing data across devices. In simple words, the flash drives are made for convenience and portability. So, if those are your requirements, you should go for the flash drives.
Detailed comparison of Flash drives, external HDD, and Portable SSD
| Feature | External SSD | External Hard Drive (HDD) | USB Flash Drive |
|---|---|---|---|
| Storage Capacity | 250 GB to 4 TB+ | 500 GB to 20 TB+ | 16 GB to 1 TB |
| Speed | 400 MB/s to 3045 MB/s | 100 MB/s to 160 MB/s | 20 MB/s to 400 MB/s |
| Durability | High (no moving parts) | Moderate (Prone to damage from drops) | High (no moving parts, small size) |
| Use Case | High-speed data transfer, gaming, large file handling, frequent use | Large data backups, media storage, archives | Quick file transfers, temporary storage, bootable drives |
| Power Consumption | Low to moderate | Moderate to high | Very low |
| Typical Lifespan | 5-10 years | 3-5 years | 5-10 years |
| Noise Level | Silent | Audible (due to spinning disks) | Silent |
| Typical Weight | 50g to 200g | 200g to 1kg | 5g to 50g |
| Example Products | Samsung T9, SanDisk Extreme Pro | Seagate Backup Plus, WD My Passport | SanDisk Ultra, Kingston DataTraveler |
External SSD vs External HDD: Special Mention
External SSDs use the NAND flash-based memory which offers a lower latency and makes the most out of the USB interface from your computer. You will get almost the same speed the USB supports at its max. However, the NVMe drives which are installed inside the external drives are much faster than what they deliver to you. This happens because the maximum speed gets bottlenecked by the USB interface through which you connect your drive.
This isn’t the case with the external hard drives generally. These drives are well within the maximum speed limits of the USB interfaces.
You can’t actually do anything for this bottleneck issue in the external SSDs but it surely has an impact on the actual price for which you don’t get a proper return.
The limitations of the Flash drives
Along with their limited storage capacity and durability concerns, the flash drives age much faster than the external SSDs and hard drives. Also, if your drive isn’t encrypted or password-protected, your information can be under threat if your drive is lost.
Most of the time, the flash drives could be formatted in the FAT32 format. This format has some limitations and the biggest one is that it supports the maximum file size of 4GB. Sometimes, due to improper ejections, the data on the flash drives may get corrupted.