Early Black Friday External Hard Drive and Portable SSD Deals

Update 11/13/24:With Black Friday rapidly approaching, we’re doing our best to keep up with all the best external hard drive deals that have been coming out. To that end, we’ve updated these deals with a few more options, as well as updated pricing. Also, its very much worth checking back as we find more and better deals to add to this article!

Early Black Friday deals are popping up all over the place, with things like Black Friday Dell laptop deals, Black Friday gaming laptop deals, Black Friday tablet deals, and Black Friday desktop PC deals offering some hefty discounts. If you’ve had your eye on any of these, you may also want to consider an external hard drive for some additional storage space. There are several Black Friday external hard drive deals worth taking a look at, and we’ve rounded up the best of them below. Read onward for all of the details, as well as some information on things to look out for if you plan to purchase an external hard drive while these Black Friday deals are taking place.

Crucial X6 SE 1TB external SSD — $80 $100 20% off

Crucial

Solid state drives offer speedier transfer speeds than traditional hard drives, and while they also typically cost quite a bit more than traditional hard drives, here you can grab 1TB of solid state storage for just $68. The Crucial X6 SE 1TB external SSD regularly costs $100, so you’re getting some pretty impressive savings here. The drive is capable of reaching 800 MB/sec transfer speeds through USB 3.2 connectivity. It’s also incredibly small, so it will tuck away easily into a backpack for work on the go.

WD Easystore 2TB external hard drive — $70 $80 12% off

WD

One of the most popular external hard drives is the WD Easystore, which comes in at a variety of storage capacity but here checks in at 2TB. It connects to your computer or tablet via USB 3.2 and offers plenty of room to backup large media libraries. This Black Friday deal is good for $10 off its regular price, which may not seem like all that much, but really it makes an already affordable external hard drive an even better bargain, although you will need a My Best Buy Plus membership.

LaCie Rugged 5TB external hard drive — $170 $180 5% off

LaCie

The LaCie Rugged external hard drive isn’t seeing a massive Black Friday discount just yet, but it’s still worth grabbing if you’re looking for a hard drive that can take some bumps and bruises. It gets some pretty good transfer speeds via USB-C, but it also makes an enticing option for photographers, travelers, and anyone who needs to backup or take large amounts of media with them on the go. It has a drop, crush, and rain-resistant design made for all-terrain use, and its compatible with PC, Mac, and iPad.

WD Black D10 8TB external hard drive — $190 $270 30% off

WD

You can add both 8TB of storage space and some style to your computing setup with the WD Black D10 external hard drive. It has a cool design and it’s good for $80 in savings with this Black Friday deal. It has several different ways of connecting to a computer, including Micro-USB Type B and USB 3.2. The WD Black D10 external hard drive is capable of reaching 250 MB/sec transfer speeds, and while it isn’t as fast as what you’ll find among solid state drives, these are pretty good speeds for a spinning hard drive.

Seagate Expansion 16TB External USB — $280 $330 15% off

Seagate

If you’re looking for an absolute ton of storage, this 16TB external hard drive is going for an excellent $280, which is 15% off the usual $330 price. It comes with a USB 3.0 connection, so it’s fast and is relatively small for its size,

WD Easystore 20TB external hard drive — $320 $450 29% off

WD

If you’re looking for ultimate storage capacity and a pretty hefty discount, don’t miss out on this Black Friday deal on the WD Easystore 20TB external hard drive. It comes in with USB 3.0 connectivity so professionals may not find the transfer speeds they’re looking for, but if you aren’t in a huge hurry to get your media backed up this external hard drive should have just about everything covered from a capacity standpoint. You’ll also save a pretty impressive $150 with this deal, which brings the price of the WD Easytore 20TB external hard drive down to $320 from its regular price of $450.

SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE 12TB — $330 $395 16% off

SanDisk

While this SanDisk enclosure doesn’t have as much storage as some of the cheaper options, it’s all about having a high throughput for larger file sizes, like 4K videos. With a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, you can get a speedy 250MB/sec read/write speed, which is as fast as some gaming-specific HDDs. Of course, it does come with a hefty price tag, but at least the 16% discount knocks it down to a more palatable $330.

How to choose an external hard drive on Black Friday

The main thing you want to look for when purchasing an external hard drive is capacity. Even the best external hard drives have gotten relatively cheap over the years, but still, Black Friday is all about ultimate savings, and you don’t want to pay for any space you aren’t going to use. Most people will be able to get by with at or around 2TB of storage space, though these people could also go with a 4TB or 5TB to keep some room open for future use. People with massive media libraries don’t want to make the mistake of not getting enough space, so if you’re one of those people, be honest with yourself and spend a little more to ensure you’re getting a hard drive that will cover all of your storage space.

You’ll also want to ask yourself what your main use-case scenario is going to be with an external hard drive. If you’re just looking for something to connect to your computer from time to time in order to keep things backed up, you could go with some super cheap external hard drive options. If you’re using your hard drive regularly to access media files for video editing or other content creation, you’re going to want to be sure you get the fastest form of external storage you can afford, and may even want to consider an SSD. And if you plan to be out in the wild with your external hard drive, use Black Friday as an opportunity to get a discount on a hard drive with some rugged features to it.

How we chose these Black Friday external hard drive deals

There’s no one perfect external hard drive out there, and in fact there are more out there than most people realize, as more and more people are turning to external hard drives for additional computer storage. Our main focus in choosing these Black Friday external hard drive deals was the size of the discount and the overall final sales price. Black Friday is all about savings, so we wanted to be sure we found external hard drive deals that offer more of a discount than you’ll find throughout the year.

Quality is another factor, as there’s a concern with cheap hard drives conking out in a number of different ways. This completely defeats the purpose of having a backup drive or a place to store large files, so we chose external hard drive deals that feature a recognizable brand. There’s always some risk when you’re using a piece of equipment with moving parts, so traditional hard drives can be hit or miss. We stuck close to brands everyone is familiar with in making our selections.