With the rise in popularity of the best SSDs, many people have begun to dismiss hard drives as a thing of the past. That’s a mistake: the best hard drives offer enormous amounts of storage at prices that SSDs simply can’t match. If you have a giant library of music, videos, or even photos, it’s a good idea to look to a traditional hard drive for all your archiving needs.
Regardless of what you need the storage for, no one wants to pay full price for what is essentially old technology, no matter how useful it is. As with any type of PC hardware, the MSRP is more of a guide than any kind of firm rule.
Luckily, here at TechRadar we’ve combed through hundreds of deals across the internet to find the best deals on hard drives so you don’t miss out on this week’s best sales.
The best hard drive deals
Seagate takes the top spot for hard drives, with its BarraCuda drives striking the perfect balance between storage, speed and price. The 3TB drives in this line are an especially good deal, as they really hit that sweet spot between high-density storage and a 7,200 RPM spin speed. And they do so while maintaining a price significantly lower than their direct competition.
So if you’re looking for a lightweight archival drive or primary drive and don’t want to take the plunge with an SSD, the BarraCuda will be a great option as it can reach read speeds of up to 190MB. /s, which is more than enough for everyday computing.
The best gaming hard drive deal
When it comes to gaming, the biggest priority is speed. No one wants to play their favorite PC games and encounter unbearable loading times. That’s where WD VelociRaptor drives really shine. These sleek drives deliver an incredible 10,000 RPM, so you’ll spend as little time as possible charging and more time gaming.
Better yet, they offer a much better price per gigabyte than even budget SSDs, so if you’re looking to reduce your downtime, you can do so and save a couple of dollars at the same time.
The best hybrid hard drive deal
Hybrid drives combine the best aspects of SSDs (solid state drives) and hard drives, allowing you to have high storage density while still having the speed of an SSD for the data you use most. Seagate FireCuda desktop drives take this formula and perfect it by including 2TB of data with 8GB of smart flash memory. It may seem like a small add-on to SSD space, but it learns and stores which files and apps you use the most, helping you access them faster than a standard HDD.
And now, with the increasing ubiquity of SSDs, there’s never been a better time to find a deal on FireCuda: As with other SSHDs, prices are constantly being reduced.
Best laptop hard drive deal
Nowadays, it is increasingly common for laptops to be built with SSDs. While this is great if you’re not necessarily looking for large amounts of storage, anyone who needs a lot of space to work with will be forced to pay an extremely high premium. Fortunately, HGST Travelstar solves this problem by offering 1TB of storage with a spin speed of 7200 RPM at a very modest price.
With 750GB and 1TB versions, the Travelstar is a great deal for anyone looking for a great hard drive for their laptop.
The best external hard drive offer
Do you travel a lot for work or school? Well, if so, the WD Elements line of external drives might be perfect for you. These drives not only offer a great price per gigabyte, but they are also small enough to carry around without breaking a sweat.
The WD Elements line not only offers high storage and high portability, but it also undercuts the competition on price, making it a great buy for anyone who needs to take their work with them.
