Sometimes, the smallest upgrades can go a long way in extending the life of your tech, as long as you're willing to do a little DIY. And that's where the Phison E28 SSD comes in.

Now, you probably haven't heard of Phison unless you're really into your Solid State Drives (SSD), but for those that don't know: Phison is a Taiwanese electronics company specializing in the design and manufacture of NAND flash controllers and storage solutions — and its storage controller designs are used in popular SSDs from mega brands like Seagate, Corsair, MSI, and Kingston.

As an M.2 SSD, it'll slot into your desktop, laptop, and even a game console. Yes, you can even put this PCIe Gen 5 SSD into a PlayStation 5. But the real question is: is it worth looking for an SSD with a Phison E28 controller to get a few more years out of your old hardware? Let's find out.

Phison E28 SSD: Specs and features

Here's the thing: Phison doesn't sell SSDs directly to consumers.

In fact, Phison's E28 is just a reference design. But you will find the E28 SSD controller used in various storage devices by major SSD manufacturers such as Seagate, Corsair, MSI, and Kingston in the coming days.

Because you won't be purchasing the E28 directly from Phison, pricing will vary by OEM, but should remain relatively comparable to the highly-rated WD Black SN8100 (which typically retails at around $179 for the 1TB capacity, and climbs to $479 for 4TB).

As a note, Phison's E28 ranges in storage capacity from 1TB to 8TB, though our E28 reference design was a 2TB solid-state drive.

In addition to featuring the PCIe Gen 5 interface, the E28 storage controller is NVMe 2.0 and PCI Express Base 5.0 compliant. The SSD features a flash interface with transfer rates up to 2400MT/s with up to 2pcs of BGA308 flash.

Phison E28 SSD: Performance

We typically measure SSD performance in read/write speeds, but for the Phison E28, we dove a little deeper into the SSD performance testing for a clearer image of just how good the E28 controller really is.

While the Phison E28 is not the top-performing SSD on every benchmark, it offers solid all-around performance across various benchmarks from the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test to CrystalDiskMark. The E28 was more mid-range on the 3DMark Storage Benchmark, but certainly within range of the best SSDs.

As our colleagues over at Tom's Hardware point out in their preview coverage of the Phison E28, the drive is also rather power-efficient, making it a solid choice for desktops with lower power ceilings or for consoles and laptops.

The one caveat, of course, would be that the reference design Phison E28 doesn't feature a heat sink, which can make it less than optimal for use inside a PS5 console.

Pro Tip: Don't replace your laptop, just get a new SSD

You probably think your old laptop is getting slow due to wear and tear, or the increasing demands of modern workloads, and you're probably right. To a degree.

While you should probably upgrade your 8-year-old GTX 1060 gaming laptop to a more modern, ray-tracing-capable model, your RTX 30-series gaming laptop may just need a bit more SSD speed to keep it going for a few more years.

The same is true for ultra-light laptops like the Acer Swift 3 (2020). While not a bad laptop, we did take points off for a slow SSD in our initial review, so it's a prime candidate for an SSD upgrade.

Now, swapping the SSD on your laptop isn't for everyone. While some laptops like the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 and 18, or the HP ZBook Fury 18 and 16 G1i, come with extra SSD and RAM upgrade slots and a quick-release latch on the bottom panel, most don't.

But with the right screwdriver set and some courage, you can usually swap out your SSD for a new one.

And it just might save your old laptop or desktop from the recycling bin. At least for another couple of years.

More from Laptop Mag

• Just like many Windows 10 users, some SSDs are snubbing Windows 11, too
• 7 of the best portable SSDs for content creators and power users
• How to choose the best laptop SSD or hard drive

The best portable SSDs for content creators often aren't cheap, but they're exactly what you need if you're dealing with loads of videos or photos at a time.

Sure, hard drives (HDDs) still exist, and sure, they might cost you less, but they're also excruciatingly slow by comparison. Do you really want to wait for hours to back up some files? No? Well, in that case, you've come to the right place.

We should all be backing up our files (I know you've heard that one before), but content creators and power users need a specific type of portable SSD. It needs to be speedy enough to allow you to work on your files without moving them to your computer (although editing on one of the best laptops would still be faster). Plus, they need to be spacious as you're dealing with large files on a daily basis.

My favorite pick for the best portable SSD for content creators is the SanDisk Extreme Pro. With sequential read speeds hitting 3,800MB/s, it's going to make huge file transfers much less of a headache.

The Crucial X9 is an alternative if you're less concerned about blazing speeds and just want something durable, compact, and still way faster than a traditional HDD.

I have a few more picks for you down below, so check out the best portable SSDs for content creators. They'll help you rest easy with reliable (and fast) backups.

Best portable SSDs for content creators

How to choose the best portable SSD

Without beating around the bush: Portable SSDs aimed at content creators aren't exactly cheap. In fact, portable SSDs aren't cheap, period. But they're great if you pick the right one for your needs, which is why it's important to choose correctly.

Below, I'll answer some of the most frequently asked questions to help you pick the perfect SSD for your needs.

• How fast does my SSD need to be?
  As a content creator, if you're working with 4K/8K video or RAW photos, you want your SSD to be reasonably fast. Aim for newer USB 3.2 Gen 2 or Gen 2x2 speeds that are in the 1,000MB/s to 2,000MB/s range at a minimum.
  Faster SSDs exist (there are a few on this list) and they're nice to have, but pricier.
• How much capacity do I need?
  Most creators should aim for 2TB as a sweet spot right now. 1TB is a way to save money if you don't deal with large files. 4TB becomes necessary if you're doing large projects. For huge storage purposes, stick to HDDs, which tend to be cheaper.
• Do I need to care about durability?
  Nearly every SSD on this list is water-resistant, and many can handle varying degrees of falls. If you're often on the go, make durability your top priority and aim for an SSD with an IP65 rating or higher.
• Do I even need a portable SSD?
  If you have some old SSDs laying around, be they M.2 or SATA, you can stick them into a USB enclosure and use them as a backup drive. They'll be a cheaper, but worse alternative to buying an actual portable SSD.

Portable SSDs are a great way to keep your files safe without condemning yourself to ultra-slow transfer speeds. Consider the above points and pick the drive that works for your needs.

A fan so small and silent that it fits inside your laptop’s SSD. It’s an idea that might sound somewhat farfetched, but xMEMS Labs, known for making solid-state speakers for earbuds, has managed to pull it off with its µCooling chip.

This isn’t your typical thermal management solution. Originally built for data center applications, xMEMS has now expanded the technology to support active thermal management for laptops.

Effectively keeping SSDs cool from the inside out, µCooling is a microscopic air pump that lives right on top of the drive, blowing cool air over the parts that tend to overheat. It’s small, silent, and smart. And yes, it works.

Why your SSD needs to chill

Let’s say you’re installing a massive game or exporting a big video project. If your laptop suddenly slows to a crawl halfway through, it might not be your CPU or RAM to blame. It could well be your SSD getting too hot.

Today’s SSDs use a fast connection called PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), which lets them move data at lightning speeds of up to 7,000MB per second.

But with that speed comes a lot of heat, and if the drive gets too hot, it slows itself down to avoid damage. This is a frustrating phenomenon called thermal throttling, and laptop manufacturers are constantly looking for workarounds to it.

While most laptops rely on system fans or metal heat spreaders to cool their SSDs, that doesn’t cut it anymore, especially in slim devices where airflow is limited. That’s where µCooling could make a real difference.

What exactly is µCooling?

µCooling (“micro-cooling”) is a solid-state fan-on-a-chip that uses piezoelectric membranes — super-thin layers that vibrate at ultrasonic speeds — to move air. It’s like a microscopic air pump, sealed in a chip no bigger than a fingernail.

At just 1 millimeter thick, µCooling is small enough to fit on an SSD without changing its size or design. It doesn’t spin, make noise, or wear out like traditional fans. But it still pushes air over the SSD’s hottest components, the controller and flash memory, where heat builds up.

According to xMEMS, µCooling can reduce SSD temperatures by 18–20% and reduce heat build-up resistance by 30%. That could mean dropping a drive from 80°C down to 64°C, or the difference between throttling and full speed. It also means your storage runs cooler for longer, even under heavy workloads. For everyday laptop users, this translates to:

• Faster game installs and file transfers.
• Fewer slowdowns when multitasking.
• Longer sustained performance in ultrabooks or fanless laptops.
• Less heat bleeding into other components, such as the battery or CPU.

And because µCooling only uses around 30 milliwatts of power, it won’t sap your battery life. Plus, it’s completely silent: The membranes vibrate above 20 kHz, which is beyond the range of human hearing.

How it stacks up against AirJet

If this sounds familiar, you might be thinking of Frore Systems’ AirJet, another solid-state cooling tech that’s also currently making headlines. AirJet is more powerful (capable of cooling processors and other hot components), but it’s also way bigger and typically added on top of CPUs.

µCooling, by contrast, is purpose-built for SSDs. It’s smaller, lighter, and designed to be embedded directly on the drive itself. It may not move as much air as AirJet, but it’s far easier to integrate into thin laptops, especially those with a premium space.

xMEMS is already working with SSD manufacturers, with full production slated for early 2026. While no laptops have officially launched with µCooling yet, it might only be a matter of time before this tiny tech shows up in next-gen gaming notebooks and ultra-thin laptops.

So if your next laptop loads games faster, stays cooler, and runs whisper-quiet, you might have the world’s smallest fan to thank.

More from Laptop Mag

• Nvidia’s 120W APU leak could mark the beginning of the end for laptop GPUs
• "We don't circulate this much": Google co-founder reveals shocking AI hack
• Apple is finally doing something about its confusing OS naming conventions

Let's face it. Game files are massive nowadays and will likely get larger over time. Case in point, I recently added WWE 2K25 to my Steam library, and it ate up 103GB of storage. Poof!

Thankfully, Walmart continues to slash up to $100 off Western Digital's top-rated SSDs for PC and PS5 this week. If you're like me and need more storage for your ever-growing collection of games, now is the perfect time to save.

One featured deal I recommend is the WD Black SN770 1TB NVMe SSD for just $63 ($22 off). This is one of the lowest prices I've seen for this capacity internal SSD and one of the best gaming deals out there.

If you require more storage, you can snag the 2TB SN770 SSD for $119 ($40 off). This deal was so popular that it sold out previously at Walmart, so act fast.

Western Digital's WD Black NVMe SSDs are popular among the gaming crowd due to their high performance, reliability, and peace of mind 5-year warranty.

The WD Black SN770 boasts read speeds of up to 5,150 MBps and write speed of up to 4,850 MBps. This means shorter load times, smoother running games and speedy file transfers.

Don't want to go through the hassle of cloning your internal SSD to swap in a new one? WD has an external SSD game drive for this scenario.

Walmart's SSD storage sale offers the WD Black P40 2TB Game Drive for $199 ($100 off). This high-performance SSD delivers fast transfer speeds at a rate of up to 2,000 MB/s. It works with PC, PS5, PS4, PS4 Pro, Xbox Series X|S, and Xbox One gaming consoles.

So if you're on the brink of maxing out your storage, don't miss out on saving up to $100 on your next investment.

Keep scrolling to browse the seven Walmart SSD storage deals I'd add to my shopping cart.

Top SSD storage deals at Walmart — Quick links

• WD Black SN770 1TB NVMe SSD: was $85 now $63 at Walmart
• WD Black SN770 2TB NVMe SSD: was $159 now $119 at Walmart
• WD Black 500GB SN770M NVMe SSD for Steam Deck: was $84 now $79 at Walmart
• WD Black D30 500GB Game Drive SSD: was $64 now $59 at Walmart
• WD Black P40 2TB Game Drive SSD: was $299 now $199 at Walmart:

Top SSD storage deals at Walmart

I’m going to hold your hand when I say this: Cloud storage might not be enough anymore.

While I fully participate in iCloud’s, Google 1’s, and Microsoft OneDrive’s premium services, allow me to suggest it might be time for you, too, to pull out a 4TB hard drive or build a personal storage server.

I have a lot of memories to save — childhood photos, game saves, and personal projects. But a local storage location also helps, especially if you’re the IT technician of your non-techie family. A local hard drive is your answer to the question, “What’s my password again?” from Grandpa Jo.

Now, a self-hosted server may seem like overkill for the average techie. What do you envision when you hear self-hosted server? Is it a massive room with 10-foot towers connected with yellow and blue cords? While that is a version of a server, you don’t need a room dedicated to files and photos. A Raspberry Pi, a PC, and a RAID system are a few ways to build a personal storage system.

The Raspberry Pi is the smallest and cheapest option – I’d say it’s for the veteran techies. It takes a bit of know-how and tinkering.

A PC build can be the size of a briefcase or a mini-fridge ranging from $800-$2,000, based on the functions of the server.

Finally, a RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) system is essentially many hard drives communicating with each other and saving data in multiple places to ensure the data is preserved if one server fails.

One Redditor who spoke to Laptop Mag explains that his first build saw a Raspberry Pi used as a personal storage system with open-source media streaming options. “[There’s] no need to build enterprise-like racks,” he tells Laptop. “As I tested, even [Raspberry Pi 4] would be enough.”

We’ve become so reliant on the Cloud 

The floppy disk didn’t even get a proper burial in the ‘90s before cloud services started surfacing in the 2000s. Amazon offered the first cloud storage in 2006, and two years later, Google followed suit with Google Drive. I remember those days. I wasn’t using cloud services then — but rather a Ziploc baggie of USB drives. Usually, they were no more than 8 GB; one for music, one for schoolwork, and another for art.

Microsoft OneDrive was my introduction to the cloud. It debuted in August 2007 and I started using it in 2012. Then came Google Photos & Google Drive. All of which is to say that the cloud is a great addition to storage. It was difficult to keep up with USB drives back then, as files got larger and used more and more space. Think about it: Twelve years ago, 8 GB was enough for almost eight PlayStation Portable games.

Now, a Nintendo Switch game is about 10 GB. It debuted in August 2007 and I started using it in 2012. Then came Google Photos & Google Drive. All of which is to say that the cloud is a great addition to storage.

It was difficult to keep up with USB drives back then, as files got larger and used more and more space. Think about it: Twelve years ago, 8 GB was enough for almost eight PlayStation Portable games. Now, a Nintendo Switch game is about 10 GB.

I’m not knocking the cloud, but a backup for the backup isn’t the worst idea. Look back at the Microsoft outage in July and November 2024 that made the world stand still. First, CrowdStrike caused an outage.

Then Outlook and Teams went down. Xbox players are familiar with Microsoft software going out. No shade, just facts. CrowdStrike caused an outage. Then Outlook and Teams went down. Xbox players are familiar with Microsoft software going out. No shade, just facts.

Even PlayStation players experience the PlayStation Network (PSN) going down from time to time. Same with your internet provider. Usually, it’s something minuscule that can be resolved by finding another activity until services restore. However, Microsoft systems being down in July affected media outlets, airlines, and airplanes.

This got me thinking, “If I have a hard drive attached to my PlayStation and Xbox, to save my games, should I get a server tower to back up my Google Drive?’ The answer is yes. Those storage towers are not cheap, but memories are more expensive.

There needs to be a backup for the backup.

There needs to be a backup for the backup. Storage server equipment can be expensive, but there are alternatives. There needs to be a backup for the backup. Storage server equipment can be expensive, but there are alternatives.

Just ask Ayush Gupta, who built a PC to use as a personal server. He stores his parents’ wedding photos and videos, which he digitized from VHS, that older version of the technology used to store media — before floppy disks but after cassette tapes and Betamax.

VCRs aren’t so obsolete just yet; they’re still accessible. But to be able to digitize VHS, compress, and reserve them is a beautiful thing. He’s built a few servers since then but seems to stick with the PC option.

With all the how-to information and PC parts on the market, building a PC to use as a storage system doesn’t have to be costly. The Redditor we interviewed for this story has since evolved his local storage from a Raspberry Pi setup to a PC build.

“If you don't need to stream high-quality videos or make a remote gaming station — you don't even need a GPU,” he tells Laptop Mag, adding that old or used PC parts are fine for a simple storage build. They continue, “I bought the cheapest M.2 (SSD) for like 11€ for 128GB, [and it] works very nice.”

Gupta agrees that a storage server doesn’t have to break the bank. And you don’t need a copy of Windows. “[The] Best thing is, Linux can be installed on decade-old machines,” says Gupta.

Every hardcore gamer I know has an external hard drive for their game saves. Building a tower extends that thought beyond games.

Whenever I recall that a crucial part of the internet relies on a bunch of cables at the bottom of the sea, I think about how everything could be gone in a snap. Not just because I like to dream up catastrophic scenarios, but also because I was in Finland when the Global Connection Cables were cut.

I could not figure out why my Wi-Fi was bad everywhere I went; the ethernet cable didn’t seem enough for my PC. I started thinking about getting a physical server. enough for my PC. I started thinking about getting a physical server.

The learning curve for the hardware is a bit lower than the learning curve for the software. “… so performance will be an issue but from a[] learning perspective it is worth it,” Gupta mentions. “It basically gives you an idea as to what goes on in professional IT data centers or cloud providers.”

Local storage is a great backup for anything cloud-based, and it can be fun to build something that has practical use for you and your family.

When Grandpa Jo asks you for the password to his email, you can pull it up, effortlessly. Or during the holidays when Mom asks for the video of your first steps with no VCR in sight. You can pull it up and share it to the living room TV.

The physical server isn’t just to save memories and digitalized media. It could be for different portfolios made over the years. Past work, for me, would be articles from websites that are no longer around. Game saves for a game that won’t be ported to a next-gen console, Twitch VODs, Adobe Premiere/Photoshop raw files, indie game files, and more.

If you don’t know where to start, head to Best Buy or Newegg and get computer parts, and a solid-state drive for 1TB or 2TB. Have a Mac and a PC? Use a Linux system. You can use a hard drive for Mac and PC by formatting it to FAT (exFAT).

Gupta gives a tip on how to save money in your build. “Like, me personally, I would never buy used hard drives because I cannot simply trust them. However, I will be happy to buy a 5-6 year old PC/CPU/RAM because even if it’s second-hand its quality won't go down much. So there, I can save money.”

These storage server enthusiasts have built multiple systems and settled on PC builds to expand their setup later. You can also take your manual saving up a notch and get a home server. Personal servers can do a plethora of things.

• Photo & video backup 
• LLMs (your own AI that can comprehend & generate language) 
• Media Streaming  
• Host websites 
• A Dedicated Firewall 

We’ve only scratched the surface with personal storage. It can get pricey the more things you decide to do. For example, creating a streaming service or hosting your own cloud server are just a few things to do with your storage server.

The Raspberry Pi is the least expensive option for your own cloud server. It’s coupled with some external hard drives and a power hub, making it a great option if you are concerned about using too much electricity.

A PC tower for storage can be cheaper as it can run on older technology, which can be found at lower prices. A tower can be coupled with a RAID card or a few hard drives and run on Linux. Setting up a RAID system is pricier but includes less hardware to assemble, making it a bit more organized and more expensive than a PC setup.

While there is no guarantee of 100% security from hardware failure with a personal system — just like there’s no guarantee for loss of data with cloud storage — it’s a great hobby and a very, very good Plan B.

More from Laptop Mag

• I made my own personal cloud storage to save hundreds on Google Photos — here's how it went
• Google Photos almost deleted every photo on my phone — here's how I stopped it
• Read all our stories about hard drives and online storage

Attention gamers and content creators, Amazon is having a big sale on external storage. For a limited time, save on select portable SSD, HDD, microSD, and flash drives from today's trusted data storage brands.

If you require extra wiggle room for file storage on your laptop, tablet, phone, or game console, you'll want to see what Amazon's sale has to offer.

One featured deal you should know about is the 2TB SanDisk Portable SSD for $109 ($40 off). This is a must-have USB Type-C accessory for your laptop for moving large files. It has a high storage capacity of up to 2TB and has read speeds of up to 800MB/s.

Shop: Amazon's entire sale

Need extra room on your Xbox console for games? Amazon has you covered with the 1TB WD Black C50 Expansion Card for $129 ($28 off). This NVMe SSD employs the same Xbox Velocity Architecture of the Xbox Series X|S for on-par performance. Perfect for transferring games from one console to another, the WD Black C50 features a quick resume and a hassle-free plug-and-play installation.

If you want the best external storage for PS5, consider the best-selling 5TB Seagate Game Drive for $79 ($20 off). This portable HDD features USB 3.0 Gen 1 connectivity and a dazzling built-in blue LED bar to coincide with the PS5's aesthetic. It also works with PS4 consoles for those of us still sitting on Sony's previous-gen gaming system.

These are just a few of my favorite portable deals from Amazon. Browse more of my recommended discounts below.

Today's best portable storage deals — Quick links

• Browse: Amazon's entire storage sale
• SanDisk 1TB Extreme Portable SSD: was $129 now $95 at Amazon
• SanDisk Pokémon Snorlax 1TB microSD Card: was $135 now $99 at Amazon
• Samsung T7 Portable 2TB SSD: was $269 now $139 at Amazon
• Samsung T9 Shield Portable SSD: was $299 now $199 at Amazon
• WD Black 1TB C50 NVMe SSD Expansion Card: was $157 now $109 at Amazon
• WD 5TB My Passport Portable Hard Drive: was $139 now $119 at Amazon
• Seagate 5TB HDD Game Drive: was $149 now $129 at Amazon
• Seagate Expansion 16TB External Hard Drive: was $329 now $229 at Amazon

Today's best portable storage deals

Take a trip down memory lane and pick up one of these amazing SSD deals over at Newegg. Whether you're looking for an upgrade to your laptop's storage capabilities or a beefier storage drive for your PS5, we've got you covered.

Newegg has some great deals on at the moment, and we've picked out our top five offers for your perusal, including three Samsung SSDs and a pair from KingSpec.

Our top pick has to be the $40 discount on the Samsung 990 PRO 2TB SSD, bringing it down to $179. Samsung are one of the biggest and most reliable names in the SSD market, and the 990 Pro is their flagship model. I'm running a pair of older 970 SSDs in my gaming and video editing computer and they've been flawless. The DRAM cache ensures fast transfer speeds even when performing sustained large file transfers on the system.

If you just want something to store your games, the rest of the DRAM-less lineup below is ideal too, and they're even cheaper. The Samsung 990 EVO Plus 2TB is a bargain at $139, but if you don't mind going with a lesser-known brand, you can snag a similar spec'd device for under $100, which is wild.

Attention gamers and content creators,Amazon is slashing up to $150 off external game drives for the holidays. If you've nearly maxed out your storage or just want extra room for future game downloads, it's a great opportunity to save.

Amazon's storage sale features excellent deals on select Samsung, Seagate, and WD Black portable, external game drives.

One featured deal drops the 2TB WD Black D30 for $139 ($150 off). This portable SSD for PC and Xbox holds up to 50 games and reads data at up to 900MB/s to reduce load times. I've been using this exact same game drive for two years now and I have zero complaints.

Shop: Amazon holiday deals

Alternatively, you can get the 1TB WD Black C50 Expansion Card for $129 ($28 off) for Xbox Series X|S. This NVMe SSD employs the same Xbox Velocity Architecture of the Xbox Series X|S for on par performance. Perfect for transferring games from one console to another, the WD Black C50 features a quick resume and a hassle-free plug and play installation.

If you want the best external storage for Xbox, consider the best-selling 2TB Seagate Game Drive for $79 ($10 off). This portable HDD features USB 3.2 Gen 1 connectivity and a cool-looking built-in green LED bar to match the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, and Xbox One. It's also backed by Seagate's 3 rescue services.

Amazon offers the 2TB Seagate Starfield Special Edition Game Drive for the same price.

Never worry about running out of data storage ever again with the massive 8TB Samsung T5 EVO Portable SSD for $399 ($97 off). It offers read speeds up to 460MB/s for the speedy transferring of large photo, video, and game files. Durable and shock resistant up to 6 feet which makes it great for working with large files when you're on the move.

These are just a few of the storage solutions you can get for less today. Keep scrolling for more of my recommended deals on game drives for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation.

Quick links

• WD Black D30 2TB Game SSD: was $289 now $139 at Amazon
• WD Black 1TB C50 NVMe SSD Expansion Card: was $157 now $129 at Amazon
• Seagate 2TB HDD Game Drive: was $89 now $79 at Amazon
• Seagate 5TB HDD Game Drive: was $149 now $129 at Amazon
• Samsung T5 EVO 8TB Porable SSD: was $499 now $399 at Amazon

External Game Drive deals

Whether you're looking to boost the internal storage of your PC, or you need an external SSD so you can take your data on the go, there should be something for you among these Samsung SSD and MicroSD deals.

The standout deal for us has to be the Samsung 990 PRO 4TB SSD for just $289, down from $479. That's a hefty $190 saving on this ripping-fast SSD from one of the most trusted manufacturers in the game. You're getting 4 TB of PCIe Gen4 storage with 7450/6900 MB/s read and write speeds, and an ultra-slim integrated heatsink to keep them running at peak efficiency.

I can personally attest to the quality of Samsung SSDs, as the PC I'm writing this on is equipped with two of the older Samsung 970 SSDs and I've been over the moon with their performance when it comes to transferring and storing video files and games.

If external storage is what you're looking for, check out the rest of the deals below. There are some deep discounts on external SSDs, and even a cheeky deal on a MicroSD card if you're running out of space for your Nintendo Switch games.

Picking a NAS can feel like an impossible task. Not only are there near endless options, but it can be hard to pin down your needs. You often don’t know how much storage you’ll need now and later, which apps and services will matter the most, and how powerful it needs to be. So it’s vital to choose one that can adapt because migrating terabytes of data is a nightmare, and once you buy a NAS, you’re committed to it for years. On paper, therefore, the Synology DiskStation DS723+, with its compact and expandable design, is ideal for first-timers and small businesses.

The DiskStation DS723+ is Synology’s topline dual-bay Network Attached Storage device. It pairs Synology’s user-friendly OS, like the Disk Management Software, and the wide selection of third-party app support with versatile hardware that can keep up whether you plan to use it as a media server, a backup station, or surveillance storage. That also includes the rare ability to use the M.2 slots for storage and on top of that, a PCIe slot that adds 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

However, at $450, it’s far from perfect. It misses out on a built-in multi-gigabit Ethernet port, which is now standard in the price range, and offers just a fraction of RAM than some of its competitors. After living with it for nearly a month, here’s whether the Synology DiskStation DS723+ is the two-bay NAS to beat.

Synology DiskStation DS723+: Design and build

The DiskStation DS723+ inherits Synology’s classic all-black functional design. Its enclosure is made of plastic, with a sprawling (and vented for passive airflow) Synology branding on either side, and measures 6.5 by 4.1 by 8.7 inches. Despite the plastic build, the cabinet feels sturdy, and robust to protect the drives spinning inside. The unassuming exterior and the compact form factor allow you to easily tuck the NAS away in your home.

On the front, similarly, Synology has chosen to keep it practical rather than opt for any flashy elements. You’ll find a USB-A 3.2 port and a series of LEDs that indicate the system’s and the drives’ activity statuses. The power button also houses an LED, whose brightness you can customize. Much of the front, though, is dominated by the dual drive bays. Drive installation follows a familiar tool-free process: all you have to do is pull a bay out, slot the drive in place, secure it with the fastening panels, and push it back in.

The back of the DS723+, though, is far busier. It's dominated by a single 92mm cooling fan. In my testing, where I actively transferred GBs of media, the NAS’s ventilation did a fine job of keeping cool and quiet. You can also force it to work more actively from the settings if you find the workload and the room temperature affecting the drives’ performance.

Underneath it is a pair of 1GbE LAN ports, an eSATA expansion port for connecting it to external drives, and a power slot. What’s more interesting is the hidden PCIe Gen 3 x2 slot. Open it up and you can mount a compatible network upgrade module (~$100-$150) to access 10GbE networking. On the bottom are two covered M.2 SSD slots you can utilize both for caching and additional storage.

The DiskStation DS723+ exterior is as fitting as it gets for a gadget that’s meant to be invisible and performance-first. It’s space-friendly, doesn’t draw too much attention, and offers all you would need to meet your storage needs. That said, elements like multi-gig Ethernet are now standard on competitors like the QNAP TS-264-8G and will set you back at least an additional hundred dollars in case you need it in the future.

Synology DiskStation DS723+: Performance

For the DS723+, Synology opted for AMD hardware as opposed to Intel, and that has led to a meaningful jump in NAS performance, compared to the Celeron processors found on its predecessors and similarly priced alternatives. It runs on a dual-core Ryzen R1600 and that has kept the software smooth throughout my experience. However, it does lack an integrated GPU, which rules out a niche NAS use case: hardware Plex transcoding.

A bigger concern, though, is the built-in 2GB memory. While in my limited time with the DS723+, I didn’t encounter any stutters and delays running multiple apps simultaneously, it could pose a challenge down the road. Thankfully, Synology hasn’t soldered the memory this time and you can upgrade up to 32GB RAM via the SO-DIMM slots.

The Synology DiskStation DS723+ supports hot-swappable 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch SATA hard drives, which together make up for a maximum onboard capacity of 40TB (2x 20TB drivers). That’s not all, though: you can push that up to 140TB, via external expansion units, like Synology’s DX517, which adds room for five more 20TB drives.

For test runs, my DS723+ was equipped with a pair of Synology HAT3300 4TB Plus HDDs, and their read and write speeds while transferring to and from a Mac hovered around 110Mbps -- on par with other NASs through a gigabit connection. On top of that, you can leverage the second Ethernet port and double that bandwidth, via Link Aggregation.

For most people looking to set up personal cloud storage, the DS723+ hardware out of the box will be more than adequate. Down the road, if pro buyers do feel the need to extend its capabilities, the changes Synology has brought in for this model, like the upgradable RAM, and multi-gig Ethernet compatibility, ensure you are free to do so for a fee without compromising the device’s warranty.

Synology DiskStation DS723+: Software

In a head-to-head against newer brands like Ugreen and Qnap, the Synology DS723+ NAS unquestionably comes at a premium when you factor in the modular hardware upgrades. However, if there’s one aspect of it that makes it all worth the trouble, it’s the Synology software.

The DS723+ runs on Synology’s Linux-based DiskStation management OS which makes it a breeze to build storage pools, install a variety of third-party and native apps, manage drives, back up numerous kinds of devices, and more. When you configure the NAS for the first time, for example, you don’t have to download or install anything -- just visit a link while you’re on the same network as the NAS on your computer and the automated wizard will swiftly guide you through the setup.

Especially for those who aim to replace modern apps like Google Photos and Drive with a NAS system, the Synology software is a no-brainer. It offers a free productivity suite of services, like Photos, Drive, and Office, to replicate the experiences you may be already familiar with on Google’s or Microsoft’s platforms.

Some, like Synology Photos, are even better in several aspects than mainstream alternatives such as Google Photos. You can, for example, schedule to back up your phone’s media only while it’s charging. In addition, its facial recognition algorithms run locally on your NAS, minimizing the risks of data leaks.

Synology Drive can stream workplace services in-app, which means if you’d like to view and edit an uploaded spreadsheet, you don’t have to separately install the office app on your phone. There’s a range of other handy apps you’ll find on Synology’s marketplace to, say, set up your own local password manager and email client.

Bottom line

The Synology DiskStation DS723+ is one of the most capable dual-bay NAS's you can buy. The intuitive software paired with the expandable hardware makes for an ideal balance for whether you are a beginner or a pro.

While for the same price, a couple of NAS options, like the QNAP TS-264, have more memory and integrated GPU and multi-gig LAN port, their software leaves much to be desired and isn’t suited for non-technical users.

The Ugreen NASync DXP4800 Plus is a newly available network-attached storage (NAS) device that I spent a few weeks testing in May. Ugreen isn't a household name in the NAS world, this is its debut launch in this market, and this thing has some serious potential – at least under the hood.

Though new to the NAS space, Ugreen is an established brand in the peripheral realm (chargers, docks, etc.) which gives me confidence in this new offering. Ugreen is also known for its aggressive pricing, which is part of what I found intriguing about the DXP4800 Plus, although it isn’t quite as cheap as I had hoped. I’ve wanted to set up a NAS for my endless terabytes of footage and photos for years now, so here are my impressions of the Ugreen DXP4800 Plus after a few weeks with it.

Pricing and Availability

The Ugreen NASync DXP4800 Plus is finally shipping now after a massively successful Kickstarter that earned almost $6.7 million in pledges. The NASync DXP4800 Plus is $629 and comes with an Intel 12th Gen Pentium Cold CPU (5 cores, 6 threads), 8GB DDR5 RAM (expandable to 64GB) and a 128GB internal SSD. For your storage needs, you have four SATA drive bays and two M.2 SSD drive slots. It’s important to note that you’ll need to bring your own storage drives, this is just for the NAS itself. 

If you want something more affordable you can drop down to the NASync DXP2800, which for $359 includes an Intel 12th Gen N Series CPU (4 cores, 4 threads), 8GB of DDR5 RAM (expandable up to 16GB), and 32GB of internal eMMC storage. This model offers two SATA drive bays and two M2. SSD drive slots. Once again you’ll need to supply your own hard drives or SSDs.

The Design

This NAS features a sleek design, with some rounded edges to give the sturdy metal box a clean design, while featuring enough heft to make it feel like a quality NAS kit. Plus, it runs surprisingly quiet, which is always a win in my book. On the front, you've got the usual suspects – access to your drive bays, a power button, USB ports, and some indicator lights.

The back is loaded with even more connections, including three additional USB Type-A USB ports, an HDMI port (although it's not for the NAS interface itself), and two Ethernet ports – one with 10GbE speeds and another with the slower standard 2.5GbE. Overall, the design is functional and well-built, it’s not likely to be the centerpiece of your desk setup, but no complaints there.

The Software

Here's where things get a bit interesting, because as we have seen with many makers of late, the UGOS UI, isn’t a completed product. Ugreen’s UGOS software is a work in progress, but I will say it is easy to use and learn. More experienced NAS users may feel there are features missing left and right, but NAS newbies like myself will find it handles our every need.

However, there's a great deal of hope as Ugreen has been consistently updating it since I first set it up and it has improved with each update. Also, UGOS is compatible with Docker, which for developers is a dream come true as it makes installing and managing apps on your NAS far easier.

However,  casual users don’t need to worry about any of that, if a large file storage receptable is your goal, it’s quick and easy to just set it up and forget about it.

For users that want more, the app selection is pretty limited right now. Forget about all your favorite NAS apps – UGOS relies heavily on Docker to get things done. This can be powerful, but in the future, after more updates, we expect there to be expanded capabilities added.

Performance

Despite some initial software woes, the hardware inside is solid. The Intel Pentium Gold processor does an excellent job, and there's enough memory (expandable to a whopping 64GB!) to handle even the most demanding tasks. Plus, the multiple connection options, including that speedy 10GbE LAN port, make data transfer a breeze. On the performance front, this NAS is a clear winner.

My Verdict

The Ugreen DXP4800 Plus is a promising NAS with some seriously impressive hardware. But the software situation makes it a bit of a gamble, especially for more experienced NAS users who just want something that comes pre-loaded with all their favorite software. If you're a newbie techie who loves to tinker and doesn't mind getting your hands dirty with Docker, this NAS could be a great option. 

However, for everyone else, while the price is decent, and the hardware is top-notch, maybe hold off for now Established NAS brands like Synology and QNAP have much more mature software ecosystems and a wider app selection. I wouldn’t count the Ugreen DXP4800 Plus NAS out, it may just be a few software updates away from greatness, but let Ugreeen make those software updates before you jump in and make your purchase. 

If you own a personal computer, you've probably heard this recommendation multiple times: back up your data. But what if you've backed up your data via an external drive, and now you can't seem to access that drive on your computer?

It's incredibly frustrating and worrying not to see your external drive pop up, especially when the data it contains includes precious family memories or important work documents. 

If your drive is dead, it'll be difficult to get your data back, if at all. Luckily, there are multiple troubleshooting steps to try before declaring your data lost, whether you're trying to use your external drive with Windows or macOS. 

We'll start with the simplest solutions for how to fix your external drive not showing up, and then, if you still can't access your drive, dive into more complex solutions to try.

Make sure your drive is receiving enough power

If your hard drive isn't even powering on, a lack of power could very well be the culprit. 

Sometimes, simply connecting your external hard drive to your computer via a single USB port delivers enough power, especially if it's a smaller drive. But if you have a larger drive, it may need to be plugged in with an AC power adapter or two USB ports instead of one.

Take a look at your external hard drive's enclosure and check its available ports. If you see a circular power supply port, you likely need an AC power adapter — preferably the one your drive came with — to fully power on your external drive. 

You can always look through your external hard drive's paperwork or, if purchased recently, its listing online to see what cables it came with and what specific power requirements it may have.

Try the classic ‘turn it off and back on’ solution

The cliché advice of restarting your computer is an oldie but a goodie. Computers are finicky, and sometimes a simple restart can be the zap it needs to finally display your external hard drive when you connect it.

Before you restart your computer, make sure your drive is unplugged. Then, wait for your computer to fully boot before trying to plug in the external drive again.

Try a different cable, USB port, or computer

If you know your external drive is receiving enough power, and you've tried restarting your computer, it's time to start troubleshooting your port, cable, and computer. It's important to test only one variable at a time, so you know exactly what's causing the issue.

Start by unplugging the drive, and trying it in a different USB port. If you're using a USB hub or docking station, it's worth unplugging that and trying to connect the external drive to your computer directly.

If your external drive still isn't showing up, test a different cable. It's always best to use the cables that came with your drive, but it's entirely possible that even these included cables could be malfunctioning.

Finally, if you've tried a different port and a different cable, it's time to switch up your machine. Plug your external drive into a different computer using the first cable you tried.

If it's possible to plug it into a computer running a different operating system (OS) than your computer, even better. External drives sometimes aren't formatted for cross-compatibility between operating systems, so a drive may work with macOS and not with Windows, or vice versa.

If you see the drive pop up on a different OS, it's likely a formatting issue. You can easily format the hard drive to be cross-compatible with your computer's OS if you're okay with wiping its data, and then connect the drive to your own computer again to see if it hopefully appears.

For the more technically advanced with desktop PCs, you can also remove the drive from its enclosure, and then test the bare drive by plugging it directly into your PC's motherboard. If your drive finally appears in File Explorer, you'll know there's an issue with your enclosure.

Check and update your drivers

Windows is pretty good about automatically updating drivers, but it's possible something could've malfunctioned or corrupted and caused an issue with the OS recognizing your external drive, so it's definitely worth a shot.

On your keyboard, press the Windows key and X, and select Device Manager from the pop-up menu. Find Disk drives in the Device Manager menu, and click the arrow to its left to expand the Disk drives menu.

Right-click your external drive and select Uninstall device from the pop-up menu. You can also select Update driver here, but fully uninstalling the drive, unplugging it, and reinstalling drivers automatically when you plug it back in is often a better bet.

Similarly, macOS automatically updates drivers along with operating system updates, but it's still worth quickly checking for software updates to see if that's the issue. To do this, you'd click the Apple logo in the top left corner of your screen, select About This Mac, and then Software Update to see if there are any outstanding updates.

Enable or format drive in Disk Management or Disk Utility

If you know your external drive still isn't showing up in File Explorer, check Disk Management in Windows 11 or Disk Utility in macOS to see if it appears there.

On Windows 11, type "create and format..." into the Search box at the bottom of your screen and click Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions when it pops up in the menu. This will open Disk Management, where you should be able to see or scroll to your external drive.

If your external drive appears both online and formatted, you can try resetting communication between it and your computer by changing the letter assigned to the drive. Right-click the drive's name in the Volume column, and select Change Drive Letter and Paths to switch the letter associated with your drive.

If your drive is offline, right-click the drive's name towards the bottom of the Disk Management window (typically Disk 1, Disk 2, etc.), and select Online from the pop-up menu.

If you see an 'Unallocated' label under a black bar, that means your drive hasn't been formatted. Right-click it using the same process above, and only if you're okay with erasing any data on the drive, select New Simple Volume.

The macOS version of Disk Management is Disk Utility, which you can access by typing "disk utility" into Spotlight. If your device appears grayed out on the left side of the Disk Utility window, you'll need to mount the drive, which is the equivalent of allocating it on Windows 11. 

To do this, select Mount in the top right corner of Disk Utility. If this doesn't work, you can instead select First Aid from the top menu and click Run to see if macOS can troubleshoot and fix your drive for you. 

If your drive doesn't mount and the First Aid process finds no issues, it might be time to erase and format the drive, which would unfortunately delete any data on the drive. Select Erase at the top of Disk Utility, name the drive, select a format from the dropdown menu, and select Erase again to complete the process.

Your last resort is to contact the manufacturer

If you've tried all these fixes and your external drive still isn't powering on, showing up in File Explorer, or letting you access its data, there's a very high possibility it's a dead drive that's no longer salvageable.

From there, the only tool left in your toolbox is to contact your drive's manufacturer. Sometimes, they may have more specific advice for you to try based on your unique situation, or they might be able to start the process of replacing your drive if it's still under warranty. 

If your drive isn't under warranty and can't be replaced by the manufacturer, it's time to start looking for another external drive.

Formatting your USB drive is an efficient way to erase all your data, freeing the drive to be used elsewhere. While this is the most common reason people format a USB drive, other use cases exist.

If you're trying to use the same USB drive between macOS and Windows, formatting it can be easy to ensure the file system is compatible with both operating systems before you start using the drive. Formatting a USB drive can also improve performance, remove pesky viruses, and allow you to customize security settings.

Whether you need to format a USB drive for data, cross-platform compatibility, or optimized performance, here's how to do it on both Windows and macOS.

What you should know before formatting a USB drive

The most important thing to know about formatting a USB drive is that it'll wipe your drive of any data. Plug your USB drive into your computer to see if there are any important documents, photos, videos, or other data you want to back up before formatting it.

It's also worth noting that USB drives have multiple file formatting systems. The most common formatting option is FAT32, which is recognized by macOS, Windows, and Linux. However, it limits files to 4GB in size and offers zero security.

The more updated version of FAT32 is known as exFAT. This file formatting system is also compatible with macOS, Windows, and Linux but has a much larger file size limit.

Because FAT32 and exFAT file systems are multi-OS compatible, these are typically the most intelligent choices when selecting a format option.

That said, there are also macOS- and Windows-specific file systems that can be beneficial if you only use one ecosystem. 

NTFS, or NTFS5, is developed by Microsoft for Windows, though it's also compatible with Linux and offers high file size limits. Apple develops APFS to support higher file size limits for macOS, and it's only compatible with newer Macs running macOS 10.13 or higher.

How to format a USB drive on Windows

1. Connect the USB drive to your Windows computer via an available port.

2. Open File Explorer by clicking on the folder icon in the taskbar or using this keyboard shortcut: Windows key + E.

3. Choose This PC from the left menu in File Explorer.

4. Under the Devices and drives header, locate your USB drive and right-click it.

5. From the pop-up menu, select Format. 

6. In the dropdown menu below File system, select the default option. This will usually be FAT32, the most common format recognized by both Windows and macOS.

7. Choose the default option in the dropdown menu below Allocation unit size.

8. Below Volume label, type the name you'd like to recognize your USB drive by.

9. If you've formatted your USB drive before and know it's not broken, you can check the box next to Quick format. Otherwise, leave it unchecked.

10. Click the Start button. A pop-up message will appear, warning that "Formatting will erase ALL data on this disk." Select OK to proceed with formatting.

11. When your drive is finished formatting, click OK to dismiss the pop-up.

How to format a USB drive on macOS

1. Connect the USB drive to your Windows computer via an available port. Many modern MacBooks don't have a USB-A port, so you might need a USB-C hub to connect your flash drive.

2. Click Go from the top menu bar and select Utilities from the dropdown menu.

3. Find Disk Utility and double-click it to launch the application.

4. Locate your USB drive on the left side and click it.

5. Click Erase at the top of the Disk Utility window.

6. Next to Format, use the dropdown menu to select MS-DOS (FAT). You can also change the name of your USB drive here in the text box next to Name. 

7. Click Erase, and then click Erase again after being warned that this will delete all files on the USB drive.

8. Wait for the formatting process to complete, and then close the Disk Utility window. When the process is finished, you should see an icon for your USB drive on the desktop.

iDrive is one of the most popular backup services in the world, we've previously highlighted iDrive Photos as a solid alternative to expensive Google Photos storage, but now iDrive is announcing a new storage option for the rest of your Google files.

iDrive Google Backup for Personal Accounts gives you a secure automated backup and recovery system for all of your files in Google Drive, Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Contacts. It would also take some serious digital hoarding to blow through the storage limit as you get 10TB of storage for just $20 a year. That can be added to an existing iDrive plan or purchased as a standalone option.

Why would you need iDrive Google Backup?

As with any data backup, the goal here is to ensure the security of your valuable data and when you can do it this affordably, it becomes much less of a headache trying to decide if it's worth it. 

For $20 a year, you are getting automated backups (3x per day), direct backup and recovery without relying on your Google account, the ability to search and recover a specific piece of data (image, video, email, contact, calendar entry) or an entire folder, and the ability to restore deleted or corrupted files.

It's essentially affordable piece of mind that none of the data in your Google account will be lost to either a data corruption issue, ransomware, or any other threat. While 3-2-1 backup (3 copies, 2 different types of media, and one off-site copy) was certainly a better option than storing everything on your laptops hard drive, in today's landscape if you have irreplaceable files you can and should do better.

iDrive Google Backup for Personal Accounts offers a low-effort and affordable solution that will backup your files in the background and keep them safe and secure until you need them.

Motherboard manufacturers recommend against performing BIOS updates unless necessary, and going through that process can be terrifying. If your system works well enough as is, a BIOS update can break things that weren't broken beforehand.

One of the many things that can go wrong is that your motherboard might no longer recognize your M.2 SSD. And if you happen to have your Windows operating system stored on that device, you might be scrambling with panic and uncertainty.

This happened to me a few days ago. After updating my BIOS, my computer rebooted I became trapped at the BIOS menu. Windows wouldn't boot, and the motherboard couldn't find the drive where it was installed.

As any sane person would, my heart sank, I cried for a bit, and I screamed about how much computers suck before finding the courage to troubleshoot. The solution was simpler than I thought, but the logistics of the situation are bizarre and frustrating. If you've found yourself in my exact position, here's how to have your BIOS detect your M.2 SSD.

How to fix M.2 SSD not being recognized after a BIOS update

Keep in mind, this solution is for those whose M.2 SSD is not recognized after a BIOS update. If you purchased a brand new SSD and it isn't working for whatever reason, your issue is likely to lie elsewhere, and could require different methods to resolve. If your SSD has suddenly stopped working, there's a chance something more severe could have gone wrong and these steps won't resolve the issue entirely. However, feel free to follow this guide to see if it happens to solve your problem.

If your M.2 SSD was working without issue right up until your last BIOS update, there's one thing that is most likely ailing your PC: your BIOS update has returned the motherboard to factory default settings. It's even possible that those defaults change between updates. This means that your M.2 slot might have been turned from on to off in the process.

Motherboards are different, so the steps you need to take to get to your M.2 SSD settings will vary. At the very least, they should be named similarly, so follow these steps anyway and see if you can find where yours rests. My motherboard model is the Asus ROG STRIX Z590-E GAMING WIFI, and if you have a relatively modern Asus ROG motherboard, the UI should look similar.

Step 1: Enter your BIOS by holding Del or F2 while the computer is booting up. The button could also be Esc, F10, or F12. If you can't boot Windows, you're probably stuck at this screen anyway.

Step 2: If you're in EZ Mode, go to Advanced Mode (mine is at the bottom right).

Step 3: Click on Advanced at the top.

Step 4: Select Onboard Device Configuration.

Step 5: Go to CPU PCIE Configuration Mode.

Step 6: Select PCIEX16_1 + PCIEX16_2 + M.2_2. Alternatively, it could be an issue with any of the M.2 slots, so snoop around until you find reference to the activation of an M.2 slot.

And that's how I brought my boot SSD back from the dead, and hopefully the steps you can take to find similar results.

Finding the exact settings might take a bit of extra detective work when compared to what's shown above. But the important part is ensuring that the specific M.2 slot your boot device is connected to is activated. 

When I updated my BIOS, I had two HDDs and SSDs that were still functioning. Everything remained, except for the slot I use for my boot drive. I got that hilariously unlucky and it nearly gave me a heart attack.

It's easy to stress out and assume that your computer is broken or your SSD got fried, but you'd be surprised how often the solution is as simple as turning the slot back on.

The best Cyber Monday deals are finally upon us, and we're already seeing some fantastic discounts on all the best mobile tech, from laptops to smartphones. Right now you can save big on external SSD storage from a variety of online retailers — especially Amazon.

One standout deal offers the Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD (4TB) for just $199 at Amazon. This tough-yet-speedy SSD has an IP65 rating for dust and water resistance. It works with PC, Mac, Android devices, gaming consoles and a whole lot more. Expect sequential read/write speeds of up to 1,050/1,000 MB/s.

Content creators, graphic designers, gamers, and professionals will especially benefit from Amazon's storage sale. If you work with high-res JPEGs and 4K video files or own a gaming console, you know all too well how easy it is to max out your storage.

Whether you want to back up your entire computer or you're simply looking for everyday file storage, you won't want to miss today's Cyber Monday deals. 

Best Cyber Monday external SSD deals

Black Friday 2023 is on Nov. 24, 2023, but we’re already seeing some fiery deals on the top products from laptops to phones. Right now you can save up to 60% off on internal and external SSD, HDD storage, microSD memory card, portable flash storage and more.

You can get the WD 20TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive for $313at Amazon. Previously priced at $505, those are huge savings of $192. This external drive is plug-and-play ready for PC and Mac (with reformat) via USB Type-A 3.0. It ships with a cable for compatibility with older model USB Type-A 2.0 computers. Free up space on your laptop with this high capacity external HDD for less. 

Another standout deal offers the super-portable SanDisk Extreme Pro 2TB SSD for $139 ($80 off). Now, at its best price yet, SanDisk's Extreme Pro Portable SSD features USB Type-C connectivity and delivers high read/write speeds of up to 2,000MB/s. 

Content creators, graphic designers, gamers, and professionals will especially benefit from Amazon's storage sale. If you work with high-res JPEGs and 4K video files or own a gaming console, you know all too well how easy it is to max out your storage.

Whether you want to backup your entire computer or simply looking for everyday file storage, you don't want to miss today's deals.

Black Friday storage deals

The best Prime Day SSD storage deals of Prime Big Deals Days offer huge discounts on storage for your laptop, tablet or game console, it's a great time to save. 

For a limited time, you can get the 2TB Samsung T7 Shield Portable SSD for just $79. Previously $119, that's $20 off and its cheapest price yet. 

Shockproof, IP65 rated water-and-dust resistant with a rubberized grip, this portable SSD is built rugged. The SSD in this deal features 1TB of storage with fast read and write speeds of up to 1,050/1,000MB/s. It ships with USB Type C-to-C and Type C-to-A cables and works with PC, Mac, Android devices and gaming consoles. 

Shop Amazon's WD and SanDisk SSD deals while you still can, Amazon's Prime October event ends Oct.11 at 11:59 p.m. PT. For more early holiday deals on tech and gaming, visit our October Prime Day deals hub. 

Best Prime Day SSD storage deals 

Sometimes the best things in life are those you must wait a little while for. While meeting with industry makers at Computex 2023, we were invited to join the team from Kingston — because they had new wares to peddle, and we had time on our hands. 

Kingston is a well-known and respected tech brand, and we have been using their SD cards in our Blackmagic cameras for a while. However, having an SSD with fast read and write capabilities is far more useful when filming larger projects. As we walked around Kingston's suite, we were introduced to the XS1000 External SSD — a tiny, data-moving speed demon in gleaming black armor. It was love at first Megabyte, in this case, 1000MBs read and write, allowing us to film directly to it, even while shooting in 8K resolution. 

Kingston XS1000 External Drive

When you first get a hold of the perfectly pocket-sized XS1000, you won't believe it can read and write so quickly, or how sturdy this thing is. However, the tiny aluminum and hard plastic matte black XS1000 reads and writes at speeds of 1,000MBs and features USB 3.2 Gen 2 with back support making it compatible with USB 3.2. 

The Kingston XS1000 fits snuggly into the palm of your hand, or pocket, for easy carrying. Although not currently available, this portable powerhouse will be ready for purchase in Q3 of 2023 — and likely to sell out fast as content creators rush to revel in all that speed, not to mention up to 2TB of storage. Being able to not only film directly to it but having such a large storage capacity at all times is time-saving. 

Gone are the days of awkwardly lugging around a backpack crammed with hefty hard drives. If things keep heading in this direction, I'll be strolling through Computex 2024 with nothing more than a stick and bindle,  and still be kitted out with enough top-tier tech to make Deep Blue blush. We should have a clearer picture of availability dates and pricing the closer we get to Q3, and rest assured, a review will follow, so we can put Kingston's scaled-down SSD to the test and share all the details on how it fares. 

However, if the XS1000 is anything like its sibling, the XS2000, Kingston has a real winner on its hands.  

Amazon is currently slashing up to 58% off select Samsung storage including microSDs, SSDs and flash drives. For a limited time, add more storage to your laptop, tablet, phone, or game console for less. 

One standout deal is the 256GB Samsung Type-C USB Flash Drive for just $27.99. Normally $40, it's now $12 cheaper and just $4 shy of its lowest price ever. With transfer speeds up to 400MB/s, this portable NAND drive transfers 4GB worth of files in a mere 11 seconds. Compact and sleek, it provides reliable USB-C storage on the go. For added peace of mind, it's waterproof, shock-proof, magnet-proof, temperature-proof, and X-ray-proof. Backed by Samsung's 5-year limited warranty, it's a must-buy mobile device accessory.

As part of the sale, Amazon also offers the 500GB Samsung T7 Portable SSD for just $59.99 ($35 off). If you require more storage, you can get the 1TB Samsung T7 SSD for $79 ($20 off). Samsung's Portable T7 SSD makes it fast and easy to transfer and store large files. Pre-formatted in exFAT file format, it instantly adds 1TB of storage to your laptop, tablet, phone or gaming console. 

Looking for an NVMe Internal SSD for your growing PS5 game collection? The Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD is now $159 (58% off). Nowadays, you can never have too much storage for games, photos, videos and docs. Whether you're close to maxing out your storage or want to easily transfer files between devices, now's the time to invest. 

Browse more Samsung storage deals from Amazon below. 

Samsung storage deals

March 31 is World Backup Day and Amazon is knocking up to 67% off storage to celebrate. Now is a great time to save big on portable and internal SSDs, external hard drives, flash drives, microSD memory cards and more.  

Today only, you can get the WD 20TB Elements Desktop Hard Drive for $279at Amazon. Previously priced at $505, that's a huge savings of $226 and this WD hard drive's lowest price ever. This external drive is plug-and-play ready for PC and Mac (with reformat) via USB Type-A 3.0. It ships with a cable for compatibility with older model USB Type-A 2.0 computers. Free up space on your laptop with this high capacity external HDD for less. 

Another standout deal offers the super-portable SanDisk Extreme Pro 2TB SSD for $174 ($55 off). Now at its best price yet, SanDisk's Extreme Pro Portable SSD features USB Type-C connectivity and delivers high read/write speeds of up to 2,000MB/s. 

Content creators, graphic designers, gamers, and professionals will especially benefit from Amazon's storage sale. If you work with high-res JPEGs and 4K video files or own a gaming console, you know all too well how easy it is to max out your storage.

Whether you want to backup your entire computer or simply looking for everyday file storage, you don't want to miss today's deals.

Samsung's Portable SSD T7 is one of the best external hard drives for PC, Mac, Chrome OS, PS5 and more. Small enough to fit in your pocket, this portable SSD is fast, secure and reliable. 

Right now, you can snag the 1TB Samsung Portable SSD T7 for just $79.99 directly  from Samsung. That's $20 less than its former price of $100 and the lowest price we've ever seen for this portable SSD. 

In terms of Samsung deals, it's one of the best you can get outside of the holidays.

Samsung's Portable T7 SSD makes it fast and easy to transfer and store large files. Pre-formatted in exFAT file format, it instantly adds 1TB of storage to your laptop, tablet, phone or gaming console.

Although we didn't test this portable SSD, feedback from owners praise its compact, lightweight, shockproof design and speedy performance. With incredibly fast read/write speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s and 1,000 MB/s, respectively, the T7 SSD cuts down on the time you spend backing up and transferring huge files.

And what's more password protection and AES 256-bit hardware encryption give you peace of mind knowing your files are secure. Samsung bundles it with USB type C to C and USB type C to A cables for universal connectivity.

So if you're looking for a convenient way to manage photo, video, and game storage, the Samsung T7 SSD is all you need. 

Intel revealed its next generation 13th Gen Intel Core mobile processor for laptops at CES 2023, including the new flagship Intel Core i9-13980HX — the "world’s fastest mobile processor."

With Intel's 13th Gen desktop CPUs already announced in 2022, we got a tease of the processing speeds to expect on laptops. Now, Intel has introduced 32 new 13th Gen Intel Core mobile processors, and it includes the first 24-core processor for a laptop.

The Core i9-13980HX features eight performance cores and 16 efficiency cores, along with up to 5.6GHz turbo frequency. Intel claims this is the highest clock speed currently available, offering 11% faster single-thread performance and 49% faster multitask performance over the previous 12th Gen CPUs.

Intel's 12th Gen Core i9-12950HX already offered eight performance cores, but the 13th Gen HX processor now offers twice as many efficiency cores. And, with support of up to 128GB of DDR5 RAM (up to 5,600 megahertz) and DDR4 RAM (up to 3,200 MHz), it's clear Intel intends to blow its competition away in terms of processing power. 

Intel's 13th Gen HX chips also offer Intel Killer Wi-Fi 6E for up to a claimed 6x faster internet speeds, Intel Bluetooth LE Audio and Bluetooth 5.2 support with "2x faster speeds" and lower power consumption, and Thunderbolt 4 support.

We've already seen a number of the best laptops of CES 2023 (so far) boast Intel's latest processor, including the Asus ROG Strix Scar 16 and Scar 18, and you can expect 13th Gen Intel HX laptops from Dell, Acer, Lenovo, Razer, HP, and more in 2023. 

13th Gen Intel Core mobile processors

The 13th Gen HX chips aren't the only mobile processors Intel has up its sleeve, as 13th Gen Intel Core H-, P-, and U-series mobile processors to power a variety of laptops.

The Intel Core P-series and U-series CPUs are set to be fore thin and lightweight laptops, and include up to 14 cores (six performance cores, eight efficiency cores) and new Intel Iris Xe graphics.

As for entry-level laptops, Intel also has the N-series CPU that focusses on education. You can expect new efficiency cores (microarchitecture code-named Gracemont) built on the Intel 7 process technology, up to 28% better application performance and 64% better graphics performance on the Intel Processor over the previous generation, up to 10-hour HD video playback without recharging, and more.

“The 13th Gen Intel Core mobile processor family delivers unrivaled, scalable performance for leadership platforms across all laptop segments,” said Michelle Johnston Holthaus, executive vice president and general manager at Intel. “With our industry-leading technologies and unmatched global partner ecosystem, people can expect a high-caliber mobile experience in new and unique form factors — so they can game or create from anywhere.”

With Nvidia RTX 40 Series laptops launching and 18-inch gaming laptops on the rise, CES 2023 is setting up a great year for laptops. For the best gaming laptops of CES 2023 (so far), we've got you covered. 

Discover Samsung Event deals include noteworthy discounts on the brand's best external SSDs. One standout deal from the sale is the Samsung T7 Shield 1TB SSD for $89.99. Typically, it sells for $160, so that's $40 off and its lowest price to date. This is one of the best storage deals of the holiday season.  

By comparison, it's $10 cheaper than the 1TB Samsung Portable SSD T7 which is down to $99 ($20 off). 

The Samsung Portable SSD T7 Shield is one of the best external solid state drives to buy. It makes it easy to transfer and store important files and works with laptops, tablets, phones and even game consoles with USB 3.2 support.

Shockproof, IP65 rated water-and-dust resistant with a rubberized grip, this portable SSD is built rugged. The SSD in this deal features 1TB of storage with fast read and write speeds of up to 1,050/1,000MB/s. It ships with USB Type C-to-C and Type C-to-A cables for broad compatibility across PC, Mac, Android, PS5 and Xbox Series X.

If you're looking for a means of expanding storage on a mobile device or gaming system, Samsung's Portable SSD T7 Shield is a great solution. 

The Discover Samsung Event ends Dec. 15.

“How much RAM do I need?” It’s one of the most frequent questions asked by anyone buying or upgrading a desktop or laptop, and while there are some common insights that techies usually share, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, and very little of the advice you do see has any real testing to back it up.

We’re here to fix that. By testing a variety of use cases on different amounts of RAM, we'll give you an idea of how you can stretch the RAM you’ve got.

What is RAM and how does it work?

Let’s start with the most basic elements of the question. RAM is where data is stored before processing. RAM stands for Random Access Memory, and it consists of dynamic memory chips that can be written and rewritten with data very quickly. Unlike your hard drive, however, the memory used for RAM is also volatile, meaning that it only holds onto that data while the chip is powered, so it’s not designed to hold information long term.

Essentially, RAM is the memory that actually lets you work with the data needed to run programs and open files. Whenever your computer loads a program or opens a file, it opens up that data in RAM. Even your operating system uses RAM when it’s running. If you want to run a program, it pulls the data from long-term storage on your hard drive to short-term storage in RAM, where it can be accessed quickly enough for smooth operation.

This flow of data between the disk and the RAM is controlled by the computer, which manages the writing of data to physical locations on the memory chip, and that it needs a certain amount of free space to function. For each program you run, it will actively use some of the space for in-use memory and allocate some of the available space as standby memory, essentially reserved space for potential operations.

Once you hit the limit of what your RAM can hold, then your computer will compensate with a swap file, putting some of the data onto your storage drive. It will try to use this swap file in the same way it does RAM, constantly reading and writing the data during operation, but the memory in your storage drives simply isn’t designed to move data as rapidly as DRAM. A swap file still lets you get some things done, but will be dramatically slower.

The bottom line is that RAM is essential to the smooth operating of your computer, particularly for things like multitasking and accessing multiple files at one time. While your overall performance will largely be dictated by the capabilities of your processor and graphics hardware, your memory allotment will directly impact how well you can take advantage of that performance. Too little RAM creates a bottleneck that slows everything down, and the basic rule of thumb is that more RAM is always better.

How much RAM do I need, exactly?

The answer to the question of how much RAM you need will always come back to what you want to do with your laptop. While opting for more RAM is always good advice, it doesn’t answer the more specific questions of how much RAM is needed for specific uses, or what you can reasonably expect to do with the RAM your laptop already has. To answer these questions we performed some testing, looking at specific use cases, identifying the basic memory requirements for each and providing some hard numbers to back our advice.

To help you find the best answer for you, we tested for five specific use cases, each common but distinct in its memory demands:

1. Office productivity
2. Web browsing
3. Media streaming
4. Photo editing
5. Video editing
6. Gaming

Each of these uses is common, but has distinctly different hardware requirements and memory demands. We broke down each of our five use cases, finding the memory demands for both basic and heavy use, and matched that to common allotments of RAM. Want to edit photos, but you’re not much of a gamer? Want to do some document work and web browsing but still want the option to do more? Whatever your mix of uses, we can give you a very good idea of how much memory will be enough to meet the demands of the task.

Putting RAM to the test

For testing, we used an Alienware 15 R3, equipped with an Intel Core i7-6700HQ, 16GB of RAM and an Nvidia GeForce GTX970M graphics card. To obtain data on memory usage, we used Windows Resource Monitor, one of several tools built into Windows to view system information and tracking the performance of various components. We chose Resource Monitor because it provides more granular information than Windows Task Manager, but both tools are helpful for getting an idea of how memory is used as you run processes and programs.

Office productivity

While creating and editing documents is generally a low-resource task, office productivity gets much more demanding as you open multiple files in multiple programs. For this test we looked at various programs in Microsoft’s Office Suite, examining how large files stress memory as well as using multiple productivity programs at once. If you want to make the most of your multitasking, these are the tests to look at.

We started with smaller files in multiple programs, opening Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, PDF files and photos. Whether we had one Word doc open or ten files open across five programs, working with standard small documents barely exceeded 5GB of memory in use, and never exceeded 7GB of memory in use and in standby. (For this reason, low-powered machines equipped with Intel HD graphics are pretty ideal for most office hour productivity.) 

Large documents were another matter. We stress-tested with a number of documents with upward of 1,000 pages. Whether looking at a single text file or a handful of documents (Word Docs, PDF, Text files) and larger Excel files (multiple sheets, each with 100+ columns of data), the memory usage ranged between 3,283 and 3,971 MB. The standby memory, however, jumped to nearly 10GB.

Key takeaway: You can do a lot of the basics with only 4GB of memory, but if you need to work with extremely large files, you’ll want to bump up to 8GB or more.

Web browsing

Basic web browsing can be done on almost any connected device, but loading up multiple browser tabs will use up your memory. To test the memory demands of web browsing we used Google’s Chrome browser, which is notable for being both popular and a notorious memory hog. For our tests we assumed that normal browsing behavior included the use of multiple browser tabs, with no additional measures taken to cut down on data usage; meaning no ad blockers, no special permissions for media, and no other data-saving measures. We started with a list of ten popular websites and then opened new tabs of these same websites in batches of ten.

This test was rather eye-opening in how clearly it showed the impact of web browsing on memory use. The initial 10-tab test used 3,333 MB of memory, with an additional 3,963 MB in standby. Those 4GB of standby memory held throughout testing, but every additional ten tabs used roughly a full GB of memory.

Key takeaway: For web browsing, 4GB is only going to cut it for a few tabs of basic content. Anything more, you’ll want at least 10GB of memory; more if you want to multitask in other programs as you browse.

Media streaming

Streaming music or binging on videos is a slightly different use case than simple web browsing, putting its own stresses on memory. We looked at both audio and video streaming, across several services, to see how much memory was impacted by video, be it cat videos, news clips, or high-definition movies.

Surprisingly, the overall memory demands weren’t that different from regular browsing. Whether listening to multiple audio streams or watching multiple videos, the overall memory use didn’t change much. Single audio or video streams from Spotify or YouTube used less than 3GB of memory (2,747 MB and 2,532 MB, respectively), and you had to bump that up to 4 or more simultaneous streams to get above the 3GB mark. At that point, you’re streaming an unenjoyable cacophony of sight and sound, but you can add more if you want.

Key takeaway: If streaming media is your machine's primary purpose, 4GB should do the trick just fine.

Photo editing

Photo editing is far more demanding than basic office or web functionality, and is usually right on the cusp of what an affordable system can do well. We decided to test photo editing with Photoshop CC, Adobe’s current offering, and used unedited photos from a smartphone, each with 5312 x 2988 resolution, and measuring  5-6 MB each.

Our initial testing showed no real impact on memory usage from actual use, with little to no difference between viewing open photos, simply cropping photos or performing complex edits with multiple layers. That said, as a general rule, Photoshop is a bit of a memory hog, and will put as much memory into stand-by as it can get. Adobe recommends your system have at least 2.5GB of RAM to run Photoshop CC in Windows (3GB to run it on Mac), but in our testing it used 5GB just to open the program and leave it running. 

Where things really get interesting, however, is when you’re working on multiple photos. Opening a single photo changed our in-use memory from 5,049 MB to 5,310 MB, but opening ten photos bumped that up to 6,511 MB. Subsequent sets of ten increased the in-use memory to 7,699 MB for 20 photos and 8,828 MB for 30 images.

Key takeaway: The bottom line here is that you can use Photoshop CC with the minimum 2.5GB required, but you’ll see much smoother performance and better photo handling with larger allotments of RAM. We’d recommend a minimum of 8GB for anyone who expects to regularly edit photos.

Video editing

Video editing comes in many shapes and sizes, from simply trimming clips down to complex multi-stream edits with effects and transitions. To help establish how much RAM you need, you've got to figure out what video demands you have.

If it's just to cut some of the unnecessary stuff around family videos to share with your Mom, then 4GB will be just about enough for this job. However, if its for the likes of 4K YouTube video creation (which means editing, transitions, audio levelling, color correction and the like), you're going to need a lot more. 

Ideally, you'll need 16GB or more. Granted, there are some exceptions — namely, if software has been purpose-built for a specific system. For example, Final Cut Pro works pretty well on an 8GB MacBook packing Apple silicon. 

Key takeaway: But to sum it all up, video editing is a demanding task on any system's RAM. 16GB or more is a certainty for anything from Premiere Pro upwards.

Gaming

Finally, there’s gaming. While every gamer knows that the best gaming laptops need to have impressive graphics and processing hardware, the place of memory in that overall equation is something of a mystery. We look at how gaming impacts memory use, what the requirements are for various current titles, and whether or not it’s worth getting memory that is optimized for gaming.

First, we tested how much memory was used opening and running a game. For this we used Grand Theft Auto V. It’s not the newest game on the market, but it’s still relatively demanding, requiring a decent graphics card to handle all the visuals. According to the hardware requirements reported by Rockstar Games, you’ll need at least 4GB of RAM to run the game, but the developer recommends a minimum of 8GB.

When we ran the game on our Alienware 15, we saw that firing up Steam and opening GTAV from our games library resulted in 5,324 MB of in-use memory, with 9,319 in standby. On a 16GB system, that’s a sizable chunk of memory to dedicate to a single program. Those numbers held fairly steady throughout actual gameplay, so there’s no appreciable difference between running the game and playing the game that we could see. For this particular game, we’d echo the recommendation to have 8GB of memory or more, and think our 16GB system probably hits the sweet spot for playing demanding AAA titles.

But not everything is quite so demanding, and you can find games that will run on nearly any laptop out there. Low-end gaming doesn’t require much in the way of hardware, letting you play games like Cuphead, Minecraft or Overwatch without investing in a purpose-built machine. 

These games can generally run on 4GB of memory (sometimes less), and don’t require discrete graphics card. But that doesn't mean you should settle for 4GB and call it a day. Ideally, 8GB or upwards will be preferable, as to eliminate any risk of slowdown.

Mid-range gaming may require a GPU to handle the visuals, but titles like Tacoma or Dragon Ball FighterZ don’t demand an upgrade to the latest Nvidia or AMD offerings. Memory demands stay quite reasonable, running smoothly with 4-8GB of RAM.

The area where you’ll most want to maximize your memory is current AAA titles, like Far Cry 5 or PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds. These games are built to make the most of current hardware, and a tricked out system will need a decent amount of RAM to accompany the high-end graphics and processing hardware. For this level of gaming, 16GB seems to be the sweet spot, meeting all of the memory needs for unimpeded gameplay without throwing extra money into an already-expensive system.

One of the other things we looked at was how memory use impacted game performance, and how much memory you might need in order to multitask while gaming. While most people won’t be doing much photo editing in the middle of their next battle royale, it’s not uncommon to chat with friends or pull up a YouTube tutorial. So long as your gaming rig can handle the game, these simple uses should work without a memory upgrade.

Key takeaway: Opt for 8GB of RAM if you want decent performance on less demanding titles, but go for 16GB if you want to play the latest and most resource intensive hits. If you want to do things like stream to Twitch, we’d recommend opting for the 32GB options offered on many gaming PCs.

Multitasking

While these five use cases are all common, they’re also relatively simple in the sense that the testing focused on one or two specific uses at a time. But what about those times you need to jump back and forth between programs, flipping back and forth between files and tools? This sort of flexibility is where you’ll get the very most out of your memory, as larger allotments of RAM facilitate exactly this sort of behavior.

To test multitasking, we started by simple adding one use case on top of another, and ran the same test on three different systems: An inexpensive Dell Inspiron 11 2-in-1 with 4GB of RAM, a mid-range Dell Inspiron 17 5767 with 8GB of RAM and the Alienware 15 R3 with 16GB of memory.

First, we started at a basic level. We opened all of our office files, maxing out the least demanding test we ran. Then we opened up ten browser tabs, followed by two media streams (one audio, one video). On our 4GB system, this was enough to overwhelm the laptop, causing the system to slow to a crawl, and basic functionality to become inconsistent. Mouse clicks failed to register, simple documents struggled to scroll smoothly, and even gathering the screenshots we used to document our testing became difficult.

As we were able, we also ran Photoshop, with ten photos open. We did this on both the Dell Inspiron 17 and the Alienware 15, without trouble. Photoshop is a notorious resource hog, and while you can use it for a quick photo crop or similar simple edit with 4GB, you’ll definitely want a system with 8GB or more if you expect to do routine edits or work on multiple photos.

Then, on the Alienware 15 R3, we also ran our gaming test, using Grand Theft Auto V. While it was the only system equipped with the graphics capability needed to run the game, it was also interesting to see how demanding the game was, especially when run in conjunction with our other tests. Simply running the game uses an additional 2GB of memory, but with little difference in memory load between running and actively playing the game, we simply left it running for the duration of testing.

Once these baseline tests were running, we proceed to ratchet up the memory demands incrementally, first by adding another ten browser tabs, then another two audio streams, followed by an additional ten photos in Photoshop. The 8GB Dell Inspiron 17 continued with normal functioning. On the Alienware we checked back in on GTA V and found everything running smoothly.

We did this again, bumping up to 30 tabs, six streaming vids and 30 photos. Everything still worked, including the game. At this point, on both the 8GB Dell Inspiron 178 and the 16GB Alienware 15, you’ll notice that the amount of standby memory changes, reprioritizing things to briefly open up additional free space.

We repeated the increasing demands, stepping up to 40 Chrome tabs, eight media streams and 40 photos in Photoshop. The Dell Inspiron’s 8GB of memory was effectively maxed out, and once we hit that 8GB choke point, performance became erratic. Switching between windows became difficult and the laptop finally locked up when we tried to open more browser tabs or photos.

The 16GB Alienware 15 held strong, but the in-use memory approached the 14GB mark, while the amount of free memory dwindled to nearly zero. At this point we started to see programs slow down, with jittery navigation and slowness in loading files as they were opened. GTA V continued to run, and we enjoyed a shootout and a car chase before moving on to the next level of multitasking torture.

We ratcheted up to 50 tabs. Then ten media streams. Everything was holding thus far. Finally, we opened ten more photos in Photoshop, bringing the total to 50. At this point, programs started to lock up. Windows popped in and out of view of their own accord, and our clicking and typing lagged considerably. When we tried to reopen the still-running game, the system locked up and refused to cooperate. With 13,625 MB of memory in use and 2,562 MB in standby, we had reached the limits of our 16GB of RAM. Only after closing one of our programs did function return to normal.

Key takeaway: Multitaskers should really opt for 8GB of RAM when possible, and those running multiple applications along with a ton of tabs should opt for 16GB. These days, however, even 64GB is on the table for premium workstations.

Lessons learned

The moral of this storage story is pretty straight forward; you want to have more memory than you’ll actually use. As you approach the limits of your memory, the impact on your productivity and user experience will be felt more and more, right up until you can’t do much of anything. The good news is that, as PC components go, RAM is easy to install and extremely affordable. If you want a quick way to upgrade your laptop, adding a stick of RAM is a great place to start, and is something even a novice can do in very little time.

The 4GB laptop hit that limit after simple opening some documents and a handful of browser tabs. The 8GB system did better, providing good support for photo editing in addition to a healthy number of browser tabs and simultaneous media streams, while the 16GB system supported dozens of tabs, an unreasonable number of concurrent media streams and even offered usable gaming right up to the end. Unless you plan on doing a huge amount of multitasking while gaming, there’s little reason for most gaming rigs to go beyond 16GB of memory.

• Once you know which GPU is right for you (or which laptop CPU is right for you), check out the laptops with the longest battery life.

As a run-and-gun content creator, I value sturdy, dependable, super portable USB Type-C SSDs that get the job done quickly. So with the help of my film, photo, and production partner Peter, and after many hours of use and abuse, here is a field-tested list of the top 5 best portable SSD drives for content creators on sale right now for Black Friday. 

“Field-tested” means many terabytes of writing and formatting, drops, spills and an all-around exposure to the elements. After all of that, these dependable beauties are still going strong. Some names will be familiar to most, and a couple of them you may not have heard of, but this list contains all the best options we have used so far in the field and the office.

As any content creator will tell you, your data is precious and must be protected at all costs. When filming, you want to ensure that your SSD is dependable and can handle the bandwidth, file sizes, and bitrates your camera is pushing out. 

While filming and shooting photos, Peter and I use a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and either a Nikon Z6II or Nikon Z7II. We constantly back up our files and then exchange them via SSD drives so we can edit on either his MacBook or my Windows PC. Fast, dependable drives are needed for this to work smoothly, and the products we selected are top performers.

My initial impressions of the SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 after its announcement came down to three words: great, but expensive. After spending a few weeks testing one, I can say that opinion hasn’t changed.

That’s not to say the cost is a deal breaker, but it forms the basis of a couple of key questions you’ll have to ask yourself before deciding whether to buy. Namely, what are your needs and are they extreme enough to warrant this drive?

While I’ll do the normal hands-on rigmarole and put the SSD through its paces, I’ll take this time to figure out who it’s for and whether the PRO-G40 might be overkill for you, which means you could be just as happy with something a little cheaper.

SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 pricing and availability

Let’s jump the biggest hurdle here. The PRO-G40 is quite an expensive SSD — starting at $299 for the 1TB model and going up to $449 for the 2TB model that we tested. These all come with SanDisk’s five-year warranty.

When we break this down, that is 30¢ per GB. Compared to cheaper options if you’re keen to get the best possible price per GB, this is on the steeper side.

Of course, a lot of these cheaper options, such as the Samsung T7 (9¢ per GB), the OWC Envoy Pro Elektron (16¢ per GB), or SanDisk’s own Extreme Portable SSD (25¢ per GB), don’t have the same speed or super-rugged build quality as the PRO-G40, but it’s worth keeping this in mind.

Why? Because while I will be heaping a lot of praise on this drive, most of you will realistically not need a lot of the potential that this brings to the table.

SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 design

There are no two ways around it — the PRO-G40 is rugged. Like, super rugged. Sure, it’s bigger than the Extreme Portable SSD at 4.36 x 2.28 x 0.47 inches (compared to 3.96 x 2.06 x 0.35 inches), and heavier at 4.3 ounces (compared to 2.2 ounces), but this is still a pocketable design and that extra heft inspires confidence.

That faith in its durability is matched by a sleek, utilitarian aesthetic with a hard plastic front and soft, rubberized shell that feels nice to the touch. And it’s not all just for show, as this mighty SSD is IP68 water and dust resistant, packs 3-meter drop resistance and 4,000-pound crush resistance.

It’s not a perfect design, though, especially if you care about security. At this price for a pro-tier drive, I would have expected to see some sort of biometric security like a fingerprint reader (à la Samsung T7) to make protecting your data a cinch, and the hard plastic front is easily susceptible to light scratches and marks.

But for what it’s designed to be — a super durable SSD — it absolutely does the job.

SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 performance

SanDisk promises read/write speeds of up to 2700MB/s and 1900MB/s via Thunderbolt 3, and up to 1050MB/s and 1000MB/s respectively for USB 3.2 Gen 2. SanDisk’s professional drive largely lives up to these standards — not just in one-and-done speed tests, but under sustained testing, too.

First bit to note is the impressive compatibility here, as the PRO-G40 is one of the first drives to support both Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 Gen 2. Previously, Thunderbolt 3 SSDs were limited by the fact they simply didn’t work with other USB-C standards. But here, thanks to a Titan Ridge controller and a USB 3.2 Gen 2 NVMe bridge chip, the drive is able to intelligently switch between these two standards.

As for speeds, when connected to my M1 MacBook Pro via Thunderbolt 3, the PRO-G40 exceeded these numbers for the first few minutes with read speeds of beyond 2,900MB/s and write speeds of around 2,300MB/s in our BlackMagic SSD speed test.

When put through its paces for a further 60 minutes, the SSD started to heat up to the touch (not to uncomfortably hot temperatures), but speed-wise, it never lost its cool. At the peak of any potential thermal throttling, the aluminum core of the drive’s design helped the G40 maintain read/write speeds of 2,681MB/s and 1,832MB/s.

These speeds are more than enough to handle a video editing workstream of multiple 4K clips and complex edits. That’s exactly what I found when editing a recent video review in Final Cut Pro, as I didn’t witness any dropped frames or the stuttering that comes with this.

For USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 performance, I wanted to do something a little different. Statistically, it’s a similar story — hitting 1,250MB/s and 1,126MB/s read/write at first, then slowing down to speeds in line with SanDisk’s claims under sustained load. But I wanted to figure out what I could get away with. 

So, in honor of Forza Horizon’s 10th anniversary, I ported Forza Horizon 5 to the SSD and attempted to play it on my Asus TUF Gaming F15. Now, whenever I have tried to play a game off an external drive, performance has taken a noticeable hit across load times and frame rate.

For Horizon, the initial load did take six seconds longer via the Pro-G40, but performance maintained that same super-high 80 fps that I tuned this for with high graphical settings. That’s even across the map barriers that force a load of the next area — zero hiccups at any of them!

Bottom line

All in all, SanDisk’s Professional PRO-G40 is one of the best portable SSDs for content creators and professionals. The speeds are impressive, the design is super rugged, sustained performance is great thanks to optimal cooling, and the dual support for Thunderbolt 3 and USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 makes it a versatile option across multiple systems.

But is it worth buying at this price? That’s a more difficult question to answer, because there is a core audience of pro videographers and photographers that will benefit from the extreme durability and speeds, but the cost is difficult to swallow.

This is compounded by the fact that a cheaper, slightly slower drive will handle a typical day-to-day workload for most people. The specs on show here are only required for those who have the super demanding jobs that make the most of its capabilities — like editing tons of 8K video directly on the drive itself. If minutes or even seconds are potentially impacting your ability to get a job done on time, then by all means the Pro-G40 is a worthwhile investment.

Personally, I would wait for a sale (Black Friday is just around the corner, after all), but if you’re forced to buy one now and have the money to pay for the cream of the crop, this is certainly a good option.

Western Digital has just revealed its brand new portable SSD — the SanDisk Professional PRO-G40 and, I’ll be honest, it’s looking like it could be one of the best SSDs that money can buy.

But “money” could be an issue, as prices start from $379.99 / £414.99 for a 1TB drive. Let’s look a little closer at what this offers and make an early judgement on whether this will be worthwhile.

Fast, versatile and durable

Aiming for photography and cinematography pros, you need peak speeds, peak reliability and near-bullet proof durability. Western Digital tackles these problems handily with three key features.

First, the PRO-G40 comes in a pro-grade enclosure that features IP68 dust and water resistance, up to 3 meters of drop resistance and up to 4000 pounds of crush resistance. No matter how challenging the shoot location is (or how clumsy you are), your drive will survive it.

Second, there is dual-mode compatibility with both Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps) and USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps). If you are sharing your data across multiple systems with different I/O, you should get great efficiency across them all.

And finally, let’s talk about speeds for those high capacity files. With peak read and write speeds of 2,700 MBps and 1,900 MBps respectively, this drive is capable of some blazing transfer rates. Plus, thermal management, courtesy of the cool aluminum core, ensures strong sustained speeds too.

Outlook

When picking the best Portable SSD for your money, there are many criteria to help make your decision — speeds, dimensions, durability. If you are in the camp of requiring face-melting performance with super strong durability, the SanDisk PRO-G40 could very well be the drive for you.

However, in the challenging times we live in, that price is a little hard to swallow right now, which limits this drive to only the top niche of creative pros. If you’re needing something small, durable and fast, maybe check out the SanDisk Extreme Pro. I use it and love it.

Oh, and we’re expecting tons of SSD discounts during the Amazon Prime Early Access Sale. If you want a good deal, keep Laptop Mag bookmarked, as we will be covering them live!

There's no shortage of external hard drives and SSDs on the market, but there's little to differentiate them, enter the Dockcase smart hard drive enclosure. While you need to bring your own SSD or hard drive, Dockcase takes that basic drive and supercharges it.

The most notable addition is power loss protection, which helps to prevent data loss and can extend the life of your hard drive or SSD. The built-in display is another handy upgrade that gives you a quick look at your drive's status, detailed disk information and even control over some drive settings directly through the enclosure. All of this and a dual USB-C design with a 10Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 port and auxiliary 15W port that allows for safe direct use on a phone.

I spent a week with a prototype Dockcase smart hard drive enclosure and came away thoroughly impressed with its features and performance. 

Price and availability

The Dockcase 2.5-inch Smart Hard Drive Enclosure is currently available on Kickstarter starting at $69. The base model features 5 seconds of power loss protection, while the Dockcase Pro boosts that to 10 seconds and is currently $89 on Kickstarter.

This is strictly for the enclosure, so keep in mind that you'll need to supply your own 2.5-inch SSD or HDD.

While the typical caveats for Kickstarter or any crowdfunding project exist, this is the 6th Kickstarter from Dockcase and the team has delivered on every previous product, including the Dockcase M.2 NVMe Smart SSD enclosure, which is simply a smaller version of the enclosure sized for M.2 NVMe SSDs.

As of this writing, the project has already surpassed its funding goal, and the projected shipping date for the enclosures is in November.

The Kickstarter closes on October 19 at 9 a.m. EDT and ordering now saves you roughly 30% off the projected retail price for each model. 

Specs

Design

The Dockcase has an industrial look that gives you the sense of durability that you want from an external drive that is going to be jostled around the inside of your laptop bag. The dark grey aluminum casing that rings the enclosure matches the modern design aesthetic of many laptops, while the black tempered glass front of the unit makes it look like the world's thickest smartphone when it is powered off.

The removable cover is that same dark grey but features a ribbed design that is also meant to help dissipate heat and four exposed screws at the edges that contribute to that overall industrial vibe. While you shouldn't be swapping hard drives or SSDs regularly, it's worth considering that you do need a screwdriver (included) to get that job done.

Removing the cover there's not a lot to see inside, you just have the PCB board to plug your HDD or SDD into on one side, and on the opposite side you have the purple battery which provides power loss protection and the USB-C ports are uncovered. Dockcase provides you with a foam block to hold your SSD or HDD in place and additional foam with a sticky back for the top of your drive.

Returning to the outside you have a pair of USB-C ports at the bottom, one is the full USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C port for data transfer and the other is a 15W auxiliary power port if needed to power your drive. The latter is relevant if you are using the Dockcase to transfer files to or from a phone over USB-C as the phone may not be able to sufficiently power the drive by itself. 

Turning finally to the built-in display, which is one of the more unique features of the Dockcase, it's a 1.5-inch squareLCDy with a 240 x 240-pixel resolution. It gives you glanceable info on your drive status in real-time including the SSD/HDD model, capacity, partitions, disk health, power loss protection status, and more. The display is controlled using three capacitive buttons on the front of the Dockcase and a single physical button on top of the enclosure.

Dockcase included the optional silicone case with my review unit, which gives you some shock, scratch, and drop protection if you are going to be taking your external drive with you everywhere. It's a $15 add-on for the Dockcase or $19 for the Dockcase Pro. It adds some bulk, but I wish it were included in the box as the security of this drive is one of its big selling points and it also protects the rest of the contents of my bag from the bare aluminum frame of the Dockcase.

Performance

The added cost of the Dockcase or Dockcase Pro over a barebones enclosure mostly comes down to the power loss protection and that built-in display, but particularly if you are a content creator or anyone moving large files around you also want to see fast transfers.

Dockcase boasts that the 10Gbps Type-C port combined with UASP and TRIM protocols delivers up to 70% faster speeds than a typical 5Gbps enclosure with a micro-B USB 3.0 port.

I conducted my testing with an older Samsung 840 Evo SSD, which offers a  maximum of 540Mbps, and the Dockcase stayed close to the limits of my SSD at 480Mbps when transferring a 25GB collection of mixed media files back and forth between the drive and my laptop. That's not as fast as the top speeds we are saying from the latest internal M.2 NVMe SSD drives, but it should be more than enough speed for the vast majority of tasks.

Moving to the power loss protection, this is the biggest differentiator between the Dockcase and Dockase Pro with the latter offering double the time at a maximum of 10 seconds versus 5. This is crucial if power is interrupted during a transfer as it gives the drive time to write the data in the cache to the drive. This should improve the long-term health of your SSD or HDD.

The Dockcase also supports firmware upgrades to improve functionality over time.

Bottom line

The Dockcase smart hard drive enclosure delivers on the basics that you want from a hard drive enclosure with a durable build, solid thermal performance, and fast transfer speeds. It then goes on to earn its slightly elevated price tag with excellent drive support, power loss protection, and its unique built-in display.

Now if you are someone that rarely uses an external drive and is going to toss it in your bag and forget about it then you can probably pass on the Dockcase for either an external SSD or a cheaper generic drive enclosure. However, for the data-hungry or drive security conscious, the Dockcase smart hard drive enclosure may be a perfect fit with glanceable info at your fingertips and peace of mind that your data is safe.

Back to school sales continue this week with early Labor Day deals online. If you want to expand your laptop, tablet, phone or game console storage for less, here's a sale for you. Today, Amazon takes up to 61% off SanDisk Western Digital SSDs and memory card storage.

During the sale, you can get the 1TB SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD for $160. It typically costs $309, so that's $149 savings and just about 50% off. This is the lowest price ever for this SanDisk SSD and one back to school deal you don't want to miss. 

SanDisk's Extreme Pro Portable SSD is the best USB Type-C accessory for moving large files. The SSD in this deal features 1TB of storage with read and write speeds of up to 2,000MB/s.

Although we didn't test it, SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD reviews average 4.8 out of 5-stars. Satisfied Amazon customers praise its fast file transfers speeds and lightweight, durable design.

Shockproof, IP55 rated water-and-dust resistant with 256-bit AES encryption, the SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD is rugged and secure. That means you can carry it with you everywhere you go with peace of mind knowing that your files are always safe. For broad compatibility, it ships with USB Type-C and USB Type-A cables for Windows and Mac machines. 

The SanDisk Extreme Pro is a solid buy if you're looking for a high capacity Portable SSD.

Looking for alternative storage solutions? See more top deals from Amazon's one-day sale below.

More storage deals

A 30TB SSD for $39? What an amazing deal! Except it's a lie. If you shop online, chances are you've seen third-party seller deals listed at Amazon and Walmart. Trusted retailers like Adorama, antonline, and B&H are legit go-to third party sellers with solid deals. 

However, online shopping is also a haven for sketchy third-party sellers to scam unsuspecting buyers. 

As our sister site, Tom's Hardware reports, a "too good to be true" 30TB M.2 mini SSD for $39 deal at Walmart (now removed) underlines this hard truth. Cybersecurity Researcher, @RayRedacted bought the same Samsung SSD knockoff from wholesale site AliExpress to expose the scam in a Twitter thread. In this scam, you think you're getting a whopping 30TB of storage, when in reality, you're getting flat-out deceived. "Scammer gets two 512MB Flash drives. Or 1 gigabyte, or whatever.  They then add hacked firmware that makes it misreport its size," @RayRedacted explains in a tweet.

With more people looking for great bargains this back to school season, scammers are banking on your frugalness. If you see a deal you like from an unknown third-party seller at Amazon or Walmart, it's a good idea to check them out first. Besides feedback from verified consumers, search for seller ratings at BBB, Trustpilot, or Sitejabber. That way, you can prevent getting duped and save yourself the hassle of having to return for a refund.

Be sure to check out our back to school hub for real deals on high capacity storage and other essentials. 

Part of finding the best laptop for you is answering the question, “How much storage do I need on my laptop?” Storage space refers to your computer’s capacity for storing files and data. The more storage space you have, the more documents, images, or files your PC can hold, and the faster it can recall them when needed. More is almost always better, but it’s about balancing want versus need, price versus impact.

Before deciding on how much storage is appropriate, consider your usual activities. A video editor, for example, might measure most of their files in dozens to hundreds of gigabytes, while the average user – someone who spends most of their time on the web – could get by with much less. 

And when we think about price, there are additional questions to consider. Can we get by with an HDD, or do we need the speed of an SSD? Equivalent SSD storage space could be three to four times more expensive, but the speed increase could be worth it depending on your needs.

As you can see, determining just how much space you need on your laptop isn’t as simple as it may seem, but we’re here to help.

Things to consider for your laptop storage 

When buying a new laptop, we generally have a storage figure in mind. We typically overestimate our needs when deciding on specs in a new machine, so just taking a guess isn’t wrong, but you might end up overpaying. Here are .the most important factors to keep in mind. 

Your typical laptop use 

For the average user, a laptop is primarily a device to send email, browse the web, watch streaming content, and converse on social media. Most prefer web-based applications, like Google Docs, as opposed to applications they need to download and install. Combined with  cloud-based storage like iCloud or Google Drive and streaming platforms like YouTube, Netflix, and Spotify for entertainment and it’s easy how many users could get by with minimal storage space.

Compare that to a video editor, photographer, or coder. These users  require more performance and more space. Video editors, for example, need to quickly store and recall hundreds of gigabytes, or even a few terabytes, of information. The ability to import and export large files with minimal wait times is crucial and requires a lot of SSD space.

Only you will know the answer to where you reside on that spectrum, so first do an honest accounting of your primary activities on your laptop and whether they take up a considerable amount of storage space.

Your budget 

If money is no object then you can ignore this, but as storage is one of the more expensive upgrades you can make on a laptop this can swing the price considerably. HDDs offer more storage at a cheaper price than SSDs, but with significantly slower read and write speeds, meaning it takes longer to save or retrieve files from the drive.

The average HDD, for example, costs around $0.04 per gigabyte as of this writing. SSDs, on the other hand, cost about $0.25 per gigabyte. On average, a terabyte of storage on each would cost $40 for the HDD and $250 for the SSD. 

HDDs offer a lot of bang for the buck, so we’re not suggesting anyone skip them. What could be a more reasonable solution, though, especially for the budget-conscious, is to buy a laptop with a smaller SSD that will cover your day-to-day storage needs and get an external HDD for archiving content you want to save, but don’t always need to access. This solves both needs, giving you a lot of space but speed for the things you use most often.  

Purge intervals 

You need to consider what you need today and how quickly you’re accumulating new files – photos and videos, for example – to project your needs for the future. 

While upgrading from 512GB to a terabyte sounds like a massive jump, you could quickly eat away at available storage space once you start importing your files and downloading new apps and games. If you’re a digital pack rat who doesn’t regularly purge unneeded files, you could be back where you started in just a few weeks or months. 

For these considerations, consider what you need today and how quickly you  accumulate new files. This should give you a rough estimate of how long it would take you to fill your storage and how aggressive you should purge files to keep up.

The types of files you’re storing (and where you’re storing them)

A casual user can make use of cloud-based storage for almost everything. We still recommend regular offline backups for your most vital files, but with a reliable fast internet connection cloud storage covers most of your needs.

Most users' storage needs come down to photos, videos, applications, and games, so consider how you’re storing each. Google Drive and iCloud are affordable solutions to store photos and videos. Using these services means you’ll need less physical space on your laptop. 

Gamers can rely on services like Steam to store games they own, but haven’t played in a while. Steam saves a copy of the game and you can download it any time from a convenient dashboard. Unused games get deleted from your device and re-downloaded when you’re ready to play. 

A power user, conversely, needs physical storage. An industrial designer, for example, can’t wait minutes (or hours) for a massive CAD file to download when presenting it to a client. An architect can’t rely on cloud storage alone to store thousands of man hours of architectural renderings and engineering blueprints. Video editors don’t have time to import and export 250 gigabytes of b-roll for a documentary they’re working on.

For these users, physical storage is a must. For the rest of us, it’s mostly a nice-to-have.

So how much storage do I need on my laptop? 

512 gigabytes is the sweet spot for most users. And by most, we’re talking about greater than 80% of PC owners. If you want something a little more future-proof, opt for a terabyte and you should be more than happy. 

Power users are a different story entirely. There’s really no right answer here other than to say most should start with a terabyte or more. You will want that much space on your laptop to benefit from the premium internal SSDs that come in the best video editing laptops. Top end MacBooks that are the favorites of some video editors go all the way up to 8TB of storage, but that gets really expensive. Even for power users, the best answer is to choose a laptop SSD that will cover your day-to-day needs and then look at some of the best portable SSDs for content creators for added external storage that won’t slow you down.    

Prime Day 2022 is here and I've found myself in quite the pickle: I can't stop wanting more and more digital space on my PC, so I just bought the Samsung 980 Pro SSD 2TB 4.0.

If you wanna be like me, you can purchase the Samsung 980 Pro 4.0 2TB SSD for $195 at Amazon, which is a whole $185 off the original listing price.

The Samsung 980 Pro SSD 2TB Gen 4.0 is currently almost half off on Amazon, which is an absolute steal for anyone looking to add lightning fast storage space to their desktop. Its read speeds hit 7000MBps, making it 2x faster than PCIe 3.0 SSDs. I personally bit the bullet and bought this bad boy, and I can't wait to plug it into my computer and continue my hoarding of digital space.

I have a 2TB SSD, a 2TB HDD, a 500GB SSD and a 8TB HDD in my desktop but that's just not enough. I'll never be satisfied until I load every one of my M.2 slots with an SSD that's capable of storing every single game I own. I'm only kidding, of course... I think?

Prime Day deals keep rolling in, and with them come some of the biggest savings we've seen on external storage solutions this year!

Gaming has become something of a storage nightmare recently. Juggling which games to keep installed on your PC or console can be a headache, and upgrading your interior drives can be a daunting task to some. Thankfully, Western Digital comes through with several external storage options to mitigate that anxiety.

• Best Prime Day deals 2022 hub

So what's better? SSDs or HDDS? Honestly, they both have their perks.

Hard drive disks (HDD) use several moving magnetic disks to store data. This means all of the data storage is physical which is why they also tend to be the larger option; requiring more space for more internal parts. Unfortunately, these internal parts make HDDs susceptible to internal damage, making them less drop-resistant.

Solid-state drives (SSD), on the other hand, use an integrated circuit (a microchip) to store data. This means that they read, write, and store data using electric pulses. SSDs process data much more quickly and can be constructed on a much smaller scale because they don't require any moving parts. 

Overall, HDDs are an excellent option for affordability, while SSDs are the superior choice in performance. Western Digital has you covered whichever option you choose, but you better get in on these Prime Day deals soon - they won't last long.

Prime Day 2022 is revving up and we're tracking the best deals from Amazon and other retailers. Be sure to visit our Prime Day 2022 hub for the best discounts on gaming, tech and more.

Amazon is slashing up to 57% off SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD storage for Prime Day. SanDisk SSDs are among today's best external storage for laptops and should be on every back-to-school wish list.   

During Prime Day, the SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable 1TB SSD is just $169. That's $110 in savings and its lowest price ever. If you're looking for Prime Day deals on storage, this is one of the best for the money. 

• Browse: Amazon's entire Prime Day sale

SanDisk's Extreme Pro Portable SSD is a must-have best USB Type-C accessory for moving large files. It's perfect for anyone who works with large files like high-res photos and videos. Over the standard Extreme SSD, it offers twice the performance speed and is bigger in size.

The SSD in this deal features 1TB of storage with read and write speeds of up to 2,000MB/s. If you need more wiggle room, you can pick up the 4TB SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD for $499 ($400 off).

Although we didn't test it, SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD reviews average 4.8 out of 5-stars. Satisfied Amazon customers praise its fast file transfers speeds and lightweight, durable design.

Shockproof, IP55 rated water-and-dust resistant with 256-bit AES encryption, the SanDisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD is rugged and secure. That means you can carry it with you everywhere you go with peace of mind knowing that your files are always safe. For broad compatibility, it ships with a USB Type-C and USB Type-A cables for Windows and Mac machines. 

The SanDisk Extreme Pro is a solid buy if you're looking for a high capacity Portable SSD.

Visit our Prime Day 2022 hub for more savings on today's must-have tech. Amazon's Prime Day sale ends July 13. 

More SanDisk Storage deals

Whether you're buying a laptop at the store or configuring one to order online, you need the best possible storage drive. Getting a speedy solid-state drive (SSD) rather than a creaky mechanical hard drive will make your entire computer much faster, but can you afford it -- and will it have enough space for all of your files? Plus, even if you choose an SSD, not all of them are equally speedy.

Before you buy a laptop, it's a good idea to consider the following questions about storage.

SSD or hard drive?

Equipping your laptop with an SSD is more important for overall performance than getting a faster processor, because even a slow SSD is three to four times faster than the speediest mechanical hard drive.

If you were to rip open a hard drive (don't do it, because you'll break it), you'd see a small metal arm that stretches out onto a round rotating platter. And just like an old-fashioned record player, the arm reads data (in lieu of sounds) off the spinning media. Whether your hard drive spins at 5,400 rotations per minute (rpm) or 7,200 rpm, it's inherently limited in comparison with an SSD, which is a series of Flash memory chips that move data around inside the silicon. Even if you regularly defragment your hard drive in Windows 10, you won't reap the speed benefits of an SSD.

The added performance of an SSD affects the things that matter most: launching apps, opening files, switching between tasks and booting. On a Dell Inspiron 15 5000, it took 31.9 seconds to open Microsoft Word on the hard drive but just 1.8 seconds with an SSD. On the same laptop, the Chrome browser launched in 14 seconds and Excel in 19.9 seconds with the regular hard drive, and only 1.1 and 1.8 seconds, respectively, with an SSD.

However, there's no doubt that laptops with built-in SSDs are more expensive. The least expensive laptops we've seen with an SSD cost between $500 and $600, but many cost upwards of $1,000, with relatively small 256GB drives. Meanwhile, you can get a perfectly functional laptop with a traditional hard drive for under $400.

Bottom line: Buy a laptop with an SSD if you can possibly afford one. If you need more reasons why you should buy a laptop with an SSD, we got 'em.

How much local storage do you really need?

The smallest common SSD size is just 128GB, which is about 25 percent of the capacity of the 500GB hard drives you find on many budget laptops. You can easily fit Windows 10 (20GB), Office 365 (3GB), Chrome (under 500MB installed) and even Photoshop (3.1GB) on such a drive, but the minute you start working with files or even running Windows updates, the drive will fill up quickly. It's also important to note that, if your SSD is more than 75 percent full, performance may suffer.

Some gaming laptops solve this expensive dilemma by coming with both an SSD for key applications and a hard drive for data. Most consumer and business notebooks don't have room for multiple storage drives, but 1TB external USB hard drives cost under $60.

Bottom line: Get at least a 256GB SSD, or 512GB if you do more storage-heavy work.

SSD types: SATA or PCIe NVMe?

Typical mainstream hard drives use the same SATA (aka SATA 3) interface as mechanical hard drives, but that connection is limited to about 550 megabytes per second, which is still four or five times more bandwidth than a hard drive uses. However, some more expensive laptops use drives based on the PCIe-NVMe standard, which is sometimes listed as just NVMe or PCIe but is the same thing.

The fastest PCIe-NVMe SSDs on the market can theoretically read and write at four or five times the speed of a SATA unit, but most PCIe-NVMe drives we test are 1.5 to three times quicker than an equivalent SATA drive. Where a typical SATA SSD might return a rate of 150 to 175 MBps on the LAPTOP File Transfer Test, which involves reading and writing 4.97GB of files at the same time, a normal PCIe-NVMe SSD will get between 250 and 500 MBps. Some high-end gaming systems have dual PCIe-NVMe SSDs that work together in what's called a RAID array, and those can get rates of over 1,000 MBps on our test.

Unfortunately, not all PCIe-NVMe SSDs are created equal. For example, the ThinkPad Yoga 370 that we tested had a 256GB Toshiba PCIe SSD that managed only 145.7 MBps on our test, less than most SATA-based systems. As a consumer, your best bet is to check benchmark reviews like ours to see how the drive in your potential laptop performed.

When buying a laptop, you usually don't get a choice between SATA and PCIe SSD configurations with the same capacity, though PCIe drives do cost more and come in more expensive laptops. The Dell XPS 13 base model comes with a 128GB SATA SSD, and the company charges $100 to move up to a 256GB PCIe SSD (there's no 256GB SATA option).

Bottom line: An NVMe-PCIe SSD is a nice-to-have if you can afford it.

What about eMMC storage (aka eMMC memory)?

Some of the cheapest laptops on the market (think under $300) come with a form of solid-state storage called eMMC (Embedded MultiMedia Card) memory, usually in 32 or 64GB capacities.

While SSDs have powerful controller chips and fast NAND Flash memory, eMMC drives are made to be cheap and use similar components to an SD card or USB stick. Read the spec sheet carefully when you buy a sub-$500 laptop, because sometimes companies will tout a laptop with eMMC as having "solid state" or "Flash" storage.

Even though it has no moving parts, eMMC memory is often slower than a hard drive. For example, the eMMC-powered HP Stream 11 copied files on our test at a rate of 50.4 MBps, while the hard drive-powered Dell Inspiron 15 had a rate of 83.4 MBps. However, eMMC memory is lighter, more durable and uses less power than a hard drive, which is why it's popular in tiny, low-cost notebooks and Chromebooks.

Bottom line: eMMC memory is slow and lives in cheap laptops only. It's not an SSD.

What is an M.2 SSD and do I need one? What about a 2.5-inch SSD?

Sometimes laptop manufacturers will label the SSD in a system as being either M.2 or 2.5-inch. These designations refer to the physical size, shape and connector on the drive, not to its performance. So, unless you plan to upgrade your laptop in the future, you shouldn't care what design the SSD is.

A 2.5-inch SSD, the most common type, is the same size and shape as a mechanical hard drive, allowing it to pop into the same drive bays, which is convenient for manufacturers and home upgraders. However, since SSDs use chips instead of magnetic platters, they can take up a lot less space than a hard drive. M.2 SSDs are thin memory sticks that look a lot like RAM DIMMs and pop into slots on the motherboard.

A laptop with an M.2 SSD may use the SATA interface or  the faster PCIe-NVMe interface. If a manufacturer labels a drive as M.2 256GB SSD, and doesn't mention PCIe, assume that it is SATA, which would make it the same speed as a 2.5-inch SSD. Whatever type you get, you can upgrade an M.2 SSD as long as you can safely open up the laptop and access the slot.

Bottom line: Don't worry about your drive's form factor.

Should I upgrade my storage later?

Laptop makers almost always charge more for moving from a hard drive to an SSD or small SSD to big SSD than it would cost to buy your own drive on the aftermarket. For example, you could upgrade to a 512GB SSD for under $150 by buying your own, when it cost  $250 to $400 to custom configure it. However, not every laptop is upgradable, so you could void your warranty, and, if you don't know what you're doing,  damage your computer. 

However, if you're a fairly tech-savvy person, you may want to consider how upgradable a laptop's storage is before you buy it. You can find out whether a notebook can be upgraded and the type of SSD it takes (M.2 or 2.5-inch, SATA or NVMe-PCIe) by visiting Crucial's Advisor tool.

Bottom Line: Doing your own upgrades can save money but be aware of the risks. If you're not sure how to upgrade your laptop's hard drive to an SSD all on your own, you might want to leave it to the professionals.

Final thoughts

If your budget allows, you should buy a laptop with at least a 256GB SSD in lieu of a mechanical hard drive. An NVMe-PCIe SSD usually offers a nice performance boost over a regular SATA drive, but only if it's available in a system you can afford.

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There's no better way to speed up and upgrade a laptop than to replace its mechanical drive with an SSD (Solid State Drive). Sure, you can defragment your hard drive in Windows 10, but it won't improve your performance like an SSD would.

It's a no-brainer, but if the thought of reinstalling Windows 10 (and all of your programs) and then tweaking all of their settings gives you the chills, don't worry. In an hour or two, you can easily be up and running with a clone of your current system -- except now your laptop will have blazing performance.

Here's how to do it.

Before you begin: check upgradability

The process of upgrading your laptop to SSD is fairly simple if you have easy access to your hard drive via a removable panel on the bottom of the laptop. If you have an Ultrabook or your laptop doesn't have that kind of easy upgrade access (eg, the bottom panel is sealed), it's a whole different ballgame, and you'll need to consult your laptop manual for instructions on getting to that drive and finding the right replacement drive. Otherwise, this tutorial will help those of you with the removable panel through preparing your laptop, cloning your system, and making the big swap.

The other thing you'll want to check before you go out and buy a replacement SSD is your drive's form factor; you need to make sure the drive will fit in the laptop. Most laptops have 2.5-inch drives, but ultraportable notebooks may use the 1.8-inch disk size. Also, even 2.5-inch drives can have different thicknesses -- 7mm or 9.5mm --and different interfaces (SATA or IDE, usually in laptops from 2008 or before). Laptops most widely use 2.5-inch SATA drives , but you should check your laptop manual or specifications to make sure you buy the right size SSD with the proper interface. Alternatively, you may be able to find this information by visiting Crucial's Advisor Tool or looking at your current drive's label: Open the access panel and look on the drive itself to see if it says 2.5-inch and SATA and what thickness you need. Generally, 7mm, 2.5-inch SATA SSDs will fit even in the 9.5mm slots and some come with spacers for a tighter fit.

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What you'll need

An SSD, of course — In addition to getting a drive with the right form factor and interface, you'll want to get an SSD with at least enough room for the Windows partition and any system recovery partitions. A 250GB Samsung SSD is currently about $89 on Amazon and a 500GB version is about $120. For most people, the 250GB drive should be fine, but the 500GB one offers more flexibility, for only a little more investment.

An external enclosure or adapter to connect that SSD to your laptop. For this how-to, we used a StarTech SATA external hard drive enclosure , although there's an updated USB 3.0 version you might prefer ($24 on Amazon). Either way, the enclosure comes in handy not just for connecting the SSD for the cloning process, but also afterward to turn your current drive, once it's replaced by the SSD, into an external one for backups and other storage.

Small Phillips screwdriver — For dismantling the proper panels.

Separate external hard drive (optional). You might need this if you have large folders, such as photos and videos, that might not fit on your SSD, and also to create a full system backup at the start.

Avoid rookie mistakes: here are 12 of the dumbest PC default settings (and how to change them)

Prepare your current drive for cloning

First we need to do a little prep work on your current drive.

1. Make a full backup of your system.  Create a system image backup in Windows 10 by going to the Control Panel (hit the Win+X keyboard shortcut and select Control Panel), then go to "Save backup copies of your files with File History" (under System and Security). In the left menu, go to "System Image Backup" to create a system image on an external drive or network location.

2. Move large folders that don't need to be kept on the SSD. Chances are your hard drive is larger than the SSD you are transferring to (for example, moving from a 500GB HDD with lots of media files to a 120GB SSD). If this is the case, move larger folders -- such as those containing your photos, videos, games, and personal documents -- to an external drive or other location to make enough space on your drive for cloning to the smaller SSD.

3. Clean up your drive for additional space. This is also the time to uninstall programs you aren't using anymore and delete unnecessary files that you don't want carried over to your SSD. Make one last uncluttering sweep with freeware CCleaner, which deletes old temp files and other space hogs, or at the very least run Windows' disk cleanup (in Windows search -- look for "disk cleanup," then choose "Free up disk space on this PC").

Connect the SSD

Now we'll get the SSD set up for the cloning process.

1. Physically connect the SSD. Place the SSD in the enclosure or connect it to the USB-to-SATA adapter, and then connect it to your laptop with the USB cable.

2. Initialize the SSD.  If the SSD doesn't show up on your computer with a new drive letter, head to Windows' Disk Management tool. Bring up Windows search again and look for "disk management," then choose "Create and format hard disk partitions." In Disk Management, you should see the SSD as a new disk under your current one. If it says "Not initialized," right-click on the drive and choose "Initialize disk."

3. Resize the current drive partition to be the same size or smaller than the SSD. While you're in Disk Management, check to see if your current disk's primary partition is larger than the SSD. (Usually, C: is the one that has Windows and your installed programs.) If not, you'll need to shrink the partition so that it and the other system recovery partitions are smaller than the SSD. Right-click on the OS partition and choose "Shrink…"

In the next window, leave the defaults and click "Shrink." This will resize the primary partition so it's smaller and leave the rest of the space as unallocated. Don't worry; during the cloning process, the cloning software will properly resize and allocate extra space to the main partition on your SSD.

At this time, you should restart your computer to make sure that the partition works before cloning.

Clone your hard drive

Finally, it's time to clone your drive to the SSD.

1. Install disk cloning software. For this tutorial, we're using EaseUS Todo Backup Free, which is free for personal use, has a user-friendly interface, and also optimizes the migration to an SSD.

2. Select the source and destination drives in the cloning software. In EaseUS Todo Backup, select the "Clone" option from the main menu. Follow the wizard to select your source disk (your HDD) and your destination (the SSD).

Note in particular that you should tick the "Optimize for SSD" option when you select the destination drive. This makes sure the sectors are aligned on your SSD and improves your chances of booting from the SSD after the cloning process. (EaseUS notes that it's not necessary to tick the "sector by sector" option, which copies every sector over, even if they're empty or bad.)

3. Review the layout and start cloning. In the next screen, you'll be able to compare the source drive with your SSD. As you see below, EaseUS automatically adjusts for different-sized drives by using the unallocated space on your current drive (which we created in step 3 of the last section).

Click "Proceed" then choose "Shut down computer when the operation completed." This took us about 45 minutes to complete, but your mileage may vary.

Physically swap your current drive with the SSD

Now let's remove the old drive and install the SSD.

1. Turn the computer off and remove the back panel. Turn your laptop off and then disconnect both the power cable and any other connected cables -- including the SSD. Then unscrew the back panel and remove it to get access to your hard drive.

2. Look for any screws securing your drive to the laptop. You'll need to unscrew those before you can remove the drive.

3. Lift the old drive up about 30 or 45 degrees and pull it out.

4. In its place, install the SSD and put the back panel on. Install the SSD by doing the reverse of how you removed the HDD: Slide the drive in at an angle and push it firmly into place so it's fully connected to the interface. Then secure it with the screw you removed in the last step and, finally, screw the back panel covering the drive back on.

5. Boot up with the SSD. Now for the moment of truth: Turn your laptop on. If your laptop boots as normal and you see all of your programs and settings just the way they were before (except much faster), all went well.

For one final test to see everything went as planned, let's make sure Windows recognizes your drive as an SSD. Hit Win+S to search for "defrag" and select "Defragment and optimize your drives." In the Optimize Drives window, your drive should be listed as a Solid State Drive. Mission complete!

(By the way, SSDs should not be defragmented. Windows 10 knows this. If it detects your drive as an SSD, instead of defragmenting the drive, it will optimize it for the TRIM command, which improves the performance of your SSD. By default, your drive will be automatically optimized.)

You can now put your old drive in the enclosure and wipe it in Disk Management, perhaps moving your media files to this drive. Just make sure your automated backup system (you have one, right?) covers both your new internal drive and connected external ones.

Another way you can tell the migration worked? You're now booting up, launching programs, and multitasking so much faster than before.

Windows 10 storage and backup

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PC gaming deals are going strong  this season with solid discounts on external HDD and SSD storage. One retailer offers an unbeatable deal on Seagate's FireCuda 8TB game drive.

Right now, you can get the Seagate FireCuda 8TB Gaming Hub for $119at GameStop. Formerly priced at $185, that's $66 off and the lowest price in history for this external hard drive. By comparison, it's $80 cheaper than Amazon's current price. 

This is one of the best gaming deals we've seen outside of the holidays. 

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Seagate's FireCuda Gaming Hub is one of the best storage solutions for PC gamers. The game drive in this deal features 8TB of high capacity storage, dual front-facing USB-C and USB-A ports and customizable RGB LED lights. It's compatible with Chroma RGB which makes it easy to personalize it to fit your atmosphere. 

Although we didn't test this HDD, Seagate's FireCuda Game Hub reviews average 3.9 out of 5-stars at GameStop. Satisfied owners love its massive storage, cool LED lighting, and portability. Others praise its simple plug and play design for easy installation right out of the box. 

The Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hub can be formatted to work with Xbox One, Xbox Series X, PS4 and PS5. Keep in mind that you can only play games directly from drive on previous gen Xbox One and PS4 consoles.

At $119, the Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hub is a great value if you want to add plenty of wiggle room to your laptop, desktop or console. 

Your old laptop may be slow, but that doesn't mean you need to replace it. Through heavy use, your notebook will collect a ton of excess files and programs, not to mention some literal dust. The parts will age, and software updates will become more demanding. But don't worry, we're here to help speed things up.

But before you go shopping for a new workstation, there are a few hardware and software fixes you should try. A little time, a screwdriver and a few tweaks in the settings can have your laptop running like new. Here are 12 ways to speed up your system.

1. Upgrade your hard drive to an SSD

Adding a solid-state drive (SSD) is the single biggest hardware change you can make to speed up a laptop. It makes everything faster; booting up, shutting down and launching apps will all occur in the blink of any eye when compared to traditional hard drives. More and more laptops are coming with built-in SSDs, but not all of them do. And if your old laptop has a traditional hard drive inside, you can crack it open for a significant speed boost at a reasonable price. 

2. Upgrade Your RAM

Your laptop should have at least 8GB of RAM. These days, your best bet is to buy your laptop with that much memory, as more and more manufacturers are soldering it to the motherboard, making it impossible to add more. A number of laptops still let you open them up, however, and RAM is relatively cheap. If you have 4GB, upgrade to 8GB, as the additional memory will probably cost you less than $25. 16GB, 32GB, and even 64GB upgrades are on the table, depending on your laptop.

3. Update your startup programs

Anything running in the background will slow your computer's boot-up time and devote resources to programs you may not even be using. Luckily, it's simple to turn these off:

In Windows 10, go to Task Manager > Startup to see the list of programs you have running when you turn on your computer.

On a MacBook, go to System Preferences > Users & Groups > Login Items to adjust which programs launch when you turn on the computer.

4. Uninstall unused apps

Unused programs take up storage on your hard drive and can suck resources from the CPU. Delete the junk to free up space and processing power for a faster computer. Be sure to check your library files for any junk that may stick around. 

Here's how to uninstall programs on Windows 10, and how to uninstall apps on a MacBook.

5. Run regular malware scans

It's possible that something you didn't install intentionally — like malicious software — could be the reason your laptop is slow. Run regular virus and malware scans to prevent something malicious from slowing down your laptop — or worse. Being vigilant can help you avoid and eliminate threats that are hoarding resources or filling your laptop with junk files.

6. Kill animations

The animations in your OS might look cool, but they take up precious resources that could be going elsewhere.

In Windows:
1. Search for "View advanced system settings."
2. Choose Settings under Performance.
3. Choose "Adjust for best performance," which will turn off a bunch of special effects and animations.

In OS X:
1. Go to System Preferences > Dock.
2. Check the boxes to turn off magnification and stop the animations in opening applications.

7. Speed up your shutdowns

When you go to shut down Windows, you often have to wait a long time while the computer attempts to close open programs that won't close gracefully on their own. If you're willing to dig into your registry, you can force the shutdown process to kill these rebel apps right away. Be sure you always save your work when you do this, as it will close open programs without prejudice.

Here's how to change your shutdown speed in Windows 10.

8. Disable web results

In Windows 10, Cortana searches the web and your local files when you search. This takes time to download and can be a drag on your system. If you use the Cortana box primarily to find files and apps that live on your hard drive, Windows 10 makes it easy to turn off web results.

Here's how to disable web results in Windows 10 search.

9. Speed up your downloads folder

The File Explorer, one of the most-used folders in Windows, can take forever to load if it's chock-full of your downloads. If you're seeing a loading bar every time you open the folder, you'll want to optimize it.

Here's how to fix a slow-opening windows downloads folder.

10. Keep it clean

Don't let your laptop get too dusty, or you'll risk letting it overheat. When that happens, the processor and graphics card have to work harder to perform well. Get a can of compressed air, and clean out the vents to give your processor and graphics card a breather.

11. Change your browser

Some browsers are faster than others. If you're a heavy user, Chrome can eventually hog your RAM, especially with a whole bunch of tabs open. Microsoft's Edge isn't as full-featured yet, but it has the benefit of being lighter and faster. On Macs, you can try Safari.

12. Update your drivers

Some new drivers can breathe new life into your hardware and fix any issues it may be having. Be sure to check your manufacturer's website to make sure your drivers are up-to-date.

Laptop guide

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Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage service is a huge convenience because it keeps your files synced across devices and backed up onto the internet. However, depending on how much you store in it, your OneDrive folder could take up many gigabytes of space. If you have a second storage drive in your system or even another partition, you may want to move the OneDrive folder to free up space. Here's how.

1. Right click the OneDrive taskbar icon and select Settings.

2. Click the Unlink OneDrive button under the Account tab. A login screen appears, but you should ignore it for now.

3. Launch File Explorer.

4. Navigate to and select the OneDrive folder. Unless you moved it previously, it is probably directly under your C:\Users\[your username]\ (eg, C:\Users\Avram) folder. You can get there either by clicking through your C drive or entering the folder name in your address bar.

5. Click the Move to button on the Home tab.

6. Select Choose location.

7. Select the new location and click Move. If you're moving the folder to another drive, select the drive letter. (Depending on the size of the folder, it may take a few minutes to move.)

8. Enter your email address into the OneDrive app window and click Sign in.

9. Select Personal if prompted to decide why you're signing in.

10. Enter your password and click Sign in.

11. Click "Change location."

12. Navigate to the location where you moved the OneDrive folder and click Select Folder.

13. Click Use this location.

14. Click Next in the OneDrive window.

15. Select which folders to sync (or sync all) and click Next.

16. Click Open my OneDrive folder or close the window.

Your OneDrive folder has been successfully moved.

Windows 10 storage and backup

• Previous Tip
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• Reclaim hard drive space by shrinking Windows 10
• Delete the Windows.old folder in Windows 10
• How to save space by cleaning Windows' WinSxS folder
• Back up files with the File History feature
• Mount and burn ISO files
• Format a hard drive for both Windows and Mac
• Zip a file or folder in Windows 10
• Control which OneDrive files are available offline
• Map OneDrive as a network drive
• Fetch any file on a remote computer with OneDrive
• 3 ways to save space
• Free disk space automatically with Storage Sense
• All Windows 10 tips
• How to install apps to an external drive

Personal Vault is a secure area inside OneDrive. Microsoft encourages users to store their personal critical documents such as your driver's license, copies of passports, and bank statements in the Personal Vault. It is available to anyone who has a Microsoft 365 account. 

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1) In the OneDrive folder in the File Explorer, click Personal Vault. 

2) Click Next on the Personal Vault pop-up.

3) Click Allow to complete Personal Vault setup.

4) Select one of the communication methods - email or phone number - to verify your identity.

5) Enter the code you received on the communication method.

6) Click Verify to complete setup and open the vault.

7) Add files to the Personal Vault folder as you would in any other folder. 

8) To lock the Personal Vault click on the Personal Vault icon on the Taskbar. 

9) Click Lock Personal Vault. 

iDrive Photos was launched last June by the iDrive team as an affordable and unlimited mobile photo and video storage solution at just $9.99 per year. You may recall that this is when Google Photos brought an end to its free unlimited backup plan, which caused many to scramble for an alternative solution.

iDrive Photos immediately jumped into the discussion for the best mobile backup solutions and tomorrow the company is announcing that iDrive Photos will now include 1TB of cloud storage for Mac or PC for the same $9.99 a year, or just 99 cents for the first year. 

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It's hard to overstate what an amazing deal this is compared to the rest of the cloud storage landscape, but here's a quick look at some of its competitors' offerings. Google and Amazon's lowest cloud storage tiers are $19.99 a year, which gets you 100GB of storage. That's double the price for 1/10th of what you are getting with iDrive Photos and that's if you don't include the unlimited backup of mobile photos and videos. 

Apple's iCloud pricing starts at 99 cents a month, but that's for a paltry 50GB of storage, it bumps up to $2.99 a month for 200GB, which is less storage than the mid-tier iPhone 13. If you want an apples-to-apples comparison in terms of unlimited mobile photo and video storage, Flickr Pro is $60 per year.

I could go on with more, but I think that makes the point clear, iDrive Photos is by far the most affordable cloud storage solution and it doesn't stop with the storage space. 

iDrive Photos also gives you the ability to easily share your photos or videos from the app, it gives you a Timeline View to quickly scan through for a specific event, auto-upload ensures your photos and videos are always backed up in case anything happens to your phone and your favorites album lets you gather all of your most cherished photos and videos in one spot. 

iDrive Photos was already my go-to recommendation for prolific mobile photographers and videographers. But the addition of 1TB of general-purpose cloud storage for your PC or Mac while maintaining that $9.99 per year price point makes it the best cloud storage solution for most users. 

iDrive will announce the change tomorrow and existing subscribers will automatically get the 1TB of PC or Mac storage added to their plan. So if you've been looking for a cloud storage solution you don't have to wait, check it out today.

Several outlets speculated that since Apple's Mac Studio SSDs are not soldered in place, it was possible to upgrade the storage on the new Mac Studio. However, a recent Youtube teardown by Luke Miani discovered this was not so.  

During the fifteen-minute video, Miani tested the Mac Studio to see if it was user-upgradeable by removing and wiping the current SSD of a Mac Studio and inserting the clean SDD into another Mac Studio. Sadly the Mac Studio would not boot up and the status light blinked out an SOS. 

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While the Mac Studio recognized the freshly mounted SSD, Apple's software prevented it from booting up. So it seems Apple is preventing users from upgrading their expensive Mac Studio SSDs with more affordable options. To be clear, Apple states on its website that the storage is "not user-accessible" and they should purchase their devices with the amount of storage they will need in the future, so this isn't Apple pulling a bait and switch on anyone.

However, it is a disappointing response from Apple because, as any content creator will tell you, there is never enough storage for all your photo and video projects. When you consider that image sensors are getting bigger, and if you're shooting your stills in RAW, you're going to eat up massive amounts of storage quickly. 

Most of today's cameras also shoot 4K, 6K, 8K, or higher resolution videos, demanding even more storage. Having the ability to upgrade the internal storage on your Mac Studio is a major want and would be a huge plus. It would be ideal for Apple to open up this option to users, especially when you consider that the M1 Ultra Mac Studio's starting price is $3,999 (going up to $8,500 with all the bells and whistles) and even the M1 Max build starts at $1,999, which is nothing to sneeze at. 

With the Right to Repair movement growing, users seek devices and machines that will last longer, are easily upgraded and are future-proof enough to last for at least five years to get the most out of their financial investment. Apple seemed to acknowledge that last November with its new Self Service Repair program, but this seems to fly in the face of that.

In the meantime, since Apple has yet to address the issue, please feel free to check out our best portable SSDs for content creators, seeing as you might need them.

Via MacRumors

Apple's Peek Performance event unveiled the powerful Mac Studio and upgraded iPad Air 5 with M1, and if you're looking to add even more connectivity to these powerhouses, accessories company Other World Computing (OWC) may have a few USB-C hubs and external hard drives up for the task.

OWC is known for its variety of Mac and PC accessories to expand the capabilities of MacBooks, Windows laptops, and more. Now, the hardware company revealed a lengthy list of external hard drives, SSDs, USB-C hubs, and a Thunderbolt 4 cable that are compatible with the iPad Air 5 and Mac Studio. 

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These accessories include the OWC Envoy Pro SX, a portable NVMe M.2 SSD with speeds up to 2847MB/s and is available with up to 2TB of storage; the OWC Atlas S Pro SD card, available with capacities ranging from 32GB to 256GB; the OWC ThunderBay 4, a flexible external hard drive with up to 72TB of storage; and the OWC Thunderbolt USB-C hub with four Thunderbolt ports and a USB-A port.

OWC announced a number of accessories, and you can check out the highlights below. 

We have yet to test these out, and a majority of OWC accessories appear to have already launched prior to Apple's announcement of the Mac Studio and iPad Air 5 with M1. However, OWC claims these external hard drives and USB-C hubs work with Apple's recent products.

If you're after docking stations that provide plentiful video outputs, the Targus USB-C Universal Quad 4K Docking Station offers a quad-screen connection thanks to its four HDMI outputs and four DisplayPorts. You'll also find more USB-C hubs at similar prices to OWC's hubs on our list of best USB-C hubs.  

The Samsung Portable SSD T7 is one of the best external solid state drives out there. It's super portable, durable, and secure. If you're looking for fast and reliable to-go storage for large files, this deal is for you.

For a limited time, you can get Samsung Portable SSD T7 1TB for $109 directly from Samsung. That's $30 off its former $139 retail price and the cheapest this mini drive has ever been. In fact, it's one of the best Samsung deals we've seen all season. 

You can also get it at Amazon for the same price. 

Samsung's Portable T7 SSD makes it fast and easy to transfer and store large files. The external SSD in this deal instantly adds 1TB of storage to your  laptop, tablet, phone or game console.

Although we didn't test this portable SSD, feedback from owners praise its compact, lightweight, shockproof design and speedy performance. With incredibly fast read/write speeds of up to 1,050 MB/s and 1,000 MB/s, respectively, the T7 SSD cuts down on the time you spend backing up and transferring huge files.

And what's more password protection and AES 256-bit hardware encryption give you peace of mind knowing your files are secure. Samsung bundles it with USB type C to C and USB type C to A cables for universal connectivity.

So if you're looking for a convenient way to manage photo, video, and game storage, the Samsung T7 SSD is all you need. 

As a run-and-gun content creator, I value sturdy, dependable, super portable USB Type-C SSDs that get the job done quickly. So with the help of my film, photo, and production partner Peter, and after many hours of use and abuse, here is a field-tested list of some of the best portable SSD drives for content creators like ourselves. 

“Field-tested” means many terabytes of writing and formatting, drops, spills and an all-around exposure to the elements. After all of that, these dependable beauties are still going strong. Some names will be familiar to most and a couple of them you may not have heard of, but this list contains all the best options we have used so far in the field and the office.

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As any content creator will tell you, your data is a precious commodity and must be protected at all costs. When filming, you want to ensure that the SSD you’re using is dependable and can handle the bandwidth, file sizes, and bitrates your camera is pushing out. 

While filming and shooting photos, Peter and I use a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K and either a Nikon Z6II or Nikon Z7II. We constantly back up our files and then exchange them via SSD drives so we can edit on either his MacBook or my Windows PC. Fast, dependable drives are needed for this to work smoothly and the products we selected are top performers.

The best portable SSDs for content creators that you can buy right now 

Samsung’s T5 Portable SSD provides 1TB of storage capacity for notebooks, desktops, mobile devices, and cameras like my Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K at an affordable price point. In the box, you’ll find one USB Type-A to USB Type-C cable and one USB Type-C to USB Type-C cable, so that you can use the T5 portable drive with your current and future gear. 

We’ve been using this drive for over a year and have not experienced any issues. The lightweight construction doesn’t feel as sturdy or durable as some of the other members of our group. However, it’s been our top production dog and has withstood our intense usage, which earns it our top spot.

Available at Amazon for $109.99.

This LaCie drive is lightweight, durable and stylish with a silver, angular design. We’ve only had it in our possession a few months and after dropping it several times, there’s not a dent or scratch on it. Also, thanks to that fast read/write speed, I love shooting with it. It guzzles down all the 6K raw footage we shot and copied files with plenty of speed. The 1TB NVMe solid-state drive connects to USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C compatible devices such as Macs, Windows computers and iPad Pros using the included cable to quickly transfer 4K videos, RAW photos, and other large files. 

You can even run applications directly from this portable SSD. With its durable metal casing and no moving internal parts, this external drive is designed to withstand drops of up to 6.5 feet. The LaCie Portable SSD v2 has a 3-year warranty that includes the Rescue data recovery service.

Available at B&H Photo for $169.

We used the Wise Advance 1TB SSD for five months and designed it for use in 4K video workflows and on-location shoots. The 1TB Portable & Cinema USB 3.1 Gen 2 SSD from Wise boasts a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port, read speeds up to 550 MB/s, and write speeds up to 520 MB/s, making it ideal for speedy transfers of large 4K/6K RAW files. 

We filmed a ton of content with this SSD and it performed great. The super lightweight and thin device can be easy to misplace, so be careful. However, the drive is housed in a waterproof, dust-proof, shock-proof, and X-ray-proof shell, and it comes with a hot shoe mount handy for location shooting. So as long as it’s on your camera, it’s safe and will work great—one of my personal favorites that I love to use and is worth every penny.  

Available at B&H for $279.

We enjoyed the exceptional performance with this PNY Pro Elite 1TB SSD USB. It connects via Type-C and Type-A and it’s very compact and portable build makes it ideal for on-the-go content creators. 

The PNY Pro features fast transfer speeds, Acronis True Image data protection and a competitive 3 Year & 24/7 us-based technical support. I have used this PNY to shoot a video with our BMPCC 6K and transfer files from one PC to the next, and it never fails. I have reformatted this drive at least 100 times, and it just keeps going. 

Available at Amazon for $112.99.

The OWC 2TB Envoy Prop Elektron is our favorite mass storage option. It’s tiny, fast, powerful and tough. You can slip this ultra-portable SSD into your pocket or backpack. And when you're done filming or shooting photos, you can quickly transfer all that data to the Envoy and know it will be safe. It’s great for sharing files over multiple computers in Peter’s workflow, and when in the field. 

OWC’s 1TB Envoy Pro Elektron SSD features a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C connection and fast transfer speeds up to 1,011 MB/s. The crushproof, aircraft-grade aluminum housing provides IP67 water and dust resistance, as well as silent operation. The Envoy Pro Elektron comes with a USB Type-C cable and Type-A adapter. You can plug it into just about anything as it supports macOS, Windows 10, Windows Server 2016, Linux, Chrome OS, iPadOS, and Android. I highly recommend this 2TB Envoy Pro Elektron from OWC. It’s a portable SSD Beast and I love it.

Available at Amazon for $229.

A well-known content creator's favorite, the Samsung T7 1TB portable SSD is now just $104.50 at NewEgg and a fantastic Black Friday deal.  The fast, reliable T7 is widely used by creators at all levels thanks to its speed and ability to handle massive 4K video and high-resolution photo, file sizes. 

You can scoop up a Samsung T7 1TB portable SSD right now and save 16% at NewEgg. 

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Samsung T7 Portable 1TB SSD Black Friday Deal

Since its launch in 2020, the Samsung T7 1TB portable SSD has quickly become a favorite of photographers, videographers, and content creators thanks to its speedy data transfer (reads up to 1,050 MBps writes up to 1,000 MBps), minuscule size ( 0.3 x 3.3 x 2.2-inches), and durability. 

I often use a Samsung T7 1TB portable SSD when filming with the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 6K camera. The T7 smoothly devours the 6K footage I shoot in BRAW without ever dropping any frames. I also will use it to back up footage when I am shooting run and gun on the streets in NYC.  It has survived many drops, bumps, and rough weather filming. 

The Samsung T7 1TB is an excellent storage option for content creators of all skill levels seeking a secure, durable portable SSD that won't let you down. Thanks to this Black Friday deal at Newegg, it's available now for the bargain-basement price of $104.50. 

Black Friday 2021 falls on November 26, and we expect to see tons of excellent deals on today's most coveted tech. Be sure to bookmark our best Black Friday 2021 deals hub for the best holiday discounts.

Save $20 on this rugged portable 5TB LaCie hard drive that's an industry favorite of on-the-go content creators. With the LaCie rugged portable hard drive, you'll feel secure knowing you can confidently tackle any terrain and it will survive drops and rough weather. 

For $169.99 you'll enjoy fast USB-C 130MB/s file transfers, backups, image, and video content browsing. The LaCie 5TB rugged hard drive is available now at Amazon. 

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LaCie Rugged 5TB External Hard Black Friday Deal

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Instead of the large-but-slow mechanical hard disk drives of yesteryear, many laptop users have solid state drives (SSDs) and internal eMMC storage units that often cap out at 256GB and can go as low as 32GB. With those kinds of space constraints, it's easy to boot up one day and find out that your C drive is completely (or very nearly) full.  Fortunately, if you have Windows 10, there are several steps you can take to clear out unnecessary files and free up much-needed disk space.

Search for large, unnecessary files

You may have files hiding in the depths of your storage drive that you don't need, but which are taking up huge amounts of space. These could be log files, temporary files or installation apps for programs you've already installed. Here's how to find your largest files.

1. Open File Explorer (aka Windows Explorer).

2. Select "This PC" in the left pane so you can search your whole computer. If you only want to look at your C drive, select the C drive instead.

3. Type "size: " into the search box and select Gigantic.

You may have to wait a few minutes for File Explorer to search your whole drive. Wait until the green status bar finishes filling the top.

4. Select "details" from the View tab.

5. Click the Size column to sort by largest to smallest.

6. Look through your list of files and delete those you no longer need. If you're in doubt about what a file does, leave it be or look it up. The last thing you want to do is break a program or erase important data. ISO files, Program installers and temp files are often things you can get rid of.

7. Navigate to the Downloads folder. It's usually in your Quick Access toolbar.

8. Delete any downloads you no longer need. 

Use the Disk Cleanup app

Windows 10's buit-in Disk Cleanup program finds and deletes unnecessary files that the operating system no longer needs. Here's how to use it.

1. Launch Disk Cleanup. You can find it by searching in the search box.

2. Select Your C drive and click OK. 

You'll have to wait a moment while it scans your drive.

3. Check off all the types of files you want to delete if they aren't already selected. They can all be safely removed, but some, like the temporary Internet files that make up your browser cache, may serve a purpose. Temporary files are often a particularly large waste of space.

4. Click Ok.

5. Click Delete Files to confirm.

Wait patiently while it deletes the files.

6. Launch Disk Cleanup again, select C drive and click Clean up system files.

7. Select C drive again.

8. Check off all the listed files (if they aren't already checked) and click OK. Note that that command erases Downloaded program files and Temporary Internet files, so if you want to keep those, uncheck them.

Disable hibernation

By default, your laptop is set to allow hibernation, a state of deep sleep where the contents of your RAM are saved to the hard drive rather than using power in the memory chips themselves.

Unfortunately, for hibernate to work, the system has to keep a large system file called hiberfil.sys that eats up several gigabytes, even when the computer is powered on. If you're willing to live without hibernation mode, you can save the space.

1. Open a Command prompt as administrator. You can get there by typing cmd into the search box, right-clicking the result and selecting "Run as administrator."

2. Type powercfg /hibernate off at the prompt and hit Enter.

Windows 10 storage and backup

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It's important to know how to check how much RAM your PC has to determine whether it has adequate memory to juggle multiple tasks simultaneously. RAM, an acronym of "random accessed memory," is your device's short-term memory bank, allowing your computer to access data rapidly.

For example, sufficient RAM allows users to quickly switch between browser tabs because your device's memory keeps all the data you're actively working on within reach. If you're a Google Chrome user who loves having tons of tabs open, you may want to opt for 16GB of RAM while professional video editors who work with RAM-taxing Adobe apps should shoot for 32GB.

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Perhaps your PC has been running a little slower than you'd like and you're wondering whether it needs a boost of RAM. Of course, before you can do this, you need to know how much RAM you have on your PC. Here's how to find out.

How to check how much RAM you have 

It's always good to arm yourself with knowledge with what's underneath the hood of your PC. Here's an easy, step-by-step tutorial on how to check how much RAM you have.

1. Click on Start.

2. Type in "System Information" in the search bar.

3. Click on the "System Information" app

4. In the System Information window, scroll down to "Installed Physical Memory."  Here, you'll get information on how much RAM is installed on your PC.

In the screenshot above, you can see the system has 8GB of RAM.

We also have a guide on how to check your VRAM (video random access memory), so be sure to check that out, too.