'ZDNET Recommends': What exactly does it mean?
ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing.
When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. This helps support our work, but does not affect what we cover or how, and it does not affect the price you pay. Neither ZDNET nor the author are compensated for these independent reviews. Indeed, we follow strict guidelines that ensure our editorial content is never influenced by advertisers.
ZDNET's editorial team writes on behalf of you, our reader. Our goal is to deliver the most accurate information and the most knowledgeable advice possible in order to help you make smarter buying decisions on tech gear and a wide array of products and services. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards. If we have made an error or published misleading information, we will correct or clarify the article. If you see inaccuracies in our content, please report the mistake via this form.
The best rugged hard drives and SSDs in 2021
For a lot of people, the data they have is more important that the hardware it is contained on. You can replace hardware, but unless you have a backup of the data, that data can be gone on the blink of an eye.
ZDNET Recommends
This is especially true for photographers and videographers and drone pilots, people who might have their equipment out in the field, exposed to dust, water, and bad weather. One wrong move and irreplaceable footage can be gone -- forever.
These are the sorts of people who need rugged hard drives and SSDs.
These are small, lightweight, highly portable, and tough. These feel more like big key fobs than external hard drives, but they stand up to extreme abuse.
Tech specs
- Capacity: 1TB
- Connectivity: USB-C
- Speed: Up to 1050MB/s read and up to 1000MB/s write speeds
- Security: 256-bit AES hardware encryption
- Ruggedness rating: 2-meter drop protection and IP55 water and dust resistance
Need a lot of capacity, but also the speed and convenience of SSDs? It'll cost you! But the G-Drive ArmorLock is a drive that you can trust in harsh conditions.
Tech specs
- Capacity: 4TB
- Connectivity: USB-C
- Speed: Up to 1000MB/s read, 1000MB/s write
- Security: 256-bit AES-XTS hardware encryption and NIST P-256 elliptic curve-based key management and auto Unlock feature to quickly gain access to your SSD with a pre-authorized device
- Ruggedness rating: 3-meter drop protection, 1,000-pound crush resistance, and IP67 dust and water resistance.
This tiny drive packs a lot of storage space in a tough aluminum shell. The only downside to this drive is there's no built-in encryption.
Tech specs
- Capacity: 1TB
- Connectivity: USB-C
- Speed: Read/write speeds up to 2,000MB/s
- Security: None
- Ruggedness rating: IP55-rating to withstand water and dust
This is a lot of HDD storage in a rugged shell. While I much prefer SSDs because they don't have any moving parts to damage, this is a great drive for those looking for more storage at a very good price.
Tech specs
- Capacity: 1TB
- Connectivity: USB-C and USB 3
- Speed: Read speeds up to 140MB/s and write speeds up to 130MB/s
- Security: None
- Ruggedness rating: IP54 rain/dust rating, and crush resistance up to 1000lbs
How were these products chosen?
As a part time pro/am photographer, videographer, and drone pilot, I'm someone who has had to keep my data safe in conditions that really wanted me to lose my data -- high winds, blasting rainstorms, thunder and lightning, or sand everywhere, I have -- up to the time of writing -- never lost any footage.
All the products recommended have been field tested under terrible conditions. These are products that I trust to protect my data and bring it back home safe.
SSD or HDD?
Given the lack of moving parts, and lower energy consumption, I much prefer SSDs. The problem is that SSDs are more expensive and if you need a LOT of storage, then that's where HDDs shine.
How many backups do I need?
I operate by the principle of "two is one, and one is none," which means that I like to have a couple of copies of everything. There are two ways to do this.
- Don't delete your storage cards (so that's one copy), and then make a second copy to your external drive. Modern SD/microSD cards are incredibly robust …as long as you don't lose them!
- If you need to delete your storage cards, then I make two copies, and keep them separately (as much as possible).
Do you trust your gear to be waterproof?
To a point, but I still store drives in a waterproof bag or box because I'm not one to take chances with my data.