The market for external hard drives has been quiet in recent years. Impact-resistant discs have been invented for a long time, design models no longer surprise anyone, and speeds are at the same level, good or bad. Almost the main breakthrough in recent years has been the introduction of the USB C port. In this article, we have collected five such external hard drives with a capacity of 2 TB, which is optimal for today’s realities: transferring working photos, audio and video sources, storing a collection of games for a gaming laptop with small storage space or create a collection of your favorite 4K movies.
5 Best USB-C External Hard Drives 2TB
Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch STHH2000400 2 TB
External HDD manufacturers realized in time that this is not just a hard drive, but a full-fledged accessory. And it should look at least neat, and as much as possible attract attention to itself, like wrist chronometers, cufflinks from Cartier, or designer socks with SpongeBob. After all, you will often have to carry it in your bag, reach it in front of your friends, or show it to clients.
The guys from Seagate were one of the first to notice this, who released a nice “external” with a not very elegant name Backup Plus Ultra Touch. Its main feature is pleasant to the eye (and to the touch too) fabric cover, which is used to sheathe almost the entire upper part of the drive. Now from the outside to the inside.
A 2 TB hard drive of our own production is hiding in a nice box. To a computer or laptop Backup Plus Ultra Touch connects via a regular USB or USB C (via the included adapter). Interestingly, the speed varies not only from the type of connection but also from the device to which it is connected.
When copying large files via regular USB, the average write speed reached 119 MB / s, but over time it dropped to 80 MB / s. Overall, this is a good speed, just above the average ward temperature.
From the point of view of the OS, a hard drive is also a hard drive in Africa, and it does not matter how it is connected and with what software it is supplied. However, this is quite an important point in the assessment, as a smart proprietary software package can greatly simplify the life of its owner.
The package from Seagate is moderately simple and concise, but it copes with its task for the top five. The user can configure the types of backups (manual or full mirror), the time for automatic data copying, and enable hardware encryption using the Seagate Secure utility.
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WD My Passport for Mac NEW 2.5 “WDBP6A0020BBK 2 TB
The first thing that attracts attention in WD My Passport for Mac NEW is its non-trivial appearance by the standards of external HDDs. The front panel is visually divided into two symmetrical halves: the top is a regular smooth plastic, the bottom is an angular corrugated pattern. It is especially great that in addition to the black color that has set the teeth on edge, the drive can be found in orange, red, and blue.
Someone from the audience will shout that this is too youthful, but we do not see the connection between age and love for black. Definitely, this is a gadget that you want to get out of your bag when you arrive at the office and put it in the most prominent place on the table.
Considering that the design took off and the My Passport hard drives went to the people, the manufacturer WD released several different variations of this model. As you might guess from the name, our hero is tailored for working with Mac.
It is formatted to work with the latest macOS revisions, there is a USB C connection, and the drive itself is confidently integrated into the Apple Time Machine backup utility. It can be said that this is the more accessible answer to LaCie, with its elite “outsiders” for Apple. Other operating systems are also supported, but this will most likely require formatting the drive.
You cannot say much about the drive itself, it seems that the same high-quality HDD of its own production is used here, which gives out peak for its format 125 – 130 MB / s in both directions. On average, the speed is kept at 95 MB / s. This is the standard speed for this class of devices. More interesting here is the additional package that comes with the drive.
The first time you connect, you will find several useful programs for creating a system backup, enabling hardware encryption, and monitoring the status of the drive. An unusual feature is the WD Discovery utility, which allows you to link multiple accounts in cloud storage (iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, etc.) in a common interface, and then manage them as a whole. Against the background of all this, the only drawback is the too short cord. It’s convenient with a laptop, but a hassle with a computer.
See also Best 2.5 SSD For Laptop With 240-250GB.
LaCie Mobile Drive STHG2000400 2 TB
LaCie’s unspoken credo is high reliability combined with great design. In the case of the Mobile Drive, reliability lies in a rugged aluminum casing that protects the drive from unwanted bumps, bumps inside the bag and accidental drops from the table. With regards to the design, in our opinion, it turned out even more interesting than the previous model, which was engaged in by the advertised Porshe designers. If last time it was a completely ordinary angular box with a silver or gold color, the current HDD has become thinner and bristled with unusual “diamond” edges around the edges.
LaCie Mobile Drive looks equally great in press photos, and when it lies close at hand next to a laptop and a coffee cup. The tactile sensations are also delightful: this is not fake metal, which is actually plastic, but high-quality rough and pleasant to the touch aluminum. Because of this, it weighs a little more than other external HDDs, but due to the thickness of the case of 1 cm, it easily fits into a bag and does not put pressure on adjacent pockets with equipment or a camera.
In general, a clear influence of Apple is felt in the design, even the Space Gray color corresponds to the corporate color of the “apple”. And this is no accident because this HDD was created with MacBooks in mind. The hard drive has a USB C connector and supports Apple’s proprietary Thunderbolt. At the same time, a regular second USB cable is also included, so that compatibility with ordinary Windows PCs is preserved. It just won’t be such a cool integration with Apple’s Time Machine backup utility. As for the 2 TB drive itself, its average read and write speed is about 120 – 125 MB / s. This is quite enough for both quick data backup and for comfortable work with photos directly from the hard drive. As a bonus for the overpayment (this is a really expensive “external”), the user receives a three-month subscription to the full Adobe Creative Cloud package.
Transcend StoreJet 25C3S TS2TSJ25C3S 2
Unlike many simple and reliable external drives from Transcend, the StoreJet is more of a premium option. The case of the device is made of anodized aluminum, the weight of the device is only 133 grams, and the thickness of the case is just under 1 cm. Definitely, this is one of the smallest external 2 TB HDDs you can find on sale. In addition, the sleek aluminum body matches perfectly with any laptop and, in terms of style, looks equally appropriate in the backpack of a bearded coder or in the elegant purse of a project manager.
Inside the aluminum case is a Transcend HDD with a standard spindle speed of 5400 rpm for this class. In synthetic tests, it shows not a record, but quite adequate performance: CrystalDiskMark speaks of an average read speed of 89 MB / s and 84 MB / s for writing. At its peak, the drive showed 138 and 129 MB / s in reading and writing. This is exactly the speed you expect from a quality HDD in 2020.
An important addition to the hard drive is the proprietary Transcend Elite utility package, which allows you not only to back up the necessary files, but, if necessary, create specific templates for archiving data. For example, back up data from specific folders and at a specific time. It is worth noting that the Transcend Elite can do a lot more, including recovering accidentally deleted data or restoring the drive after irreversible errors.
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LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C 2.5 “STFS2000800 2 TB
LaCie Rugged prioritizes increased reliability, with a sturdy aluminum casing wrapped in a not-so-sleek orange bumper to protect the disc from drops, accidental bumps and moisture. The main thing is not to forget to put a rubber plug on the ports so that water does not get there. Plus, the data on the disk itself is protected from prying eyes using Seagate Secure encryption. If you didn’t know, LaCie is Seagate’s premium sub-brand loved by creative folks with MacBooks under their arms.
As in all LaCie products, it uses an exceptionally high-quality Seagate hard drive, which at its peak is capable of delivering copy and write speeds in the region of 130 MB / s. This is if you connect it to your Mac via Thunderbolt. With a regular laptop on Win 10, the speed during the tests dropped to 40 – 50 MB / s. It’s time to scratch your head thoughtfully and go hack the truth to the womb on the Internet. As it turned out a little later, LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt is sometimes naughty on laptops with Windows 10, and the banal re-inclusion solves the problem. And then we get the same 130 MB / s.
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Like most LaCie products, this drive is designed to work in conjunction with Apple technology. Here you have support for the second revision Thunderbolt interface, and Apple Time Machine integration for backing up data, utilities for managing encryption, formatting tools, and much more. With Windows, the flight is excellent, instead of USB C, you can use regular USB A, but goodies like Thunderbolt and Time Machine in this case disappear. However, buying it in conjunction with a laptop from Acer is strange, to put it mildly: it is really expensive, and all its features are tailored for the Mac. However, if you need a protected HDD with a USB C connection, then in fact the only option would be the good old Transcend StoreJet.
