Finest exterior SSDs for gaming: 5 nice moveable efficiency drives

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Perhaps your gaming laptop computer doesn’t have sufficient storage. Otherwise you merely need a simple technique to make your recreation library moveable. An exterior SSD can repair each of those points (and extra) by offering a simple technique to develop storage you can tackle the go.

However selecting an exterior SSD means sorting by a dizzying array of choices, and making a poor alternative can depart you feeling arduous performed by. Fortunate for you, we’ve performed the testing and might supply some sure-fire suggestions which might be assured to assist, and never hinder, your gaming setup.

Scroll beneath our suggestions to be taught extra about our analysis course of and what to search for when shopping for an exterior SSD for gaming.

Why it's best to belief PCWorld for exterior drive opinions and shopping for recommendation: We’re PCWorld, that’s why. We’ve been placing laptop {hardware} by its paces for many years. Our exterior drive evaluations are thorough and rigorous, testing the boundaries of each product — from efficiency benchmarks to the practicalities of day by day use. As shoppers ourselves, we all know what makes a product distinctive. For extra about our testing course of, scroll to the underside of this text.

Lexar SL600 Blaze – Finest 20Gbps exterior SSD for gaming <img decoding="async" data-wp-class--hide="state.isContentHidden" data-wp-class--show="state.isContentVisible" data-wp-init="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async--click="actions.showLightbox" data-wp-on-async--load="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async-window--resize="callbacks.setButtonStyles" class="product-chart-item__image" alt="Lexar SL600 Blaze - Best 20Gbps external SSD for gaming" src="https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/Lexar-SL600-hero-b-1.jpg?quality=50&strip=all" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> Execs Good 20Gbps performer

Prime bang for the buck

5-year guarantee Cons 4TB mannequin not but obtainable

Worth When Reviewed: 1TB: $129.99 I 2TB: $175 Finest Costs At the moment:

Retailer Worth

$74.99 View Deal $74.99 View Deal B & H $79.99 View Deal $79.99 View Deal Worth comparability from over 24,000 shops worldwide

Product Worth Worth comparability from Backmarket

The competitors may be very shut within the high tier of 20Gbps exterior drives, with the big-name contenders buying and selling wins up and down the benchmark charts. However a winner is a winner, and in the long run, the Lexar overtook our earlier champ, Essential’s X10 Professional, even when solely by a hair.

The upshot is you can count on wonderful efficiency from the Lexar SL600. It additionally is available in a uniquely formed type issue, full with a gap to accommodate a lanyard, for straightforward toting. Avid gamers would possibly admire you can even add some bling by choosing the SL660 variant, which options RGB lighting inside its miniature deal with. The drive comes with the usual five-year guarantee.

When efficiency is that this carefully matched amongst merchandise, the figuring out issue must be worth. And right here, too, the SL600 is neck-and-neck with the Essential X10 Professional, and priced barely to considerably cheaper than a few of its rivals, at the least as of this writing — significantly on the 2TB stage.

Learn our full Lexar SL600 evaluate

PNY RP60 20Gbps USB SSD – Finest rugged 20Gbps exterior SSD for gaming <img decoding="async" data-wp-class--hide="state.isContentHidden" data-wp-class--show="state.isContentVisible" data-wp-init="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async--click="actions.showLightbox" data-wp-on-async--load="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async-window--resize="callbacks.setButtonStyles" class="product-chart-item__image" alt="PNY RP60 20Gbps USB SSD - Best rugged 20Gbps external SSD for gaming" src="https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/PNY-RP60-Hero.jpg?quality=50&strip=all" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> Execs Good-looking, IP65-rated design (dust-proof, waterproof)

Good 20Gbps efficiency

Good flat Sort-C USB ribbon cable Cons USB port plug tether is troublesome to reinsert.

Worth When Reviewed: 1TB: $100 I 2TB: $180 Finest Costs At the moment:

Retailer Worth

$129.99 View Deal $129.99 View Deal $129.99 View Deal PNY $133.99 View Deal Worth comparability from over 24,000 shops worldwide

Product Worth Worth comparability from Backmarket

When you are likely to take your gaming drive all over the place, and/otherwise you’re not essentially the most cautious particular person with {hardware}, a ruggedized exterior SSD is a sensible reply.

The PNY RP60 presents greater than only a rugged IP65-rated exterior that protects towards mud and water droplets; and whereas very good-looking and light-weight besides, the drive can be an admirable performer, even besting one of many quickest 20Gbps drives we’ve examined — the Essential X10 Professional — in a few our assessments.

The RP60 can be competitively priced at $85 and $135 for 1TB and 2TB, respectively.

Learn our full PNY RP60 20Gbps USB SSD evaluate

Sabrent Rocket Nano V2 – Most moveable 20Gbps exterior SSD for gaming <img decoding="async" data-wp-class--hide="state.isContentHidden" data-wp-class--show="state.isContentVisible" data-wp-init="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async--click="actions.showLightbox" data-wp-on-async--load="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async-window--resize="callbacks.setButtonStyles" class="product-chart-item__image" alt="Sabrent Rocket Nano V2 - Most portable 20Gbps external SSD for gaming" src="https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Sabrent-Rocket-Nano-v2-with-cover.jpg?quality=50&strip=all" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> Execs Extraordinarily small profile

Shock-absorbing silicone jacket

Prime-flight packaging

Good total efficiency Cons A tad behind the 20Gbps curve performance-wise

Worth When Reviewed: 1TB: $120 I 2TB: $200 I 4TB: $450 Finest Costs At the moment:

Retailer Worth

Sabrent $119.99 View Deal $139.99 View Deal $139.99 View Deal $139.99 View Deal Worth comparability from over 24,000 shops worldwide

Product Worth Worth comparability from Backmarket

When you’re after a really small SSD you can simply match right into a pocket, the Sabrent Rocket Nano V2 is that. This USB 3.2×2 20Gbps drive measures a petite 2.73 inches lengthy, 1.16-inches large, and 0.44-inches thick. It weighs a dainty 1.7 ounces.

After all, you’ll most likely need to slide on its included shock-absorbing silicone jacket (proven in image), which is able to add .06 inches to all its dimensions, whereas giving it a badass look.

However seems to be apart, the Nano V2 is a stable performer. It wasn’t fairly on the similar stage as our high picks in every thing, nevertheless it traded wins and losses inside the pack. As an illustration it was second solely to the Essential X10 Professional in our 450GB write take a look at. And it took the highest spot in CrystalDiskMark 8’s random writes, and was very aggressive in random reads.

This wee drive additionally is available in as much as 4TB capacities, making it an all-around sensible choice in case you’re trying to get a whole lot of storage and efficiency in a tiny bundle. We’re additionally keen on its five-year guarantee and the nifty metallic field it is available in, which will be repurposed for different makes use of.

Learn our full Sabrent Rocket Nano V2 evaluate

Adata SE920 – Finest USB4 exterior SSD for gaming <img decoding="async" data-wp-class--hide="state.isContentHidden" data-wp-class--show="state.isContentVisible" data-wp-init="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async--click="actions.showLightbox" data-wp-on-async--load="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async-window--resize="callbacks.setButtonStyles" class="product-chart-item__image" alt="Adata SE920 - Best USB4 external SSD for gaming" src="https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Adata-SE920-hero-a.jpg?quality=50&strip=all" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> Execs Quickest exterior storage we’ve examined (at 40Gbps)

Reasonably priced for the ilk

Trendy enclosure

Out there as much as 4TB

Additionally quick on the Mac Cons Pricier than USB 3.2×2 (20Gbps)

Worth When Reviewed: 1TB: $140 I 2TB: $200 I 4TB: $380 Finest Costs At the moment:

Retailer Worth

Adata $189.99 View Deal $219.99 View Deal $219.99 View Deal $219.99 View Deal Worth comparability from over 24,000 shops worldwide

Product Worth Worth comparability from Backmarket

A USB4 exterior SSD isn’t for everybody. Not solely does your PC have to assist the spec in an effort to reap the benefits of the 40Gbps transfers, however you’ll additionally must be prepared to pay a premium for the privilege.

When you’re able to enter the membership, nevertheless, the Adata SE920 EX will reward you with the quickest USB4 efficiency that we’ve skilled, and at a way more reasonably priced worth than our earlier decide for USB4, the OWC Categorical 1M2 — we’re speaking $170 for a 1TB Adata SE920 versus $230 for the OWC drive. And if you need a whole lot of capability, the Adata SE920 EX comes with as much as 4TB, for an inexpensive $418 (in comparison with OWC’s $550).

In nearly each benchmark, the SE920 EX beat the OWC Categorical 1M2 at 40Gbps efficiency, albeit by small margins. It additionally comes with a nifty built-in fan, which is activated by sliding open the enclosure. This stored our drive noticeably free of warmth throughout our benchmark assessments.

The SE920 EX can be fairly moveable at 4.13 inches lengthy by 2.52-inches large by 0.62-inches thick, and weighing 7 ounces — one other benefit it has over the bulkier OWC Categorical 1M2.

Ultimately, the selection for a USB 4 exterior SSD is obvious.

Learn our full SE920 Exterior SSD evaluate

LaCie Rugged SSD4 – Finest 40Gbps USB4 exterior SSD <img decoding="async" data-wp-class--hide="state.isContentHidden" data-wp-class--show="state.isContentVisible" data-wp-init="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async--click="actions.showLightbox" data-wp-on-async--load="callbacks.setButtonStyles" data-wp-on-async-window--resize="callbacks.setButtonStyles" class="product-chart-item__image" alt="LaCie Rugged SSD4 - Best 40Gbps USB4 external SSD" src="https://b2c-contenthub.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/LaCie-Rugged-SSD4-hero-b.jpg?quality=50&strip=all" loading="lazy" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" /> Execs Quick 40Gbps USB4 performer

Ruggedized and weatherized to IP54

Fantastically simple to select of the gang Cons Sort-C port cowl isn’t captive

Worth When Reviewed: 1TB, $135; 2TB, $250; 4TB, $480 Finest Costs At the moment:

Retailer Worth

$119.99 View Deal $119.99 View Deal Seagate $119.99 View Deal Worth comparability from over 24,000 shops worldwide

Product Worth Worth comparability from Backmarket The LaCie Rugged SSD4 is the best choice for anybody trying to leverage one of the best efficiency from their USB4 or Thunderbolt 3 (or better) ports.

In our benchmarks, the Rugged SSD4 proved to be the speediest 40Gbps USB4 total that we’ve examined, albeit by a small margin. Even when tasking the drive to jot down a number of 950GB recordsdata consecutively, the place you count on to see a drive decelerate as its cache fills, the SSD4 by no means dropped beneath 1.65GBps — one thing videographers ought to be aware of.

Its silicone jacket is IP54 rated for cover towards mud and water spray, making it a sensible choice for anybody who wants storage out within the discipline. Its vibrant orange coloration makes it simple to seek out in a crowded bag or atop a cluttered workspace.

And whereas the SSD4 isn't precisely low-cost, it’s competitively priced.

Learn our full LaCie Rugged SSD4 evaluate

Different notable exterior SSDs for gaming:

The 20Gbps Teamgroup PD20 is good-looking, powerful, and decently quick; the TerraMaster D1 SSD Plus 40Gbps drive enclosure, populated with the NVMe drives of your selecting, is an fascinating proposition, as is the Asus TUF Gaming A2 enclosure, which can be rugged; the Essential X10 is a tiny, weatherproofed drive that may maintain as much as 8TB of storage in a small form-factor; there’s rather a lot to love concerning the Sandisk Excessive Professional SSD with USB4 resembling its good-looking design and relative affordability, however connection points and comparably lackluster 40Gbps efficiency left us unamazed; the Addlink P21 has a compelling mixture of excellent efficiency and a placing design; whereas the Corsair EX400U is on the gradual facet for a USB4 exterior SSD, it’s additionally cheaper than the competitors; the Seagate Sport Drive SSD is focused at PS4/PS5 house owners, and the 10Gbps SSD may be very quick for its class and attractively styled, full with a Ps emblem, nevertheless it’s comparatively expensive; the Lexar Armor 700 is a 20Gbps drive that may stand up to some abuse — good for the gamer on the go, or the accident-prone; the Adata SD810 is a stable 20Gbps drive, save for writing massive quantities of information, the place it slows down. That being mentioned, the 4TB capability is a very good worth at simply $300.

How PCWorld assessments exterior drives

Drive assessments at present make the most of Home windows 11 24H2, 64-bit operating off of a PCIe 4.0 Samsung 990 Professional in an Asus Z890-Creator WiFi (PCIe 4.0/5.0) motherboard. The CPU is a Core Extremely i5 225 feeding/fed by two Kingston Fury 32GB DDR5 4,800MHz modules (64GB of reminiscence complete). Each 20Gbps USB and Thunderbolt 5 are built-in and Intel CPU/GPU graphics are used. SSDs concerned within the take a look at are mounted in both a HighPoint 7604A 16x 4-slot PCIe 5.0 RAID adapter card or a single-slot Asus ROG M.2 PCIe 5.0 adapter.

We run the CrystalDiskMark 8, AS SSD 2, and ATTO 4 artificial benchmarks to seek out the storage machine’s potential efficiency, then a collection of 48GB and 450GB transfers assessments utilizing Home windows Explorer drag-and-drop to indicate what you’ll see underneath Window, in addition to the far sooner FastCopy to indicate what’s potential. A two-drive 25GBps RAID 0 array on the HighPoint 7604A 16x PCIe 5.0 adapter card is used because the secondary supply/vacation spot.

Every take a look at is carried out on an NTFS-formatted and newly TRIM’d drive so the outcomes are optimum. Observe that in regular use, as a drive fills up, efficiency might lower attributable to much less NAND for secondary caching, in addition to different elements. This may be much less of an element with the present crop of SSDs with far sooner late-generation NAND.

Caveat: The efficiency numbers proven apply solely to the drive we had been shipped and to the capability examined. SSD efficiency can and can differ by capability attributable to extra or fewer chips to shotgun reads/writes throughout and the quantity of NAND obtainable for secondary caching. Distributors additionally often swap parts. When you ever discover a big discrepancy between the efficiency you expertise and that which we report, by all means, tell us.

Observe additionally that a number of the SSDs on this roundup had been examined utilizing different tools and methodologies which you'll examine within the standalone opinions.

To be taught extra about our testing methodology see PCWorld’s article on how we take a look at exterior SSDs.

Why it's best to PCWorld for exterior drive opinions and shopping for recommendation

We're PCWorld. Our reviewers have been placing laptop {hardware} by its paces for many years. Our exterior drive evaluations are thorough and rigorous, testing the boundaries of each product — from efficiency benchmarks to the practicalities of standard use. As shoppers ourselves, we all know what makes a product distinctive. For extra about our testing course of, scroll to the underside of this text.

Who curated this text?

Having began computing by flipping switches, Jon Jacobi has witnessed storage morph from punch playing cards and tape to stable state. He’s been utilizing and testing HDDs, SATA SSDs, and NVMe SSDs for PCWorld for nicely over 20 years. To paraphrase a widely known business, you would possibly say he’s seen a factor or two.

FAQ 1. What’s the quickest exterior interface?

The quickest PC exterior interfaces are as follows, in descending order: 80Gbps Thunderbolt 5, 40Gbps USB4/Thunderbolt 3 and 4, 20Gbps USB 3.2×2, 10GBps USB 3.2, then 5Gbps USB 3.x.

2. What causes an exterior SSD to fail?

Whereas mechanical arduous drives are way more susceptible to failure than SSDs, it's nonetheless potential for an SSD to fail. Usually it’s the results of a controller failure, though that’s an more and more uncommon incidence; it’s additionally a comparatively simple repair/reset for somebody who is aware of the SSD’s internals resembling a restoration service. SSDs may even ultimately put on out, although this solely precludes additional writing to the unit. You possibly can nonetheless learn what’s on the drive, so it’s not the catastrophe a HDD failure will be.

3. Why does Home windows say my exterior drive is smaller than specified?

This discrepancy is as a result of distinction between the binary and decimal quantity methods, their nomenclatures, and a Microsoft miscue. Your 2TB drive certainly has two trillion bytes of storage, and in case you take a look at the byte depend that Home windows shows in a drive’s properties dialog, this must be what you see. This, within the Worldwide System of Items (SI/decimal), is 2 terabytes, or 2TB. That is the usual language distributors use as shoppers are much more conversant in base 10.

Nevertheless, Home windows makes use of the newer Worldwide Electrotechnical Fee (IEC) binary multiples 2^10 (Kibibyte/KiB), 2^20 (Mebibyte/MiB), 2^30 (Gibibyte/Gib). Binary multiples are bigger numbers (one KiB is 1,024) so when Home windows divides the entire bytes by the IEC system, the you get one thing like 1.8TiB for a 2TB drive. Alas, Home windows labels this as 1.8TB, deceptive the person.

Different causes you won't see as a lot obtainable storage within the properties tab are formatting or partitioning. The file system makes use of some storage for file location and dimension information, and so on. Additionally, some drives include a small partition containing software program so the principle partition will likely be smaller than the drive’s complete capability.

4. How lengthy will my exterior SSD final?

SSDs don’t put on out or break mechanically like a tough drive, however their cells can solely be written to so many occasions. SSDs usually have a TBW (terabytes which may be written) score, however that is hardly ever offered by distributors for exterior SSDs. Trace: They could not use the identical SSD inside all through the product lifespan.

Most inside M.2 NVMe TLC SSDs are rated for round 600TBW per terabyte, and QLC varieties for round 200TBW, although the kind of NAND in use can be hardly ever offered by distributors. That’s a whole lot of information, and a whole lot of SSDs are rated nicely beneath what they could obtain. You possibly can guesstimate through the use of a utility to see how a lot information you write to an SSD a day after which doing the mathematics.

Exterior SSD warranties are usually between three and 5 years, however as with all such issues, it’s a monetary danger calculation for the corporate. As is the TBW. Our greatest guess primarily based on expertise is probably a decade. Nevertheless, sure fashions have had points lengthy earlier than that — usually attributable to a flaw or failure within the bridge chip or controller.

5. What's the greatest exterior SSD for gaming?

Avid gamers have a whole lot of wonderful exterior SSDs to select from. If velocity is essential, one of the best 40Gbps exterior drive is the Adata SE920 at 40Gbps; for 20Gbps efficiency, and a major value financial savings, think about the Lexar SL600 and Essential X10 Professional.