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How to pick
A backup is a second copy in a different place. A drive sitting next to your computer is better than nothing, but it does not help in a fire or a theft, so most people should have a drive at home and something in the cloud as well. On size, look at how much you are using now and buy roughly double. On type, solid state drives cost more and survive being dropped, spinning drives are cheaper per gigabyte and do not like being knocked off a desk. Photos are almost always what people are really trying to protect.
What I recommend
SanDisk Ultra Flair USB drive
Not a backup, just handy. Metal body so it does not snap in half in a bag, and quick enough to hand a folder of photos to someone without standing there waiting.
- Type
- USB-A flash drive
- Speed
- Up to 150 MB/s read
- Sizes
- 32 GB up to 512 GB
- Body
- Metal
Western Digital My Passport
A traditional spinning drive. Slower and more fragile than the SSD below, but you get a lot more room for the money. Perfect for a backup that lives on a shelf and never travels.
- Type
- Spinning hard drive
- Sizes
- 1 TB up to 6 TB
- Connection
- USB
- Extra
- Password protection built in
Samsung T7 portable SSD
Small enough to live in a drawer, fast, and nothing inside to break if it gets knocked off the desk. This is what I set up for people who want their photos safe and never want to think about it again. One or two terabytes covers most people.
- Type
- Solid state, nothing moving
- Speed
- Up to 1,050 MB/s
- Sizes
- 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB
- Connection
- USB-C
Related reading
Want it set up so it just runs?
A backup you have to remember to do is a backup that does not happen. I can set yours to run on its own.