I've tested dozens, across operating systems and with different use cases in mind, to find the best external hard drives for storage, backups, gaming, video editing, network-attached storage (NAS) devices, and more. That's why the first drive I recommend is this Western Digital Elements hard drive. I have been using a variation of the Elements desktop hard drive to make incremental backups of my data for more than a decade. Other Great Backup DrivesSeagate Expansion 8-TB External Hard Drive for $159: Seagate is another reliable drive maker. That's good enough for backup and use as an external drive, but I don't recommend it for Xbox or PlayStation use.