The best Cyber Monday deals on hard drives and SSDs can help you get your digital life in order

Data loss can be disastrous, especially when you realize you’ve lost irreplaceable family photos, or have to start a massive work project over from the beginning. The easiest way to protect yourself from that fate is backing up all of the information on your computer onto an external hard drive or SSD (solid state drive.) If your data is backed up, you can immediately retrieve it when your computer’s internal drive fails, or your cloud backup is unsuccessful. The good news is that many of the best external hard drives and SSDs are currently on sale for Cyber Monday, so you have no excuse to prevent you from making a backup soon.

SanDisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD, $129.76 (Was $199.99)

Data transfer speeds are biggest reasons to choose an external SSD to backup your data instead of a traditional hard drive. The Extreme Portable SSD can read and write data at over 1,000 Megabytes per second. You can backup hundreds of gigabytes of files in a fraction of the time it would have taken you to only a few years ago. Plus, this portable SSD has no moving parts, which means there are fewer things that can go wrong when transferring data to and from the drive. If your work involves a lot of travel, you can rely on the Extreme Portable SSD to stay in tip top shape. Its IP65 water and dust resistant, and was designed with three meters of drop protection. There’s also a carabiner loop, so you can attach it to a backpack so it can’t be lost. If you work with irreplaceable data, from your digital family photo library to documents, photos, and videos for clients, don’t skip this Cyber Monday deal.

WD 6TB My Passport Portable Hard Drive, $140 (Was $184.99)

If you need to keep several years worth of computer backups accessible at all times, your best bet is to get Western Digital’s massive 6TB Passport Portable Hard Drive. Its read and write speeds will be slower than a portable SSDs, but it can hold significantly more information at a similar price. Some high-capacity external hard drives require a dedicated power source, but the WD Passport doesn’t. It’ll get power when connected to your computer using the included USB cable. This external hard drive is also small enough to easily stash in a backpack when traveling, which is when a computer backup can really come in handy. Western Digital offers the My Passport in multiple size configurations (6TB is the largest option) and colors. The company even offers free computer backup software with the drive, which is great if you’ve never taken on this task before.

Even more Cyber Monday external SSD deals

Even more Cyber Monday external hard drive deals

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PopSci’s Guide to Cyber Monday

The best Cyber Monday sales, deals, and everything else you need to know. Our team spends hundreds of collective hours searching and evaluating every deal we can find online, focusing on well-made and reviewed products for prices that make sense.