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The Best USB Drives & Portable Storage

The top-rated usb drives and portable storage on Amazon UK right now: SanDisk 128GB Ultra Flair USB 3 (best overall), SANDISK Ultra Dual Drive Go (runner-up), SanDisk 64 GB Cruzer Blade USB 2 (best value). All are ranked by genuine customer ratings and review volume, with live Amazon prices.

The right storage depends entirely on the job. For moving files between machines or a quick handover, a cheap USB flash drive is all you need. For backing up a whole laptop or storing a photo and video library, a portable hard drive gives you far more capacity per pound. And for speed-critical work or console game storage, a portable SSD is worth the premium. Match capacity and speed to the task rather than overspending, and always keep an important backup in more than one place.
📖 New to data storage? Read our guides

Top Data Storage products

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Frequently asked questions

USB flash drive or external hard drive?

Use a flash drive for portability and moving a few gigabytes around; use an external hard drive when you need to back up a whole computer or store large media libraries, because it gives you far more capacity for the money. Many people keep both for different jobs.

Is a portable SSD worth it over a hard drive?

For most backup and archiving, a traditional portable hard drive is cheaper per gigabyte and perfectly fine. Pay for a portable SSD when speed matters: editing video off the drive, running console games, or transferring huge files often, where its much faster read and write speeds save real time.

How much storage do I actually need?

For documents and photos, 128GB to 256GB is plenty on a flash drive or card. For a full laptop backup or a large photo and video collection, look at 1TB or more on a portable drive. Buying a size up from what you need now is usually cheaper than upgrading later.