External hard drive for laptop

[DtPeabodysLoosePants]

Hi, my laptop is slower than molasses and I think that the thousands of photos I have on there aren't helping matters so I'm after an external hard drive. It would just be for photos-what would you recommend please?

I don't have any very specific ones to recommend, but as a brand we've used WD and Seagate and both have been very good; Kingston also have good security if I remember rightly.

I'd personally also try to get one that isn't reliant on electricity but that is just USB to the computer - my first external drive needs to be plugged into the mains as well as to the computer and it is so annoying.

There's some really good advice at www.techradar.com/uk/news/best-external-desktop-and-portable-hard-disk-drives - the ones we have are 1TB and 2TB capacity and they're looking on the small side these days so the next one we get probably will be 4TB at least.

WD is good. I have one and it's so easy to use and tons of space.

What to look for when choosing an external hard drive? I need the data to be secure.

I recommend to prefer reliable and proven manufacturers: for example Samsung, VD, Segate. I have never had a problem with them. While models of other brands were problematic. Some broke down in 2-3 years and I had to recover data with special software. Therefore it is not necessary to save in such questions, and it is better to choose reliable models of well-known brands.