Best External Hard Drives and SSDs for Chromebox in 2021

WD My Passport is the best Chromebox hard drive you can buy at a bargain. It’s a spinning disk drive, so you won’t be breaking any read speed records, but it’s perfect for storing photos, music, and video. It’s also available in 1TB to 5TB options.

If you need a big boost in storage for your Chromebox but need to have SSD speeds, the Samsung T5 drive is one of the best ways to make it happen. It uses Samsung’s own V-NAND to bring read/write speeds of up to 540MB/s over a USB 3.1 connection, is future-proof with a USB-C port, and isn’t much bigger than a credit card. You can store and retrieve all of your stuff really fast if that’s what you need, and it’s available in 1TB and 2TB versions.

The 500GB Crucial X6 is a great place to start when it comes to affordable, high-capacity, and external SSDs. The 500GB size is the smallest available, with up to 4TB for those with a ton to store. This drive is equipped with a USB-C port but will work with a USB-A-equipped PC if you get a different cable. One thing to keep in mind about inexpensive SSD performance is that it will struggle a bit with huge file transfers, but in day-to-day operation, the speed should be more than adequate for storage.

A drive enclosure lets you safely use almost any 3.5-inch drive as a USB 3.0 device that can plug right into your Chromebox. Just slide it open and slot any HDD inside, slide it shut, and you’re ready to plug it in. You don’t need any tools, and it only takes a few minutes.

Sabrent’s 2.5-inch hard drive enclosure is ideal if you want to use an existing internal SATA SSD with your Chromebook. The enclosure holds the SSD securely, and you get a USB 3.0 cable to connect the drive to your Chromebook. This is great for someone with an old HDD or SSD from a PC upgrade sitting around.

Again we’ll recommend Samsung’s SSD for being among the fastest and well-designed drives you can buy. Pricing varies based on the amount of storage you want, but your best value would be the 500GB drive. Bought along with the Sabrent 2.5-inch enclosure, it gives your Chromebox instant access to a sizable media collection for under $100.

Just like with the external drives, WD manages to undercut Samsung’s prices by a fair margin while still offering a solid-state drive with comparable read speeds. Choose from drive sizes starting at 250GB up to 2TB and slot it into a drive enclosure to add all the extra storage you need to your Chromebox.

The Seagate Backup Plus Hub offers storage options starting at 4TB and goes all the way up to 10TB. That should be more than enough storage, and all you will need is the included USB 3.0 cable and the power adapter to get your storage solution up and running. Not only that, but with a built-in USB hub, you can easily connect accessories even if your Chromebox is mounted to your monitor.

If you already have an NVMe SSD but can’t fit it into your Chromebox, you can take advantage of an enclosure and still get the same experience. The Sabrent Enclosure is made from aluminum and provides a USB 3.1 Gen 2 port for even faster transfers, coming in at up to 10GB/s. The best part is that the Sabrent makes it easy to “hot-swap” and switch between SSDs if you need to upgrade to a larger one in the future.

When it comes to NVMe SSDs, these are some of the fastest hard drives you can get your hands on. With the WD Black SN750, you’ll get storage options ranging from 250GB to 2TB and a five-year limited warranty. However, you’ll need to make sure that it will work with your Chromebox before installing it, or just grab an external enclosure.

Samsung’s 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD offers read and write up to 3,500MB/s and 3,300MB/s while being backed by the company’s 5-year limited warranty. This SSD also offers additional protection against heat with the Dynamic Thermal Guard monitoring temperatures to ensure that it doesn’t get too warm. As with all hard drives, you will need to verify that it works with your specific Chromebox, or you can snag an NVMe enclosure and use it as an external drive.