This is especially true for photographers and videographers and drone pilots, people who might have their equipment out in the field, exposed to dust, water, and bad weather. One wrong move and irreplaceable footage can be gone – forever. These are the sorts of people who need rugged hard drives and SSDs.

How were these products chosen?

As a part time pro/am photographer, videographer, and drone pilot, I’m someone who has had to keep my data safe in conditions that really wanted me to lose my data – high winds, blasting rainstorms, thunder and lightning, or sand everywhere, I have – up to the time of writing – never lost any footage.

Tech specs

Capacity: 1TBConnectivity: USB-CSpeed: Up to 1050MB/s read and up to 1000MB/s write speedsSecurity: 256-bit AES hardware encryptionRuggedness rating: 2-meter drop protection and IP55 water and dust resistance

Tech specs

Capacity: 4TBConnectivity: USB-CSpeed: Up to 1000MB/s read, 1000MB/s writeSecurity: 256-bit AES-XTS hardware encryption and NIST P-256 elliptic curve-based key management and auto Unlock feature to quickly gain access to your SSD with a pre-authorized deviceRuggedness rating: 3-meter drop protection, 1,000-pound crush resistance, and IP67 dust and water resistance.

Tech specs

Capacity: 1TBConnectivity: USB-CSpeed: Read/write speeds up to 2,000MB/sSecurity: NoneRuggedness rating: IP55-rating to withstand water and dust

Tech specs

Capacity: 1TBConnectivity: USB-C and USB 3Speed: Read speeds up to 140MB/s and write speeds up to 130MB/sSecurity: NoneRuggedness rating: IP54 rain/dust rating, and crush resistance up to 1000lbs

All the products recommended have been field tested under terrible conditions. These are products that I trust to protect my data and bring it back home safe.

Don’t delete your storage cards (so that’s one copy), and then make a second copy to your external drive. Modern SD/microSD cards are incredibly robust …as long as you don’t lose them!If you need to delete your storage cards, then I make two copies, and keep them separately (as much as possible).