Chromeboxes aren’t laptops. You’re not tossing one into a backpack and setting it up at Starbucks. Instead, it sits quietly behind a screen of some sort and is always ready. That means there’s no reason to try and get by with 16 or 32GB of storage. Most models are easy to take apart and upgrade if you’re the DIY type, but adding more storage is as easy as plugging in a cable. These are the best external hard drives and SSDs for your Chromebox.
The affordable choice
WD 1TB My Passport Portable External Hard Drive
Staff Pick
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.
$45 at Amazon
$55 at Best Buy
$55 at Newegg
When you wanna go fast!
SAMSUNG T5 Portable SSD 1TB External Solid State Drive
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.
$110 at Amazon
$110 at Best Buy
$110 at Newegg
Take everything with you
Crucial X6 500GB SSD
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.
$50 at Amazon
$50 at B&H
$51 at Newegg
Bring your own
ORICO USB-C SATA Hard Drive Enclosure
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.
$22 at Amazon
Slot in an SSD
Sabrent Ultra Slim USB 3.0 to 2.5-Inch SATA External Enclosure
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.
$12 at Amazon
Use with a drive enclosure
Samsung 870 EVO 2.5-Inch SATA III Internal SSD
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.
$65 at Amazon
$65 at Best Buy
$65 at Newegg
Use with a drive enclosure
WD Blue 3D NAND SATA III 2.5-inch SSD
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.
$39 at Amazon
$39 at Best Buy
$39 at Newegg
Plug and play
Seagate Backup Plus Hub 4TB External Hard Drive
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.
From $95 at Amazon
For your fast SSDs
Sabrent M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure
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.
$46 at Amazon
$46 at B&H Photo
Faster storage
WD Black SN750 NVMe SSD
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.
$60 at Amazon
$60 at Best Buy
$60 at Walmart
Additional heat protection
Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe SSD
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.
$55 at Amazon
$55 at Best Buy
From $55 at Walmart
Adding extra storage to a Chromebox is easy
Chromeboxes make great computers for plenty of people. In households with kids, they’re the perfect desktop computer for homework, and attached to your TV, they bring the internet and everything that comes with it to your big screen.
Connecting an external drive to your Chromebox is easy, thanks to Chrome OS working well with a lot of file systems. Most external drives these days will basically be plug and play, which makes them easy and convenient for anyone to set up and use. Your best value comes from the WD My Passport, which gets you 1TB of storage for roughly $50.
Another option is to use a drive enclosure that lets you dock an internal drive and use it to connect to your Chromebox via USB. For internal drives, we’ll recommend the Samsung Evo 870 SSD, which is one of the best-selling drives around and also a good option if you’ve got a laptop or PC that could use a storage upgrade.