External hard drives are never going to get your heart racing, but they are still a useful tool to have in your collection. They are useful for storing your most important files (images, videos, documents, etc.), making quick backups of your main system, or adding storage to your laptop or system. It's portable, so it's easy to move data around.

If the amount of data is not that large, the traditional method is to use a USB flash drive. However, while the size of such devices is improving by the day, they cannot compete with the capacity offered by rotating hard drives. These platter-based marvels still offer the best value in storage.

The Western Digital WD Black P10 is one example. This external drive from the reputable manufacturer costs just $130 (£124) for 5 TB of capacity. There is no 5 terabyte of SSD space inside its rugged and attractively styled enclosure. It is bus-powered, so there is no need to carry an external power connector for mobility.

The WD Black P10 does not set hard drive performance records. It is an external drive that connects via USB 3 and uses a 5,400 rpm spinning mechanical drive. In synthetic testing, ATTO recorded up to 120 MB/sec read and 112 MB/sec write, while CrystalDiskMark 6.0.2 recorded a slightly higher 130 MB/sec sequential read and 125 MB/sec write. Random access performance is not as good, but the numbers are not surprising.

As for real-world performance, nothing beats copying data to see how the drive stands up (we used an SSD as the source). First, we copied a mere 3.4 GB of Hearthstone in 57 seconds, which equates to 61 MB/sec. Next, we installed World of Warcraft and copied World of Warcraft, a mix of huge and small files (there are 10,742 files in all, totaling 73.8 GB), which took 16 minutes 35 seconds. This is an average of 75 MB/s.

The WD Black P10 series has several drives: $80 (£81) for 2TB, $120 (£97) for 4TB, and $130 (£124) for this largest member, the 5TB model. This model makes the most sense economically, and we recommend that you invest your hard-earned money in this model. Of course, there are plenty of external hard drives out there, some cheaper than this, but we'd give the edge to the WD Black for decent performance, high capacity, and a strong brand.