Hard drive manufacturers are no longer content to simply throw a spinning disk in a box with a USB port—they continue to add features and functionality, making external hard drives more than just simple storage devices. Take My Cloud Mirror ($350-$550), the newest drive from Western Digital. Like some other competitors, it incorporates network functionality, and can make its data accessible anywhere at any time. That’s why it’s billed as “a cloud of your own.”
Coming in 4TB, 6TB, and 8TB capacities—there’s a $100 price difference with each step up—My Cloud Mirror actually houses two separate hard drives, set up in a RAID 1 array. This means your data is redundant, in case one of the drives fails. Plug in an Ethernet cable, and all your data becomes accessible over the web, on Macs, iPads, iPhones, and more. There are even two USB expansion ports, allowing you to add on your own drives for extra storage space.