Like all OWC external drives, the OWC ThunderBay 4 RAID comes with a 5 year warranty which is the longest you’ll find for a quality external hard drive on Mac. With MacBooks coming with USB Type-C connections, this is an excellent - and stylish - external hard drive that makes the most of this speedy new port. Many of the external SSDs we've tested to date top out at around 600MBps, for instance. Drive is easily removable from its enclosure. As you might have guessed, the answer is more tradeoffs. Best External Hard Drive Overall: LaCie Mobile SSD Best External Hard Drive with Largest Portable Capacity: WD 5TB My Passport Ultra External Hard Drive with Largest Desktop Capacity: G … Best external drives for backup, ... SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps is the official name for the USB 3.1 Gen 2 spec used in the fastest USB external hard drives today. This portable external hard drive from Western Digital, encased in a stylish silver body, will perfectly match any modern computer rig and will let you safely store and encrypt massive … With compatibility for both Mac and Windows machines, the Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC is very flexible, and comes with a rugged case that's dust and water resistant, along with a built-in USB 3.0 cable. Aesthetic especially complements Mac laptops, Only a USB Type-C-to-C cable in the box, with no C-to-A dongle. (See our roundup of the best external SSDs for more discussion of this.). Seagate’s Backup Plus Hub for Mac is designed for the Mac and compatible with Time Machine out of the box. Using a Mac? If you really fancy a consumer-oriented drive formatted for Windows (which will usually pre-formatted in the NTFS format), you can use the Disk Utility in macOS to reformat it after you bring it home from the store. Can use RAID 0 for higher speed and capacity, RAID 1 for drive mirroring, or JBOD (RAID off). After weeks of testing, we landed on the best hard drive… Bolster the storage capacity of your Apple machine. Having an external hard drive for your Mac is a necessity these days. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product or service, we may be paid a fee by that merchant. This is the latest generation of the Western Digital My Passport external hard drives comes in capacities from 1TB to 4TB, and features cloud storage and 256-AES encryption, along with WD's own backup software. You may have stumbled upon the LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive when perusing the Apple website for USB-C accessories. Drives with rated peak reads and writes in the 1,000MBps to 3,500MBps range indicate one of these newer-tech drives. New York, One of the Best Gaming External Hard Drives For Mac Silicon Power Armor A60 The Silicon Power Armor A60 is a rugged and portable external hard drive that comes with 3 TB storage capacity, military-grade shock-proof body, cable carry design, USB 3.0 and is compatible with … Compare that with external spinning drives, which are easy to find even in capacities in excess of 8TB. A solid-state drive (SSD) offers quick access to your data because it stores your bits in a type of flash memory rather than on spinning platters. Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. Apple airport time capsule is featured in it. Combining on-point performance and strong encryption, Seagate's Backup Plus Ultra Touch portable drive is a great choice for everyday backups and security-first use alike. Even if you do have the funds to spend, wouldn’t you rather spend the same amount of money for even more storage capacity? Unless your drive is never going to leave your home or office, you should also consider its physical durability. Desktop-style external hard drives are larger, are based on the beefier and more capacious 3.5-inch drives used in full-size desktop PCs, and require their own AC power source. PCMag, PCMag.com and PC Magazine are among the federally registered trademarks of Ziff Davis, LLC and may not be used by third parties without explicit permission. The result is that you can get SSD-like speeds, with throughput of more than 400MBps, and capacities that top out close to 50TB. Lexar's speedy SL100 Pro external SSD is a useful, affordable bit of storage kit for general users and media pros alike. WD Elements 4TB Portable USB 3.0 Hard Drive, Seagate Expansion 4TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive, WD My Passport Ultra 5TB Portable USB 3.0 Hard Drive, How to Free Up Space on Your iPhone or iPad, How to Save Money on Your Cell Phone Bill, How to Find Free Tools to Optimize Your Small Business, How to Get Started With Project Management, Read Samsung Portable SSD T7 Touch Review, Read Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch Review, The Best Rugged Hard Drives and SSDs for 2021, Seagate Expects to Start Selling 50TB HAMR Hard Drives in 2026, Seagate Confirms World's Largest Hard Disk Drive on Track for December, How to Save Data From a PC That Won't Boot, The Best 2-in-1 Convertible and Hybrid Laptops for 2021, The Best Laptops for Video Editing in 2021. There’s a reason for that: the Porsche Design ships with both USB Type-C to Type-A and USB Type-C to Type-C connectors, making it a worthy candidate regardless of your setup. Some drives come in a variety of colors. This hard drive is the perfect device to back up the information on your Mac computer. Designed for videographers and other creative pros who regularly handle tons of data, the LaCie 2big RAID combines two hot-swappable, high-capacity drives with a variety of settings for maximum flexibility and data protection. Offering excellent performance and easy-to-use security, Samsung's credit-card-sized, fingerprint-reading Portable SSD T7 Touch is a versatile external solid-state drive. 5TB is peak portable single-drive capacity. The first time you plug in an external drive, Time Machine will ask if you want to use it as a backup drive. It implements the latest technologies that contribute to ensuring the security and privacy of all your data, … Amazon’s price for the 8 TB version makes it a no-brainer—that’s less than most other companies’ 4 TB drives. Four and eight terabyte versions are available, more than enough for most people. (Check out our favorite rugged drives.). Before we get to Thunderbolt 3, we need to address a basic building block of hard drives that has always affected compatibility, and probably always will: the file system. NY 10036. 10 best external hard drives for keeping your data safe If you want to back-up your photos, or your Mac or PC is low on space, use one of these gadgets © When you consider all that extra security, the prices won't scare you away either. Their small size means they can often fit into a jacket or pants pocket, which makes them a better choice if you're looking for a portable external drive that you'll be carrying with you frequently. But there’s more. You will receive a verification email shortly. Please refresh the page and try again. This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Perhaps not the most convenient, but at just $140 on Amazon it’s great value. Samsung T3 SSD is a super-fast external hard drive for your Mac. Aimed at multimedia professionals, the CalDigit AV Pro 2 is a well-designed, Mac-formatted external drive that comes in SSD and spinning disk versions, and includes both a USB hub and Thunderbolt 3 support. Some highly specialized external drives might not work with Macs even if they're formatted correctly, but consumers looking for extra space simply to store backups or large video collections aren't likely to encounter them. Best External Drive for Mac and PC Interchangeable: Our Picks in 2020 1. Many others feature copious amounts of aluminum and industrial-chic styling to match the design cues of your MacBook or iMac. Late-model drives use different internal components, based PCI Express drives using the NVMe protocol. Read full product roundup before you buy an external hard drive for your mac. This is a great external hard drive for your Mac if you are concerned about keeping your data safe and secure. PCMag Digital Group. ", Also works with USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 and Gen 2 ports, Extreme ruggedness against dust, water, drops, crush pressure. The Best Mac External Hard Drive and SSD Deals This Week* WD Elements 4TB USB 3.0 Portable Drive — $94.99 (List Price $139.99) Seagate Expansion 4TB External USB 3.0 Hard Drive — … Not only is your data kept protected from knocks and drops with the rugged shell, but it's also got 256-bit AES security features and NFC (Near Field Communication) features as well. He previously covered the consumer tech beat as a news reporter for PCMag in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, where he rode in several self-driving cars and witnessed the rise and fall of many startups. Five-year warranty with five years of Data Rescue recovery. Even some Mac-specific drives are still sold with USB 3.0 connectors. SSDs are often smaller and lighter than spinning external drives, as well, which is also thanks to the lack of moving parts. It is a good performer when it comes to data transfer speeds but doesn't come near the top of the leaderboard. Your subscription has been confirmed. Of course, you can easily reformat most external drives, so you're not limited to buying only those intended for use with Macs. Its combination of solid performance, hardware encryption, and useful utilities makes the 5TB WD My Passport a strong contender for everyday backup of sensitive data or storing a massive collection of videos, photos, and documents. 1 Best External Hard Drives for MacBook in 2021. Ships with apps for backup/restore, reformatting and checking drive health, and more. Kensington lock slot secures only the case, leaving the drives easily removable. Seagate Backup Plus Slim (2 TB) 1.3.1 Pros; 1.3.2 Cons; 1.4 4. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and—unlike the file system—the type you buy is the type you're stuck with for the life of the drive. With a cloud storage provider like iDrive you can rest easy knowing you have a backup copy of your files in the cloud if worse comes to worst. The all-aluminium enclosure gives the drive a premium look and feel, while also protecting your data from knocks and drops, and keeping the drive cool when used. It’s expensive for an external hard drive, don’t get us wrong, especially if you’re in the market for the top-end 4TB option. Western Digital My Passport Ultra features cloud storage and 256-AES encryption. We've tested SSDs and platter-based drives alike. We spent over 30 hours researching and testing 20 different external hard drives and found that HDD capacity, warranty, and backup speed were most important. An array contains two or more drives that all work together to increase throughput, or guard your precious files against corruption via drive redundancy if one of the drives fail. Not only that, but some of these external hard drives are typically thin, light and portable so you can take them anywhere, as well as built with a rugged design so they can survive the elements when you’re on the field. It is formatted for both Mac and Windows right out of the box, and its easy-to-use software can automatically do backups for you as often or as little as you want. It features cloud storage and 256-AES encryption, along with WD's own software suite. LaCie's two-drive Rugged RAID Shuttle offers the choice of high capacity and fast performance (in striped mode), or of half the capacity with all data mirrored on the second disk. Photographers have different specs for an external hard drive: portable drives, backup drives, and internal hard drive extensions. Before that, he worked for PCMag's sister site, Computer Shopper, where he occasionally dunked waterproof hard drives in glasses of water. Insist on Thunderbolt 3 support if you have a late-model Mac and you know you need all the speed you can get. But what happens when you throw yet another variable into the mix: the connection between your drive and your Mac? Every current Mac laptop comes with oval-shaped USB Type-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3, but other than a headphone jack, they are the only connectivity options available, which means you'll need an adapter to plug in any device that doesn't have a USB Type-C cable. *Deals are selected by our partner, TechBargains. There was a problem. It does mean the price is higher, but if transfer speed is the most important consideration when looking for the best external hard drive for your Mac, then this is the drive to go for. The top of the best more of its speed potential their data interface Macs is simply the best external drive. Which are easy to find even in capacities in excess of 8TB techradar part... 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