Here's how how to share an external hard drive between Mac and Windows. Many of the external SSDs we've tested to date top out at around 600MBps, for instance. G-DRIVE USB-C. Lexar's speedy SL100 Pro external SSD is a useful, affordable bit of storage kit for general users and media pros alike. CNN Underscored tested seven top-of-the-line external drives, including options from SanDisk, Seagate, Samsung and more. (Or both; it depends on how the array is set up.) The sleek, expensive Samsung Portable SSD X5 offers the fastest single-drive external storage money can buy, but it's suited mainly to well-heeled content-creation pros using late-model Macs. External SSDs also have lower capacity limits, with most drives topping out at 2TB. These kinds of components in newer drives help Thunderbolt 3 reach more of its speed potential. The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is the best external hard drive for Mac you can carry around with you at all times. Our expert industry analysis and practical solutions help you make better buying decisions and get more from technology. 1.5.1 Pros; 1.5.2 Cons; 1.6 6. This drive is preformatted just for you, offering a high transfer rate for fast file access and connects easily via USB-C. (Check out our favorite rugged drives.). Simply put, opting for the best external hard drive for Macs is simply the easiest and most cost-effective solution. Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Samsung T3 SSD is a super-fast external hard drive for your Mac. Buying an external hard drive for your Mac is not all that different from buying one for your Windows PC, except for one very important complication: The latest Mac laptops only come with Thunderbolt 3 ports, but the arrival of Thunderbolt 3-equipped drives has been a trickle, rather than a flood. © 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. And at … With USB-only drives, some manufacturers include a USB Type-C cable for people who own a USB Type-C-only MacBook, and you can always pick up a converter for a few dollars online if the drive you're eyeing doesn't offer one. These come in both portable and "desktop" versions; the portables are obviously smaller, and based on the kinds of 2.5-inch platter drives used in laptops. Small, light, and even mailable, it earns the right to add "extremely" in front of "fast and rugged. 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. If you're shopping for a fast, Mac-matching external SSD that will look just as good in the boardroom as it will on the side of a mountain, the Envoy Pro EX With USB-C is the drive for you. Protect the data on your external hard drive with this cloud storage solution. Requires software for fingerprint unlocking on a PC or Mac. Any drive formatted with HFS+ will work just fine with a Mac that's running macOS High Sierra or later. Click here to make sure you pick the right hard drive for your needs. A one year limited warranty is included. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time. Best USB-C Hard Drives for Mac iMore 2021. You'll pay handsomely, of course—some Mac-specific arrays cost thousands of dollars. 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. Even some Mac-specific drives are still sold with USB 3.0 connectors. Best Rugged External Hard Drive – LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C Need to download utilities to manage the drive. 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. Four and eight terabyte versions are available, more than enough for most people. 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. 1 Best External Hard Drives for MacBook in 2021. As you might have guessed, the answer is more tradeoffs. G-Technology G-DRIVE USB 3.0 (4TB) 1.6.1 Pros 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. SSDs are often smaller and lighter than spinning external drives, as well, which is also thanks to the lack of moving parts. It's simply called the Apple File System (APFS), and it's the first format to be used across both Macs and iOS devices. The next time you plug in your drive, Time Machine will automatically set to work creating a backup. It provides twice the speeds of standard USB 3.0 drives. 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. Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt keeps the price down. Find out which hard drive can help increase your storage or safely back up your Mac Western Digital My Passport 4TB external hard drive; 1.3 3. High price per gigabyte, due largely to ruggedization and RAID design. 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. *Deals are selected by our partner, TechBargains. The best Thunderbolt 3 SSD and hard drives for your MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, or iMac. Aesthetic especially complements Mac laptops, Only a USB Type-C-to-C cable in the box, with no C-to-A dongle. Both USB Type-C and USB Type-A cables provided. Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning. 8 Best external hard drives for mac. Built-in fingerprint reader and LED status indicator. Unsurprisingly, it doesn't reach the top speeds of solid state external drives, but for external hard drives based on traditional HDDs, this is the drive to consider. Plus, a fabric coat adds appeal. You might be wondering why you need a USB-C hard drive for your Mac. Data protected by password and AES-256 hardware encryption. It’s fast, taking advantage of full solid-state storage and USB 3.1. An external drive's file system is the most important factor that determines whether or not it's readable by Macs, PCs, or both. 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