Portable Hdd For Mac
REVIEWS FROM OUR LAB The Best External Hard Drives of 2018 Last updated October 5, 2018 1:00PM EST Laptop running out of storage space? Need to back up your photos and videos? From straightforward desktop drives to wireless SSDs that can offload footage from a drone camera, external storage is faster, cheaper, more versatile, and more stylish than ever.
We've outlined everything you should consider when adding storage along with the top drives we've tested, both flash- and platter-based. PCMag has been testing external hard drives since before consumer SSDs were even a thing. Our top picks are based not only on results from our rigorous benchmark tests, but also on our examinations of software features, drive durability, and overall value. We get it, you're rough on your equipment.
Sometimes you break your $99 budget external hard drives before you've paid off the credit card you used to buy them. The 2TB CalDigit Tuff ($179.99) is hardy enough to survive the slings and arrows of business travel, even if you're a wildlife photographer or a foreman on a construction site. It's able to take a hit, it's waterproof and dust-proof, and it's very affordable given the amount of storage you get. Put this all together, and it's enough for the Tuff to earn our latest Editors' Choice award for rugged hard drives.
Pros: Rated to survive 4-foot drops. Certified waterproof and dustproof. Comes with USB 3.0 and USB-C cables. Cons: Warranty limited to two years.
SSD option is still unreleased. Bottom Line: Not only is the CalDigit Tuff a rugged hard drive designed to survive extreme conditions, it's also a terrific value.
If you're addicted to downloading videos and snapping up every game you can find online, chances are you need inexpensive, voluminous storage to house it all. The 8TB version of the Western Digital My Book ($249.99) can hold thousands of hours of video, or millions of MP3s or photos.
It's backward-compatible with current and older Macs and Windows PCs, a plus right now as USB standards are changing. With a good mix of capacity, pricing, and performance, it's a shoo-in as our latest Editors' Choice for desktop external hard drives. Pros: Comes in a variety of large capacities. Three-year warranty. Cons: Requires external power adapter. Bottom Line: With a full 8TB for less than $250, the 8TB version of the Western Digital My Book is a deep well of affordable storage for your photos, music, videos, and more. Solid state drives like the 2TB Samsung Portable SSD T5 ($799.99) buck the 2.5-inch form factor of their portable hard drive predecessors.
Since don't need to house a spinning platter, they're a whole lot smaller and easier to slip into a small pocket. While our capacious 2-terabyte test drive may be too expensive if you simply want to back up files from your laptop, its speed and capacity are suited to well-heeled digital packrats and graphics professionals. Pros: Excellent performance. Includes USB 3.0 and USB-C cables. Android-, Mac-, and Windows-compatible.
Cons: While a comparable good per-gigabyte value, the drive itself is expensive. Bottom Line: Samsung's Portable SSD T5 drive has a speedy USB-C interface and plenty of reliable storage. It takes up about as much room in your pocket as a short stack of credit cards. Rugged, portable, and trendy, are the obvious path these days to netting fast extra storage for your PC or Mac. And although it's not nearly the household name that SSD giant Samsung is, ADATA offers external drives that compete with the storage big-leaguers at aggressive prices. A refresh of the we reviewed two years ago, the ADATA SE730H ($149.99 for the 512GB version we tested) introduces USB-C-to-USB-C data transfers with a potential ceiling of 10Gbps, over a USB 3.1 Gen 2 connection.
It's compact, it's waterproof, and—best of all—it's fast, if not much faster than your typical external SSD. And, for the amount of storage space you're getting, it costs less than the 500GB version of our Editors' Choice, the ($164.99). Pros: Spiffy look. Pocket-size, all-metal shell.
USB Type-C interface at both ends of cable. Fast performance. Resists water, dirt, and dust.
Cons: Storage space tops out at 512GB. Not appreciably faster than USB 3.1 Gen 1 external SSDs. Bottom Line: The chic, compact ADATA SE730H External SSD delivers speedy data transfers over USB Type-C-and you can dunk it or drop it as much as you like. The sheer variety of ports on the Akitio Thunder3 RAID Station ($369.99) means that you can use this external hard drive not only to store mountains of data, but also to connect nearly any peripheral you might have or want to buy in the future. This versatility joins several other selling points, including easily configurable RAID modes, the ability to disable the cooling fan, and a sturdy, well-designed enclosure to make it one of the best external RAID enclosures you can buy as long as you don't need screaming data-transfer speeds.
Pros: Excellent connectivity options and transfer speeds. Solid build quality and attractive aluminum finish. Easy disassembly. Cooling fan can be disabled.
No software required for Macs. Hardware RAID controller. Cons: Expensive. SATA interface limits read/write speeds.
Only 27W of power delivery. Bottom Line: With its wealth of ports, the Akitio Thunder3 RAID Station is both a connectivity hub and a capacious external hard drive for multimedia content creators. Your business data is likely the most important thing you carry with you, and your backups need protection, too.
The 1TB Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC ($129.99) will protect your data physically and electronically, since it's a rugged hard drive with 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and hardware-based Near-Field Communication (NFC) security features. It's worth considering if you're paranoid about your data and hard on your equipment. Pros: Built-in USB cable. Dust and water resistant. Hardware encryption.
Mac and PC format utility. Cons: NFC card is easy to lose. Doesn't unlock via smartphones. Bottom Line: The 1-terabyte Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC has a built-in cable you can't lose, a rugged chassis that will survive a rough daily commute, and an NFC card and reader add some security to this portable hard drive.
The LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive ($149.95 for 2TB) has style in spades. With a slim, all-aluminum body, this is an attractive external hard drive that's also capable of super-fast transfer speeds. That being said, looks aren't everything. On a per-gigabyte basis, this drive won't give you the best bang for your buck, and is pretty minimalist in terms of extra features—two major reasons why the 4TB remains our Editors' Choice for external hard drives. Pros: Sleek design and lightweight aluminum body.
Good performance. 256-bit AES encryption.
Includes both USB 3.0 and USB-C cables. Cons: A little pricey. Few extra features.
Bottom Line: The 2TB LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive is a thin and super-fast portable hard drive that is not only attractive, but also USB-C compatible. If you store all your data in the cloud, it might be hard to fathom an external hard drive doing double duty as a status symbol. That's exactly what the sleek, wildly fast, and eye-wateringly expensive Samsung Portable SSD X5 ($699 for 1TB) is, though. Following in the footsteps of both Samsung's own flagship external drives like the and design-forward works of hard drive art from LaCie and others, the X5 offers copious amounts of solid-state storage at extreme speeds, thanks to its use of the cutting-edge Thunderbolt 3 and PCI Express NVMe interfaces. It would make a killer gift for Mac-bound video editors who shoot in 4K or photographers who work in RAW, but it's overkill for pretty much anyone else.
Pros: Extremely fast data transfer speeds, thanks to Thunderbolt 3 and PCIe NVMe interfaces. Multiple capacity options. Sleek design. Cons: Expensive.
No USB support. Difficult to connect to Windows PCs.
Bottom Line: 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. The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim ($99.99 for 2TB) is a travel-friendly portable hard drive with a high storage capacity. While extras are limited, the cost per gigabyte, thin design, and transfer speeds are highly appealing. The 4TB hard drive has more features and double the storage for $50 more, but if portability is your main concern, this drive is a straightforward and affordable way to have more than enough space for your files and media on the road. Pros: Good storage capacity, transfer speeds, and value. Stylish, thin design.
NTFS driver for Mac included. Includes 200GB of OneDrive cloud storage for 2 years. Cons: Basic feature set. No rubber feet for grip. Bottom Line: The Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Slim is an external hard drive that provides 2TB of storage space, quick data transfer speeds, and a sharp, super-slim design for just $100. A collection of spinning drives configured with a RAID level designed for faster access can approximate the speeds of an SSD, while you should consider a drive with support for RAID levels 1, 5, or 10 if you're storing really important data that you can't afford to lose.
Hit the link above for explanation of the strengths of each RAID level. What Interface Should You Look For? How an external drive connects to your PC or Mac is second only to the type of storage mechanism it uses in determining how fast you'll be able to access data. Unfortunately, these connection types are constantly changing, and the internet is littered with outdated references to legacy interface types such as eSATA and FireWire.
Right now, the fastest mainstream connection type is Thunderbolt 3, which is handy assuming you have a newer laptop or desktop with a Thunderbolt 3 port. All late-model Apple laptops have them, but they're much scarcer on Windows machines. This interface uses a USB Type-C connector and offers blazing throughput of 40GBps. As an added bonus, a desktop drive that supports Thunderbolt 3 might also come with additional DisplayPort and USB connections that allow you to use the drive box as a hub for your keyboard, mouse, monitor, and other peripherals. You'll really only see the speed benefits of Thunderbolt 3, however, if you have a drive that's SSD-based, or a RAID array. If you'd rather save money than time transferring your data, if you're buying a desktop drive with a single platter-based mechanism inside, or if you have a PC that lacks Thunderbolt 3, you'll want to make sure your drive has a USB 3.0 connection.
Mac Hdd Repair
Nearly every recent drive we reviewed supports USB 3.0, and the same goes for laptops and desktops. Do You Need to Go Rugged? If you carry your drive around frequently, you'll want to pay attention to how rugged the drive is. Some models include plastic bumpers, and some even meet for shock and dust protection. (Look for support for specifications such as IP67 or IP68; see.) And of course, if you're carrying your drive around with you, you want it to look nice.
Some, like the Samsung T5, come in multiple colors, while others, like the, are super-slim and ready to be tossed in a pocket. Perhaps the only thing you don't need to pay much attention to is the warranty.
Portable Hard Drives For Mac And Pc
If your drive breaks because you damaged it, the warranty likely won't cover it. Even if the drive fails because of a manufacturing defect, most warranties simply replace the drive and don't cover the cost of recovery services that attempt to rescue your data from the broken drive. Let's Look at the Top Models We've Tested. Also know that you can find external drives that do way more than just store your data. Some include SD card readers to offload footage from a camera or drone in the field, while others have built-in Wi-Fi and can double as an all-in-one home media server. (.) Some of that kind even come with extra-large batteries that can charge your smartphone while you're on the go. To get you started in the right direction toward the right add-on backup/storage solution, below are 10 of the best drives we've tested of late, at a variety of prices and capacities.
Mac Hdd To Ssd
Some are SSD-based, while others are platter. For more options, also take a look at our guides to the, the we've tested, and, for PC builders and upgraders, the.