The 8 Best External Hard Drives And Ssds For Mac

The 8 best external hard drives and SSDs for Mac and PC users in 2018 By Matt Hanson 2018-12-06T17:00:58Z Graphic design If you have lots of creative work to store, making sure you have the best external hard drive or SSD for your Mac or PC is essential. Dec 6, 2018 - The 8 best external hard drives and SSDs for Mac and PC users in 2018. Best external hard drives and SSDs for Mac and PC. Western Digital My Passport 4TB. Samsung Portable SSD T5. G-Technology G-RAID with Thunderbolt 3. Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt. Adata SD700 External SSD. WD My Book Duo. LaCie Rugged USB-C.

• The 8 Best External Hard Drive And Ssd For Macbook Pro 2017
• The 8 Best External Hard Drive And Ssd For Mac 2017

If you need some extra storage for your computer, one easy way to add some is to purchase an external storage device. In this guide, we’re going to take a look at seven of the best external hard drives currently available. With the increase in access to online media, files, and data, having ample amounts of computer storage has never been more important. While 1TB of storage capacity may have seemed like way more than enough storage space five years ago, with 4K videos, larger games, the rise in content creation, etc., 1TB of storage seems more like a bare minimum now than a comfortable amount. Fortunately, along with the increasing demand for extra storage capacity has come the rise in options for easy-to-use external storage devices. External hard drives, external SSDs, and flash memory are cheaper and come in larger capacities than ever before.

And, if you are looking to add-on to your system’s (or network’s) storage capacity without having to install new hardware, in this guide we’re going to take a look at seven of the best external hard drives, SSDs, and flash memory options. Up to 5TB Capacity. USB 3.0 Compatible. Works w/PC or Mac. Max 120MB/s Transfer Our Rating: 9.0/10 If you need an affordable external that can either come in a portable form-factor with a decent amount of storage capacity, then the Seagate Backup Plus might be the option for you. The Backup Plus comes in a ‘Slim’ style, which is smaller and lighter and is best for users who need a portable option that they can easily take with them wherever they go.

The Backup Plus Slim is available in 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, or 5TB capacities, so it is an easy and affordable way to add a significant amount of portable storage for your devices. Overall, the Seagate Backup Plus strikes the perfect balance for available storage capacity, performance, price, and portability, all of which combined to make it our best overall choice for external hard drives. Up to 2TB Capacity. USB 3.1 Compatible. Works w/PC or Mac. Max 540MB/s Transfer Our Rating: 9.1/10 If your budget is no concern and you need a fast portable external storage option, then Samsung’s T5 Portable SSD would likely be your best bet. The Samsung T5 offers their portable in capacities of 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, and 2TB.

The prices aren’t cheap, though. The 250GB option comes in at just under $100 and the 2TB option comes in at just under $600.

However, in terms of performance, the T5 will offer you insanely fast transfer times thanks to it being an SSD as well as the fact that it comes with USB 3.1 compatibility. In fact, the drive offers transfer speeds up to 540MB/s, which is significantly faster than any of the other options on this list. Overall, the T5 won’t be the right option for everyone, mostly due to the price it comes in at. But, if you have a larger budget and you want high-end performance and portability out of your external storage device, then the T5 would definitely be worth considering.

Up to 1TB Capacity. USB 3.1 Compatible. Works w/PC or Mac. Max 440MB/s Transfer Our Rating: 9.0/10 Another highly portable external storage option is a USB flash drive. However, up until recently larger capacity USB flash drives came in at very expensive prices. However, as the cost of flash memory have dropped over the past two years, larger flash drives are now more affordable than ever.

Corsair’s Flash Voyager GTX line of flash drives comes in capacities all the way up to 1TB large. You will have to pay a premium for it, though, as it will cost you just under $440 to get the Flash Voyager GTX 1TB. For $140 less you can get the Samsung T5 external SSD 1TB. The ease-of-use and the incredibly small form-factor of the Flash Voyager might make the extra cost worth it for some users, though.

And, you can always opt for smaller capacities, too, as the Flash Voyager GTX comes in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB as well as the 1TB mentioned above. And, for performance, the Flash Voyager GTX trails only the Samsung T5 listed above in terms of transfer speeds. So, in the end, if you are looking for the smallest and most portable external storage option that will offer you incredible speeds as well, the Corsair Flash Voyager GTX might be the best option for you. Just note, though, that it will cost quite a bit more on a per-GB basis than the other options on this list. Up to 20TB Capacity.

USB 3.0 Compatible. Works w/PC or Mac.

Max 170MB/s Transfer Our Rating: 8.8/10 If mass storage capacity is your main concern, then you might want to consider the Western Digital My Book external hard drive. The WD My Book comes in capacities of up to 10TB on their single-drive form-factor and up to an insane 20TB on their dual-drive form-factor.

The WD My Book won’t offer performance levels anywhere near the SSD and flash storage options on this list, but in terms of price-per-GB, it will give you a lot of storage for cheap. The WD My Book comes in 3TB, 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, and 10TB capacities on the single-drive option, and 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, 12TB, 16TB, and 20TB capacities on the dual-drive option. The single 3TB option comes in at a little over $80, and the dual 20TB option comes in at just under $800. The 4TB single drive option is probably the best value, though, coming in at just under $85.

Ultimately, the WD My Book is the perfect option for anyone who doesn’t have a huge budget, or who wants to maximize their budget for the most storage capacity possible. Up to 10TB Capacity. USB 3.0 Compatible. Works w/PC or Mac.

Max 110MB/s Transfer Our Rating: 9.0/10 An alternative option to the Seagate Backup Plus, is the Western Digital Elements external hard drives. Like the Seagate Backup Plus, the WD Elements comes in both a slim portable style as well as a desktop style. The WD Elements does offer higher capacities on the desktop version of the drive, with the option to get it in 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, or 10TB capacities. The portable version of the drive comes in at 1TB, 2TB, and 3TB capacities. In terms of pricing, the WD Elements drives have a slightly lower price-per-GB. However, the main reason why we don’t have the WD Elements rated higher than the Seagate Backup Plus, is that Seagate’s offering outperforms the WD Elements by a decent margin. So, while the WD Elements has more capacity options and costs a little less than Seagate’s Backup Plus options, the extra performance of the Seagate Backup Plus helps it edge out WD’s competing option.

Up to 512GB Capacity. USB 3.1 Compatible. Works w/PC or Mac. Max 540MB/s Transfer Our Rating: 9.0/10 If you’re looking for a similar offering to Samsung’s T5 portable SSD, the Western Digital My Passport would be the next best option. Like the Samsung T5, the WD My Passport is another USB 3.1-compatible portable SSD. The WD My Passport comes in capacities of 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB. In terms of pricing, the WD My Passport comes in at slightly lower costs on a per-GB basis when compared to the Samsung T5.

However, where the Samsung T5 stands out over the WD My Passport is in performance. While both are listed at up to 540MB/s transfer speeds, in most benchmarks the Samsung T5 edges out the WD My Passport. So, if performance is your main concern, it might be worth it to pay a little extra per-GB to get the Samsung T5. If you don’t mind the slightly less performance that the WD My Passport offers, then you can save a little money by opting for it over the T5. Up to 10TB Capacity. USB 3.0 Compatible.

Works w/PC or Mac. Max 170MB/s Transfer Our Rating: 8.7/10 The Seagate Backup Plus Hub is the desktop version of the Backup Plus Slim and it rivals the WD My Book in terms of overall storage capacity, performance, and price. Like the WD My Book, the Seagate Backup Plus Hub will offer you higher capacities than any of the other options on this list.

The Backup Plus Hub comes in capacities of 4TB, 6TB, 8TB, and 10TB. Unlike the WD My Book, though, there is no dual-drive option and so the Backup Plus Hub doesn’t come with the option for capacities over 10TB. On a per-GB basis, the two external hard drives go back and forth on which option is cheaper from one capacity to the next. The Backup Plus Hub’s 8TB and 6TB drives are cheaper than WD My Book’s offerings, but the My Book’s 4TB and 10TB options are cheaper than Seagate’s offerings. The bottom line is that both options will offer you a very similar experience and so your best bet might be to just go with whatever option is the least expensive at the time you are looking to purchase an external hard drive.

Need An External Hard Drive? These Options Should Work for You While there are a ton of different external hard drive and external storage devices out there, we feel the seven drives listed above represent the best options for the various use-cases that one might need an external storage device for.

So, if you’re in the market for an external storage device, regardless of your specific needs, one of the options above should be the right choice for you. Filed Under:, Reader Interactions.

I feel old saying this, but having used computers since before external hard drives existed, I can say with certainty that buying a hard drive is easier today than it’s ever been before. For traditional drives, prices are low, options are numerous, and capacities are so high that your only choices are “enough space,” “more than enough space,” and “way more than enough space.” I could point you towards a and end this article without another paragraph.

Since Apple doesn’t even sell a Mac with that much disk space, you could back up five (or more) computers to that drive without running out of room. Or you could store a decade worth of digital photos alongside a giant media library. But buying an external hard drive isn’t necessarily that simple. There are a bunch of factors worth considering before making a purchase, including everything from reliability to portability, design, capacity, speed, and connectivity. Some hard drives are really cheap but have a higher chance of failing after a year or two of heavy use.

So in this How-To, I’m going to discuss the big issues you need to consider, and guide you towards the best external hard drive for your needs Quick Overview Most hard drives are guaranteed to work for one to two years no matter what you do with them, ranging from occasional backups to continuous video streaming. They’ll generally last much longer if you don’t use them every day. However — and this is really important — if you keep a typical drive mechanism running 24 hours each day for two years, it’s going to burn out.

Hard drive longevity used to be measured with an estimate of “Mean Time Before Failure” (MTBF). Each year has 61,320 hours, so a drive with a MTBF of 300,000 hours would promise to last 4.9 years if actively used 24 hours each day. Desktop drives typically promised higher MTBFs than laptop drives, but there were exceptions. Unfortunately, MTBF numbers were only predictions — and often inaccurately high. Consumers complained. So drive makers switched to a different but even less useful metric: Annualized Failure Rate (AFR), which estimates the percentage of total drives made that will fail in a year due to manufacturing defects. All an AFR of “0.73%” suggests is that 7,300 of 1,000,000 drives will likely develop problems in year one due to defects rather than abuse.

That low percentage may seem reassuring, but it obscures the reality that heavy drive use increases failures over time, and some drives are much better-suited to heavy use than others. My advice: purchase your drive with a specific purpose in mind. If you’re backing up precious photos, home videos, or important files, buy a name brand, desktop-sized hard drive from a company with a track record of reliability, and pay a little more for it. It doesn’t really matter how the drive looks, just that it will work for a long time. But if you’re just using a drive to store apps, games, or iTunes movies that you can easily re-download at any time, or only intermittently turn a drive on for backups, you can feel comfortable going with something cheaper, more portable, or fancier-looking. Capacity + Pricing It’s easy to pick the right hard drive capacity these days: most external drives now offer at least as much space as a standard Mac (1TB) — and there are — and you can get an.

Most people will find that that 4TB is more than enough to hold years of accumulated photos, media files, and data, but there’s no wrong answer to the capacity question: it’s mostly a matter of personal preference right now. That said, there are sweet spots. Expect to pay around,. By “basic,” I mean the popular and consumer-grade desktop drives shown above from Seagate, a major (but not top) drive manufacturer with a good (but not great) warranty. The are similar up until the 4TB mark, where the price doubles.

Generally, 3TB to 5TB would be the sweet spots between capacity and pricing, but of the 3TB Expansion mirror comments I’ve seen elsewhere online: Seagate’s 3TB units had lots of problems. You’re better off considering 2TB, 4TB or 5TB units instead. Don’t be surprised that longer-lasting drives can cost twice as much as basic models. They’ll typically last longer, which is worth something.

Similarly, don’t be surprised if a solid state drive (SSD) costs much more and offers lower capacity than a mechanical drive. SSDs are just beginning to become mainstream internal drives for computers, and their capacities aren’t yet at the “more than enough space” point. Reliability Since MTBF and AFR are such sketchy measures of hard drive reliability, I suggest that you focus on two more tangible factors: the reputation of the manufacturer, and the length of the drive’s warranty. A three-year warranty is the best you can expect from a consumer-grade external drive from a top vendor, regardless of whether it’s a. (Only the very best internal SSDs now offer and, though notably with much less storage space than the drives covered in this article. See my How-To guides to, and.) If reliability is your major concern, as it generally is mine, I’d suggest you look most seriously at (featuring ultra-reliable Hitachi hard drive mechanisms) and, all of which have three-year warranties.

I G-Tech’s excellent for 9to5Mac, and have trusted their earlier drives for many years without any issues. Was covered in my, and while it’s more expensive and lower-capacity than the G-Drive USB, it has no moving parts to worry about. Go with a G-Drive if you need a large reliable drive, or T1 if you want something small and reliable. Portability + Design There are five major types of external hard drives:,. The first two use 3.5″ hard drive mechanisms and are effectively non-portable: they sit on your desk, depend on wall power, and aren’t easy to carry in typical bags. Flash drives are keychain-sized but relatively limited in capacity and crazy expensive when they begin to approach laptop drive capacities.

So if you need a portable hard drive with respectable storage capacity at a reasonable price, you’ll most likely pick a laptop-class drive with a 2.5″ hard drive mechanism inside. Owned by Seagate, boutique drive maker LaCie’s lineup nicely illustrates the relative size differences between the categories of external drives, though there are even smaller laptop and slim laptop drives out there now.

In January, I both, the world’s thinnest external mechanical hard drive, and, a boxy mirrored drive with twice the capacity. Both use USB 3.0 for data and power, with no need for an external power supply. Either one can easily fit into a laptop bag, backpack, or purse, but Seven is much, much smaller. If you want a portable, reliable hard drive at a low price with minimal design frills, consider, which have a. But if you’re looking for something with a distinctive design — and willing to compromise a little on long-term reliability — are definitely the best around. Pick the one that appeals to your personal taste. Speed, Connectivity, iOS Compatibility, and Apple’s AirPort Time Capsules A lot could be said about each of these topics, but I’ll save you some time and cut to the chase: recent developments mean that most people will be best off with USB 3.0 wired drives, except under one of three circumstances: you need incredible speed for Mac video editing, you want to stream video to your iOS devices, or you want to do automated wireless backups. If you’re planning on doing 4K or other disk-intensive Mac video editing, Thunderbolt hard drives such as or can deliver dramatically better speeds than drives that share your Mac’s USB bus.

They’re much more expensive than comparably capacious USB drives, but they’re built for professional use, and priced accordingly. That said, USB 3.0 drives tend to outperform prior-generation FireWire 800 drives, which were adequate for pre-4K editing, so most users will have no need to look for faster options. If you’re concerned about real-world speeds for a USB drive, check the manufacturer’s stated “up to XXXMB/second transfer rates” claims and subtract around 10-20% for real world performance. If you want to use your hard drive to store content that can also be streamed to your iOS device, consider or, which offer integrated Wi-Fi streaming, a built-in battery for completely wireless operation, and USB connectivity for synchronization. I’ve tested both, and while Seagate’s version has the edge on pricing, speed, and battery performance, My Passport Wireless has an SD slot built in to back up your digital photos on the road. IOS users will have a better experience with the Wireless Plus, while Mac users and digital photographers with infrequent iOS needs may prefer My Passport Wireless. Go with the one that best suits your needs.

Last but not least, if you want to do automated wireless backups, consider — but think carefully about — an. I currently use the latest version of Time Capsule, which has been completely redesigned and has fast 802.11ac wireless with your choice of a or hard drive.

The 8 Best External Hard Drive And Ssd For Macbook Pro 2017

On a positive note, it works completely as expected, and although the initial Time Machine backup process for a large Mac hard drive is incredibly slow, incremental backups later on are fine. My concerns are mostly in reliability and pricing.

I’ve had two prior-generation Time Capsules experience hard drive issues, and though Apple may have fixed those problems with the new model, it’s very easy to go out and buy a standalone drive for much less. I’m not a big fan of wireless drives right now, but continue to hope that wireless technology will catch up with the demands of current machines. All of my important files are on a wired, and they will probably stay there for the foreseeable future.

Author, lawyer, and award-winning restaurateur Jeremy Horwitz started his journalism career in the early 1990’s, covering video games as a freelancer for numerous publications before creating and running Ziff Davis’s Intelligent Gamer magazine. A graduate of Cornell Law School, he previously ran editorial for the Apple-centric site iLounge and created the historic iLounge Pavilion at CES before joining 9to5Mac and 9to5Toys as a Senior Editor.

The 8 Best External Hard Drive And Ssd For Mac 2017

A lifelong consumer electronics expert and gourmet, he now focuses on the changing ways people work, play, eat, and travel. His Spanish restaurant Aro Bar de Tapas won Best New Restaurant (Opened 2015-2016), Best Charcuterie, Best Craft Cocktails, and Best Desserts awards.