Unidade Externa. My Book. For Mac
REVIEWS FROM OUR LAB The Best External Hard Drives for 2019 Last updated October 5th, 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. 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. 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. 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.
$499.00 MSRP Editors' Rating Type External External External External External External External External External External Storage Capacity (as Tested) 2 TB 8 TB 500 GB 2 TB 2 TB 512 GB 3 TB 12 TB 1 TB 1 TB Rotation Speed 5400 rpm 7200 rpm SSD SSD SSD SSD 7200 rpm 7200 rpm SSD SSD Ports USB 3.0, USB-C USB 3.0 USB 3.0, USB-C USB-C, Thunderbolt 3 USB-C Ethernet, SD Card Slot, USB 3.0, USB-C, Thunderbolt 3 USB 3.0, USB-C, Thunderbolt 3 Thunderbolt 3 Thunderbolt 3 USB 2.0, SD Card Slot, USB 3.0 Read Review. Tom Brant The Best External Hard Drives for Mac Looking to add storage, or for a smart way to back up your Mac?
Here's what you need to know, along with our top-rated Apple-friendly drives. We've tested SSDs and platter-based drives alike. The Right Connections 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: Newer and only come with Thunderbolt 3 ports, but the arrival of Thunderbolt 3-equipped drives has been a trickle, rather than a flood. Most of the current models are designed for photographers and video editors who need to store mountains of footage and access it very quickly.
As a result, they are typically SSDs or arrays, which means they're also very expensive. So what's a Mac user who just wants to back up his or her files using Time Machine to do? Read on as we answer that question, and solve your other Mac external-storage quandaries. A New File System Thunderbolt 3 and USB Type-C are the latest innovations in the external storage market, but before we get to them, we need to address a basic building block of hard drives that has always affected compatibility, and probably always will: the file system.
An external drive's file system is the most important factor that determines whether or not it's readable by Macs, PCs, or both. Since the late 1990s, Apple has used the Mac OS Extended file system, commonly abbreviated as HFS+, to power its laptop and desktop computers. But with the release of the operating system, Cupertino switched to an entirely new file format.
Unidade Externa. My Book. For Mac
It's simply called the, and it's the first format to be used on Apple computers as well as the iOS ecosystem of, iPods, the Apple TV, and the Apple Watch. There are many benefits to switching from HFS+ to the Apple File System, including better security thanks to native encryption, but the most important thing to note for external drive shoppers is backward-compatibility. Any drive formatted with HFS+ (which includes most Mac-specific drives on the market today) will work just fine with a Mac that's running macOS High Sierra. Neither Apple File System nor HFS+ works with Windows, however. If you plan to use your external drive with computers that run both operating systems, you should consider a drive formatted with the exFAT file system. Microsoft introduced exFAT about a decade ago, which means that it's still relatively young, as far as file systems go. You won't get the security and efficiency of Apple File System, but you will get the convenience of being able to transfer files back and forth between Windows and macOS simply by plugging in and unplugging your drive.
Of course, you can easily reformat almost any drive you buy, so you're not limited to buying only those intended for use with Macs. If you really fancy a drive formatted for Windows (which will usually come preformatted in the NTFS format), you can use the Disk Utility in macOS to reformat it after you bring it home from the store.
There are a few exceptions to this rule, but they're rare. The only drive we've tested recently that isn't Mac-compatible even if it's formatted is the pro-oriented, which uses a lightning-quick Intel SSD inside. It relies on firmware that requires motherboard-level support that isn't found in any Macs.
SSD Versus Spinning Drive Once you've settled on a file system, you then have to determine which storage medium you want:. 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.
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. SSDs are often smaller and lighter than spinning external drives, as well, which is also thanks to the lack of moving parts. 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. One major downside, however, is that they're much more expensive. You could pay more than 30 cents per gigabyte for an SSD, while spinning drives can be had for less than 10 cents per gigabyte—and often much less. External SSDs also have much less capacity, with most drives topping out at 2TB.
Compare that with spinning drives; portable hard drives top out at 5TB, and desktop ones are easy to find in capacities in excess of 8TB. For professional videographers who edit lots of footage and gamers or movie buffs who have large libraries of multi-gigabyte titles, an external RAID array is worth considering, since it combines the speed of an SSD with the gargantuan capacities of a spinning drive. An array typically contains as few as two or as many as eight spinning drives, which all work together to speed up throughput, or guard your precious files against corruption via drive redundancy if one of the drives fail.
(Or both; it depends on how the array is set up.) The result is that you can get SSD-like speeds, with data throughput of more than 400MBps, and capacities that top out close to 50TB. You'll pay handsomely, of course. The Mac-specific, for one, can cost as much as $5,000. On the other hand, if you're looking to buy an external drive mainly to back up your files and it will rarely leave your home office, an inexpensive spinning drive will work just fine.
Searching for Thunderbolt 3. So, to recap: Faster, smaller (both physically and in terms of gigabytes) solid-state drives come at a premium, while spinning drives offer a much better value while sacrificing speed. But what happens when you throw yet another variable into the mix: the connection between your drive and your Mac? As you might have guessed, the answer is more tradeoffs. Every Mac laptop sold today comes with 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.
Fortunately, Thunderbolt 3 via USB Type-C supports a blazing maximum potential throughput of 40Gbps, double the speed of the old Thunderbolt 2 standard and many times the 5GBps that USB 3.0 offers. Unfortunately, you won't find many Thunderbolt 3-compatible drives on the market currently. Even some Mac-specific drives are still sold with USB 3.0 connectors.
Unidade External. My Book. For Mac Os
Moreover, the Thunderbolt 3 drives you can buy are constrained by the maximum throughput of the drive itself, rather than the Thunderbolt 3 interface. The speediest SSDs we've tested recently top out at around 600MBps, for instance. This means that for now, it's best to include Thunderbolt 3 support in your buying decision only if you're concerned about futureproofing. While it's nice of manufacturers to include a USB Type-C cable for people who own a USB Type-C-only MacBook, you can pick up a converter for a few dollars online if the drive you're eyeing doesn't offer one.
Meanwhile, iMacs, Mac Pros, and Mac Minis all still come with USB 3.0 ports, so they won't require adapters, for now. Other Considerations Drives intended for PCs sometimes come bundled with software that will automatically back up your files to the drive when it's connected, but such software isn't really a consideration for Mac users, who already have an excellent built-in backup option in the form of Time Machine. The first time you plug in an external drive, Time Machine will ask if you want to use it as a backup drive.
While you can customize backup options in System Preferences, such as asking Time Machine to exclude certain folders, there's no action required on your part if you're happy with the default settings. The next time you plug in your drive, Time Machine will automatically set to work creating a backup.
Unless your drive is never going to leave your home or office, you should also consider its physical durability. Rugged, waterproof drives are a good option not just for surfers and BMX riders, as their marketing seems to suggest, but also for people who are carrying their drives to and from school or work, where they might occasionally get spilled on or dropped on the floor. (Check out.) Finally, you might want to consider how the drive will look when it's plugged into your Mac. Some drives, like the WD My Book, come in a variety of colors. Many others feature copious amounts of aluminum and industrial-chic styling to match the design cues of your MacBook or iMac.
Ready for Our Recommendations? We've selected a few of our favorite drives for Macs below; for more, check out our. You can also read our full list of, as well as our.