What External Hard Drive Does Apple Recommend? Do Any External Hard Drives Work With Mac? How To Fully Recover Disk Space on a Mac How To Check Storage Space on Macs & Find Large Files WD My Book Duo Desktop RAID (Best Security) G-Tech 2TB G-DRIVE Mobile SSD (Best Speed) WD My Book Desktop (Best Desktop Drive) Transcend StoreJet M3 (Best For Photographers) Seagate Backup Plus For Mac (Best Value)
![]() What External Hard Drive Does Apple Recommend?The only officially Apple endorsed hard drive is the Apple Airport Time Capsule.Time Capsule works over your WiFi connection so the smart thing is, backups are performed wirelessly when used with macOS Time Machine. However, there are some external hard drives which are more compatible with Macs than others.Most external hard drives use USB ports or USB-3 ports to connect to your Mac but all Macs nowadays have Thunderbolt 3 ports which offer even fast data transfer connections than USB.Some external hard drives are also already formatted to work out of the box with macOS although most require formatting first.You can be assured though that all the hard drives featured here are compatible with the latest versions of macOS including Big Sur and Catalina. OWC ThunderBay 4 Raid (Best Capacity)Do Any External Hard Drives Work With Mac?The good news is almost all external hard drives work with Macs. Best External Hard Drive 2015 Free Adobe CreativeFor those that intend to use a storage or backup device on the move such as photographers, we think it’s the best external hard drive for photographers on Mac due to it’s incredible durability.In fact, the Transcend StoreJet M3 is military drop tested with an advanced 3 stage shock protection system and a incredibly strong anti-shock rubber outer case.The Transcend StoreJet M3 also comes with its own software that can be used for one-touch backups.Just press the button on the Transcend and the software will automatically backup although it also works with Time Machine.The Transcend StoreJet M3 also comes with an extra USB cable to connect to a second USB port in case your Mac can’t provide enough power for it from one connection although most Mac users shouldn’t need this.If you’re going to using an external storage device outside, the Transcend StoreJet M3 is a good choice but note that it only comes in a 1TB and 2TB version – there’s nothing bigger.To enhance protection, you can choose from a range of carry cases too.Buy on Amazon 4. Transcend StoreJet M3 (Best For Photographers)The main selling point of the Transcend StoreJet M3 is that it’s incredibly tough. Seagate Backup Plus For Mac (Best Value)The Seagate Backup Plus for Mac is the closest rival to the WD My Passport for Mac but offers slightly better prices than its competitor.The Seagate Backup Plus For Mac ranges from 1TB to 5TB and like the WD My Passport, it’s ready formatted for use on Macs and Time Machine ready for instant backups as soon as you plug it into your Mac.It also has USB 3.0/Thunderbolt connectors and includes a USB 2.0 adapter cable for older Macs.The Seagate Backup Plus for Mac also comes with Seagate Dashboard backup software but we found it a bit bloated and hard to customize backups with.There’s really no need to use it if you’re using Time Machine for your backups.Although Seagate don’t make it very clear in the product description, the Backup Plus For Mac has a 2 year warranty which is 1 year less than Western Digital.There’s also a shockproof carry case for it and Seagate are offering 2 months free Adobe Creative Cloud subscription included.Be aware however that although Seagate has traditionally had a good reputation in the external hard drive industry, more recently there are far more reports of hard drive problems and customer service issues with Seagate external hard drives.There are also many satisfied customers too but to be on the safe side, you might as well go with WD drives as they’re exactly the same price and in our experience, rock solid.Buy on Amazon 3. WD My Passport For Mac (Best Overall)We think the Western Digital 5TB My Passport For Mac is the best external hard drive for Mac of 2021 due to a solid combination of reliability, value for money and portability.It’s ready formatted for use on Mac, Time Machine ready and small enough to fit in your coat pocket.With a 3 year warranty and big enough to backup all Mac hard drives, if you need a fast, reliable, value for money backup solution for your Mac, you can’t go wrong with the WD 5TB My Passport.The WD My Passport for Mac supports USB 3.0/Thunderbolt connections but it will also work with older USB 2.0 connections.We recommend paying that little extra for the 5TB which is the biggest version available in the My Passport Range which ranges from 2TB-5TB.If you’re going to carry it around a lot, we also recommend getting a proper carry case for it too.Buy on Amazon 2. Download anonymous vpn for macIt works on Mac, PC and Android devices but note that it’s not ready formatted for OS X. Samsung T5 Portable SSD (Best SSD)The Samsung T5 Portable SSD is easily the quietest external hard drive for Mac users we’ve seen.SSD drives usually offer the poorest value for money in terms of dollars per TB.They are however extremely fast and silent compared to solid state drives because like your Mac’s internal hard drive, they have no moving parts.There are very few SSD external drives for Mac that we can strongly recommend but in our opinion, the best consumer priced SSD external hard drive for Mac you can currently get in 2021 is the Samsung T5 Portable SSD.The Samsung T5 Portable SSD is an SSD external hard drive for Mac with read-write speeds of up to 450 Mbps which is at least twice as fast as most mechanical drives.It’s incredibly small being not much bigger than a credit card and weighs just 1.8 ounces. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a Thunderbolt port although you can use a USB 3.0 to Thunderbolt converter cable with it.The WD My Book Desktop also comes with its own WD Backup Software which is straightforward but you really don’t need it if you use Time Machine or another backup software.For security, the WD MyBook Desktop also features 256bit AES hardware encryption that password protects your data.The WD My Book Desktop is available in 3TB going up to 10TB.Buy on Amazon 5.
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