BestUSB-C Hard Drives for MaciMore2019
The current line of MacBook Pro only has Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, but that's OK, because USB-C is fast, future-proof, and will likely replace standard USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, power, and more. A USB-C hard drive is the perfect storage box to locally back up all of your most essential files, including photos, documents, music, movies, and anything else that's important to you. Save your Mac's hard drive and pick up a USB-C hard drive. Here are a few options to get you started on your search.
How to access an external drive that's not recognized on a Mac Most of the time, when you connect an external hard drive to your Mac’s USB port, you soon see it mount on the desktop. Apple likes to ensure these are easy to find, so they also appear in the Finder in the left-hand column under Devices, since Mac’s treat them the same way as. In this guide to the best external hard drives for Macs, we look at the top devices for plugging in and expanding the storage space of your Mac or MacBook. While there's a lot to love about Macs.
Hard Drives For Macbook Pro 2012Fan favorite: G-Technology G-Drive 1TBStaff Favorite
The G-Drive by G-Technology is a great USB-C hard drive for most people. It has 1TB of storage and features a quick drive speed of 7200RPM, with transfer rates of up to 136MB/s, thanks to USB 3.1. It comes Mac ready and USB-C ready.
From $75 on Amazon
Best for speed: Samsung T5 SSD 500GB, 1TB, 2TB
Samsung's T5 SSD is a solid-state drive that provides way faster transfer rates than physical hard drives. Solid-state drives don't have moving parts, so if you happen to drop this one, there's less to break! SSDs are more expensive, but with this one, you get write speeds of up 540MB/s, which is over three times faster than many hard drives. If you like to store TV shows and movies on your hard drive, consider a solid-state drive!
From $90 at Amazon
Rugged pick: Glyph Blackbox Plus 1TB
The Glyph Blackbox Plus is a rugged, portable hard drive that can keep up with you wherever you go. It's surrounded in rubber to protect from drops and has enough capacity for all your backups and then some. You get write speeds of up to 140MB/s from just 5400RPM, as well as a 3-year warranty in case anything goes wrong. It also features fan-free heat dissipation, so it's nice and quiet.
$120 at Amazon
Best for video: Samsung 5X Portable SSD
With read and write speeds of up to 2,800MB/s and 2,300MB/s, respectively, this portable drive is perfect for videographers. It's designed for rendering and compiling high res photos and videos with up to 40Gb/s data transfer. It also looks like the Ferrari of external hard drives.
From $200 at Amazon
Most stylish: LaCie Porsche Design 2TB
LaCie is widely recommended for Apple users (they even sell LaCie products on Apple's site!) The Porsche Design external hard drive is a great-looking solution to your USB-C needs. The mobile version comes in 2TB, while the desktop version is available with 4TB of storage. If you have older devices you'd like to use as well, this hard drive is also compatible with USB 3.0 ports.
$70 at Amazon
Upgrade option: SanDisk Extreme 900 SSD 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB
SanDisk's Extreme 900 SSD is a powerhouse solid-state drive that offers up to nine times the transfer speeds of external hard drives. It's made of durable aluminum and rubber, and the solid-state core is shock-proof. So, this is far less likely to die on you should you drop it (compared to hard drives).
From $206 at Amazon
Best value: G-Technology G-DRIVE Mobile SSD Durable Portable External Storage
With a low price per terabyte, G-Technology's G-Drive SSD is one of the more versatile solid-state drives on the market, and it comes from a brand that Apple recommends. You'll get transfer rates of up to 560MBps and USB-C connectivity. Plus, it has IP67 water/dust resistance, it's drop-tested to ten feet, and it has 1000 pound crush-resistance.
From $110 at Amazon
Long-lasting: LaCie Rugged 2TB
The LaCie Rugged of yesteryear got me through my entire post-secondary education, and now that there's a USB-C option, it'll help get you (and maybe even your children!) through school or work with reliability and that fast connection. The body is rubberized to help it stand up to daily wear and tear, and 2TB should be more than enough for all of your files, documents, Final Cut projects, and much more. There's a 2-year warranty on these, which includes data recovery services.
From $180 at Amazon
Durable and reliable: CalDigit Tuff 2TB
CalDigit's Tuff hard drives are rugged, colorful 2TB drives that offer USB-C connectivity, and there's even a USB-C to USB-A cable for backward compatibility. With an IP57 rating, these drives are water-resistant in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. They're dust-resistant, so you can take yours with you anywhere, knowing that your data is safe from the elements.
$120 at Amazon
Compact pick: SanDisk Extreme SSD
You may know SanDisk for its SD cards, but its hard drives are excellent as well. This solid-state drive is smaller than the average smartphone and has a hole in it so that you can clip it to a bag. It's shock-resistant and ruggedly designed, so it's perfect for life on the move.
From $73 at Amazon
Budget pick: WD 2TB My Passport for Mac Portable External Hard Drive
Western Digital makes some of the best hard drives around, and this well-priced USB-A and USB-C compatible hard drive fits right in with all its other excellent drives. It's made for Mac and is Time Machine ready.
From $80 at Amazon
Waterproof-ish: G-Tech All-Terrain Drive
For the extreme outdoorsmen and women, this rugged hard drive does more than protect your external hard drive from scratches and breaks. It's watertight, so you can drop it into a pool of water up to one-foot for 30 seconds without anything seeping in. The tethered Thunderbolt cable means you don't have to bring any extra cables, too.
$180 at Amazon
Our personal favorite
External hard drives are must-have peripherals for anyone with a computer. They give you additional storage space, which can fill up fast on laptops, and are essential to backing up your data safely and securely. Every one of the drives on this list is easy to set up and start using right away. All you have to do is plug one into your Mac.
The G-Drive is our staff's favorite portable hard drive because it's affordable and reliable. It's Mac-ready but can also be reformatted for Windows computers. If 1TB isn't enough, there is also a 2TB, 4TB, and 5TB version available. A three-year limited warranty backs the G-DriveThe G-Drive is supported by a three-year limited warranty.
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iPhone doesn't have an SD card slot, but you can use a flash drive instead!
Having a flash drive that works with your iPhone is a great little piece accessory to have in your back pocket!
If you read my previous post about how to format an external hard drive, you know that I bought a 2TB Seagate Expansion external drive and managed to create two partitions on the disk — one for Mac backup purposes, and the other for personal use.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to backup your Mac data to an external drive. You should backup your Mac on a regular basis, especially if you’re planning to perform macOS updates.
I did this several weeks ago while preparing my MacBook Pro for the High Sierra update. You may also be interested in taking a look at the issues I encountered during that process just in case you also want to upgrade your Mac to the latest macOS.
Please note that the backup tool that I used is Time Machine, a built-in app provided by Apple. If you want to backup your Mac data without using Time Machine, there are also alternatives worth considering.
Where is Time Machine on Mac?
As I said, Time Machine is a built-in app within macOS ever since OS X 10.5. To find it, click on the Apple logo on the top left corner of your screen, then select System Preferences.
In the Preferences Pane, you’ll see the app located between “Date & Time” and “Accessibility”.
What does Time Machine Backup?Portable Hard Drive For Mac
Time Machine is definitely the easiest way to backup Mac. In addition, the app is created and recommended by Apple. Once you have a timely backup, it’s incredibly easy to restore all or part of your data in case of accidental deletion or a hard drive crash.
So, what kind of data does Time Machine backup? Everything! Photos, videos, documents, applications, system files, accounts, preferences, messages, you name it: They all can be backed up by Time Machine. You can then restore your data from a Time Machine snapshot. To do so, first open Finder, then Applications, and click on Time Machine to continue.
Be aware that the recovery process can be only be conducted when your Mac is bootable.
Hard Drives For Macbook ProA Step-by-Step Guide to Backing up Mac to an External Hard Drive
Note: the screenshots below are taken based on macOS 10.12.5 Sierra. If your Mac has High Sierra or an older version, differences may exist, but the process should look similar to what’s displayed below.
Step 1: Connect your external hard drive.
First, use the USB cable (or USC-C cable if you’re on a newest Mac model with Thunderbolt 3 ports) that comes with your external drive to connect that drive to your Mac. Once the disk icon shows up on your desktop (if it doesn’t, open Finder > Preferences > General, and here make sure you’ve checked “External disks” to let them show on the desktop), move on to Step 2.
Step 2: Select the disk for backup.
Now open Time Machine (I tell you how above) and select the disk you want to use. I have partitioned my Seagate drive into two new volumes, “Backup” and “Personal Use”, as you see from the screenshot. I chose “Backup”.
Step 3: Confirm backup (optional).
If you have used another disk for backup before, Time Machine will ask you whether you want to stop backing up to the previous disk and use the new one instead. It’s up to you. I selected “Replace”.
Step 4: Wait until the process is complete.
Now Time Machine will start to backup all your data. The progress bar gives you an estimate of how much time is left before the backup is complete. I found it a bit inaccurate: Initially, it said “About 5 hours remaining”, but it only took two hours to finish. It’s worth noting that the remaining time may vary from case to case depending on the write speed of your external hard drive.
It says I have to wait 5 hours
After about an hour and a half, it says only 15 minutes remaining
Step 5: Eject your external drive and unplug it.
When the backup procedure is completed, don’t rush to disconnect your device as this could cause potential disk problems. Instead, go back to the main desktop, locate the volume that your external hard drive represents, right-click and select Eject. Then, you can safely unplug the device and put it in a safe place.
Hard Drives For Mac ProOne More Thing
Like any other hardware device, an external hard drive will fail sooner or later. It is advisable to make a copy of the data on your external drive — as they say, a “backup of your backups”! One good option is to use cloud storage services. I now use IDrive (read our full review here), and I really like it because the app is so easy to use, and it also allows me to back up my Facebook albums and photos automatically. Backblaze and Carbonite are also popular options in the market, though I have yet to give them a try.
Hard Drive For Mac Desktop![]()
I hope you find this tutorial helpful. I can’t emphasize enough the importance of data backup these days, especially when my mid-2012 MacBook hard drive died all of a sudden. I’ve also seen cases where my friend’s computer and hard drive failed. You can imagine their desperation. Without a proper backup, it’s really hard to restore data. Although you could try a third-party recovery program like Prosoft Data Rescue and Stellar Mac Data Recovery, chances are they won’t get all your lost data back.
Anyway, the main takeaway I want you to have from this article is this: Backup your Mac with Time Machine and create a second or third copy of those backups if you can.
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