Of course, you can easily wipe and reformat most external drives, so you're not limited to buying only those intended for use with Macs. We'll start with a breakdown of our favorite external drives for Macs, followed by a guide to how to shop for the best one for you. Read on as we solve this and all of your other Mac external-storage quandaries. In fact, in many cases it makes sense to choose an inexpensive non-Thunderbolt drive that isn't targeted toward Mac use.

So what's a Mac user to do who just wants to back up his or her files using Time Machine, or stash a large video collection? Spoiler: A Thunderbolt drive isn't your only option far from it. As a result, they are typically external SSDs, or even multidrive RAID arrays, which means they also tend to be expensive. The main difference is that many drives made specifically for Macs use the upgraded Thunderbolt data transfer protocol, which promises super-fast data transfers for photographers and video editors who need to store mountains of footage and access it very quickly.

Most laptops with either operating system now come with at least one oval-shaped USB-C port, and it's the one you'll want to use for connecting your external drive. Read our editorial mission (Opens in a new window) & see how we test (Opens in a new window).īuying an external hard drive or SSD for your Mac is not all that different from buying one for your Windows PC. Since 1982, PCMag has tested and rated thousands of products to help you make better buying decisions.

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