#BEST EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES FOR MAC CNET FOR MAC#

#BEST EXTERNAL HARD DRIVES FOR MAC CNET FOR MAC#

If you must have a Thunderbolt drive, the best thunderbolt external drive for Mac is the WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo or if you want something really big, the OWC ThunderBay. Seagate Ultra Touch HDD 2TB Best for those on a budget. SanDisk Professional G-Drive SSD Best value for the money SSD drive. Samsung Portable SSD X5 Best SSD external hard drive for Mac in speed performance. For example, LaCie offer a 4GB Thunderbolt 1 external hard drive but we would never recommend LaCie drives anyway to Mac users. LaCie Rugged SSD Pro Best durable Mac external hard drive. This no-nonsense approach makes it an ideal drive for a set-and-forget backup regimen, though you do have to format it for use with Time Machine.

Those Thunderbolt drives that currently exist are mainly only Thunderbolt 1 compatible (10Gbps) and expensive for very little capacity compared with USB 3.0 drives which transfer at a very respectable 5Gbps.

The problem is that those Thunderbolt drives that do exist still use Thunderbolt 1 or 2 which is the slowest standard so you’re not even getting the best that Thunderbolt on the latest generation of Macs can offer.

There are three types of Thunderbolt – version 1, 2 and 3 each faster than the last.

A Thunderbolt port can transfer at a staggering 40Gbps but even the fastest hard drives can’t get anywhere near this.

External hard drives still haven’t caught up with the speed of Thunderbolt connections. If you’re looking for a rugged, Mac-friendly, super fast external hard drive that can handle plenty of bumps, dust, rain, and bounces, take a look at LaCie’s Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C portable hard drive.At the moment in 2019, we therefore advise against making Thunderbolt a priority when choosing an external hard drive for Mac for several reasons which can be summarized as:

Best external hard drives for mac cnet