best external hard drive for mac storage

Best External Hard Drive Storage Portable Hard Drive
Best External Hard Drive Storage Download Your Files

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Just bear in mind the included USB Type-A cable may need a cheap adapter to convert it to a Type-C plug thatll fit a modern MacBook. (Image credit: LaCie) 3.

They offer the most storage capacity for the lowest cost and are effortlessly easy to use.

Best External Hard Drive Storage Portable Hard Drive

If youre planning on using your external storage when youre frequently on the go, wed recommend a portable hard drive or SSD instead, as theyre smaller and dont require a separate power supply.

But for at-home desktop use, the drives on this list are the way to go.

Here we rate each drives affordability, speed, capacity and ease of use, to ensure theres an external hard drive for you, no matter your budget and needs.

Several forms of external hard drives are available, so weve split this guide into three sections: 1: External desktop drives The cheapest and simplest options, an external hard drive offer loads of storage space, and are great for most users.

Even the lowest capacity desktop drives now offer at least 2TB of space, which is enough for over 500,000 JPEG images.

And with top-end drives packing up to 16TB of storage, youll struggle to fill them even if you shoot high bit-rate 4K video.

But this isnt just to give you even more storage space - its smarter than that.

With two hard disks inside and a clever controller processor, when you back up to a RAID drive, it automatically copies your data to both hard disks.

Should one of the disks inside ever fail, you still have all your files safely saved on the other disk.

NAS drives Network Attached Storage - these external hard drives can be connected to your internet router so they can be accessed from anywhere you can get an internet connection.

Its like having your own personal cloud storage at home, but with more storage space and no monthly fees.

You simply log in to the drive from a computer or mobile device using your private username and password.

Best External Hard Drive Storage Download Your Files

Then you can view, upload or download your files whether youre at home or on the go, and friends and family can do the same if you allow them access.

Like the sound of a NAS drive Theres just one - rather big - thing you should know.

NAS drives are usually sold without any actual hard disks inside.

The idea is you fit your own so you can choose the right amount of storage space to suit your needs and budget.

WD Elements Desktop 8TB Simple, spacious storage and very well priced - you cant go wrong Capacity: 3-14TB Interface: USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB 2.0 compatible) 125 View at Amazon 125 View at Currys PC World 172.11 View at Ebuyer See all prices (5 found) Competitive pricing A trusted brand Loads of capacities available Not the fastest performer WD is an established name in the hard drive business, and though the Elements Desktop is based around a conventional hard drive rather than a speedy SSD, the upside is you pay far less per gigabyte of capacity.

Youll still find transfer speeds plenty quick enough for transferring high res images and HD video without too much waiting, with USB 3.1 connectivity maintaining speed and wide compatibility with most computers.

The drive does require a separate power source, but this is the case for most external hard drives.

Capacities range from 4TB to a humongous 14TB, but at the moment the 8TB model offers the best bang per buck and is cheaper than most rival drives of the same capacity - bargain.

Image credit: Seagate) 2.

Seagate Expansion Desktop 8TB Another effortlessly easy to use desktop drive with plenty of capacity options Capacity: 4-16TB Interface: USB 3.0 (USB 2.0 compatible) 137.98 View at Amazon 168.90 View at Amazon 206.38 View at Amazon Looks good on a desk Loads of capacities, including 16TB Super-easy to set up and use Not quite as good value as rival WD Elements Desktop drive Seagates no-frills desktop hard drive certainly looks the part with its distinctive geometric patterned case design.

Capacities range from 4TB to 16TB, with the 6TB and 8TB options currently being best value and spacious enough for around 1.6-million JPEG images.

The drives fast USB 3.0 connection gives you speed as well as easy plug-and-play compatibility with most computers.

Just bear in mind the included USB Type-A cable may need a cheap adapter to convert it to a Type-C plug thatll fit a modern MacBook.

Image credit: LaCie) 3.

Best External Hard Drive For Mac Storage