Do external drive exist with a thunderbolt 3 connection?

[ozreth]

I'm looking for an external HDD for my 2016 MBP and can't seen to find one that has anything but a USB connector. Is it possible that drives don't exist that connect via thunderbolt 3 ports?

 

[BeatCrazy]

You mean a spinning disc HDD? You won't find them with TB3 connections, as they wouldn't even saturate a standard USB 3.0 interface.

 

[ozreth]

You mean a spinning disc HDD? You won't find them with TB3 connections, as they wouldn't even saturate a standard USB 3.0 interface.

Ah, so I'm looking at an adapter then?

Or would it make more sense to get an external SDD? Is that the norm now for externals as well? This is simply for manual backups. I'm pretty out of the loop on the last few years of tech, clearly haha.

Just need a 500gb drive.

 

[njvm]

I use 2TB versions of this drive for my daily Carbon Copy Cloner backups and I have never had any problems with them. It has a USB-C connector which will connect directly into the TB3 port of your MBP.

WD 500GB My Passport SSD External Portable Solid State Drive, Gray, Up to 1,050 MB/s, USB 3.2 Gen-2 and USB-C Compatible (USB-A for Older Systems) - WDBAGF5000AGY-WESN

Save, access and protect the content that matters to you with the My Passport SSD, giving you accelerated read speeds up to 1050MB/s and write speeds of up to 1000MB/s with NVMe technology. Help secure your drive and keep productivity flowing with password enabled 256-bit AES hardware encryption....

www.amazon.ca

 

[BeatCrazy]

Ah, so I'm looking at an adapter then?

Or would it make more sense to get an external SDD? Is that the norm now for externals as well? This is simply for manual backups. I'm pretty out of the loop on the last few years of tech, clearly haha.

Just need a 500gb drive.

I think you mean you need a USB-A to USB-C adapter. Yes, you can get them for a few bucks on Amazon, etc.

 

[Fishrrman]

This is what I use (works fine):
USBc to USBa adapter:

Cable Matters USB C to USB Adapter 6 Inches (USB to USB C Adapter, USB-C to USB 3.0 Adapter, USB C OTG) in Black

Cable Matters USB C to USB Adapter 6 Inches (USB to USB C Adapter, USB-C to USB 3.0 Adapter, USB C OTG) in Black

www.amazon.com