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External Drive for MBP

Flaxh

Flaxh

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 22, 2016
46
7
Hi everyone!

I'm looking for a portable drive to use along with my 2016 MBP. Therefore, USB-C would be a plus.

The Samsung T5 500gb looks awesome but 220€ is a lot. I would be fine with a 1TB fast HDD.

I'll use it for macOS backups and storing my photos and videos.
 
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I agree with Matreya - making your own hard drive is often more economical than buying a pre-assembled one, and often means you can get a better quality setup.

The HGST TravelStar is an outstanding drive. Another drive worth mentioning is the WD 2.5 Black, as it has a 5 year warranty. Both are 7200 RPM drives and reasonably fast as far as laptop HDDs go.

I'm currently using several enclosures from this Maker including this USB-C enclosure - I think the quality is as nice as G-Tech and La Cie's flagship enclosures.
 
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Thanks to both of you for the suggestion.

However, the cheapest I'd be able to get those DIY drives would be for 110€, which is more than the Lacie Drive at the Apple Store.

Between the G-Drive and the Lacie, which one would you recommend?

Also, I want to backup my MBP before I update to macOS high Sierra with a clean install. I can use Time Machine for backup and save it on the drive I'll end up buying? never done this before.
 
I would favor G-Drive, as they use HGST.

You can use Time Machine for the stated purpose. However, if you need to restore data, making a bootable clone of the MBP's hard drive with a program like Carbon Copy Cloner is IMO an easier restoration.

You could partition the drive to a Time Machine volume, a clone volume, and a manual storage volume, if you wanted to do both Time Machine and carbon clones.
 
Flaxh said:
Thanks to both of you for the suggestion.

However, the cheapest I'd be able to get those DIY drives would be for 110€, which is more than the Lacie Drive at the Apple Store.
Click to expand...

So? I wouldn't touch a LaCie drive with a barge pole.

Between the G-Drive and the Lacie, which one would you recommend?
Click to expand...

Definitely the G-Drive.
 
ZapNZs said:
I agree with Matreya - making your own hard drive is often more economical than buying a pre-assembled one, and often means you can get a better quality setup.

The HGST TravelStar is an outstanding drive. Another drive worth mentioning is the WD 2.5 Black, as it has a 5 year warranty. Both are 7200 RPM drives and reasonably fast as far as laptop HDDs go.
Click to expand...

I am using the WD 1 TB Black drive in an USB-C Inateck enclosure. Both purchased from Amazon at reasonable prices. It all works very well and was easy to set up even for a complete novice with external drives like me.
 
OP wrote:
"The Samsung T5 500gb looks awesome but 220€ is a lot. I would be fine with a 1TB fast HDD."

External hard drive selection chart:
1. Fast
2. High Capacity
3. Cheap

Choose any two numbers from the three above. ;)

There are other SSD choices than the t5.
Most are somewhat less money.
You could even pick up a "bare" 2.5" SATA SSD, and an enclosure, and "create your own" drive (VERY easy, anyone can do it).

Hmmm...
If it's ONLY going to be backups and archiving, a platter-based drive of sufficient capacity will do.
If it was me, I wouldn't buy either Seagate or WD, however. I'd get an HGST (Hitachi) or a Toshiba drive.
I'd look for something else than a Lacie, as well (failure rates too high).

One other thing worth mentioning:
You DO NOT want to use the external drive as THE ONLY PLACE you keep those photos archived. You need to have at least one more copy of them on ANOTHER drive somewhere, as a backup.
If you have the photos on only one drive, what happens if that drive... fails...?
 
ZapNZs said:
That contains a 7200 RPM Hitachi GST TravelStar, blended with a handsome case and the durability of USB-C - you can't go wrong there.
Click to expand...

Yeah and 1TB seems more than enough. Does Time Machine create a single backup file that I can store on the HDD?

Fishrrman said:
OP wrote:
"The Samsung T5 500gb looks awesome but 220€ is a lot. I would be fine with a 1TB fast HDD."

External hard drive selection chart:
1. Fast
2. High Capacity
3. Cheap

Choose any two numbers from the three above. ;)

There are other SSD choices than the t5.
Most are somewhat less money.
You could even pick up a "bare" 2.5" SATA SSD, and an enclosure, and "create your own" drive (VERY easy, anyone can do it).

Hmmm...
If it's ONLY going to be backups and archiving, a platter-based drive of sufficient capacity will do.
If it was me, I wouldn't buy either Seagate or WD, however. I'd get an HGST (Hitachi) or a Toshiba drive.
I'd look for something else than a Lacie, as well (failure rates too high).

One other thing worth mentioning:
You DO NOT want to use the external drive as THE ONLY PLACE you keep those photos archived. You need to have at least one more copy of them on ANOTHER drive somewhere, as a backup.
If you have the photos on only one drive, what happens if that drive... fails...?
Click to expand...

I'll get the G-Drive 1TB which is HGST as ZapNZs stated.
 
Flaxh said:
Yeah and 1TB seems more than enough. Does Time Machine create a single backup file that I can store on the HDD?
Click to expand...

It creates a single folder with multiple subfolders. The amount of backup files it holds on to are determined by the size of the volume it is using and the available free space - it prunes as the drive gets too full.

If you wish to store data on the drive as well, the most practical way of doing this is to partition the drive in Disk Utility so you have a Time Machine Volume and a data/document/media volume (if you are going to store any data on the drive that is NOT on the Mac's local SSD, it is absolutely worth backing that data up to either another hard drive, flash drives, cloud, etc., given both HDDs and SSDs can fail without warning!)
 
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ZapNZs said:
It creates a single folder with multiple subfolders. The amount of backup files it holds on to are determined by the size of the volume it is using and the available free space - it prunes as the drive gets too full.

If you wish to store data on the drive as well, the most practical way of doing this is to partition the drive in Disk Utility so you have a Time Machine Volume and a data/document/media volume (if you are going to store any data on the drive that is NOT on the Mac's local SSD, it is absolutely worth backing that data up to either another hard drive, flash drives, cloud, etc., given both HDDs and SSDs can fail without warning!)
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot for all the help! I've just ordered the drive. Looking forward to receiving it and preparing everything for the macOS High Sierra arrival.
 
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