What are the best external hard drives for Macs?

[mariobros27772]

Hey, i am very interested in buying a Mac. But I need an external hard drive for my stuff.

What are the best 1TB or higher external hard drives for a Mac Book Pro?

 

[miles01110]

There is no "best" external hard drive. All platter-based hard drives will fail. You should get the drive with the best warranty and backup accordingly.

 

[bmcgonag]

Hey, i am very interested in buying a Mac. But I need an external hard drive for my stuff.

What are the best 1TB or higher external hard drives for a Mac Book Pro?

I"d say check out NewEgg.com and see what their's are running, compare it to the cost of buying a drive and enclosure separately, and also check for deals locally at Wal-mart, Best-Buy, Fry's, Staples, Office-Max, etc.

Any drive could be a dud, regardless of the maker, but on NewEgg they have user reviews and ratings that may at least help you thin out the crowd.

 

[GGJstudios]

Any external hard drive will work with PCs or Macs, as long as the connectors are there (Firewire, USB, etc.) It doesn't matter how the drive is formatted out of the box, since you can re-format any way you like. Formatting in HFS (Mac OS Extended) or FAT32 or NTFS-3G can be done with the Mac OS X Disk Utility.

FAT32 (File Allocation Table)

• Read/Write FAT32 from both native Windows and native Mac OS X.
• Maximum file size: 4GB.
• Maximum volume size: 2TB

NTFS (Windows NT File System)

• Read/Write NTFS from native Windows.
• Read only NTFS from native Mac OS X
• To Read/Write/Format NTFS from Mac OS X: Install NTFS-3G for Mac OS X (free)
• Some have reported problems using Tuxera (approx 33USD).
• Native NTFS support can be enabled in Snow Leopard, but is not advisable, due to instability.
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support NTFS
• Maximum file size: 16 TB
• Maximum volume size: 256TB

HFS+ (Hierarchical File System, a.k.a. Mac OS Extended)

• Read/Write HFS+ from native Mac OS X
• Required for Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner backups of Mac internal hard drive.
• To Read/Write HFS+ from Windows, Install MacDrive
• To Read HFS+ (but not Write) from Windows, Install HFSExplorer
• Maximum file size: 8EiB
• Maximum volume size: 8EiB

exFAT (FAT64)

• Supported in Mac OS X only in 10.6.5 or later.
• exFAT partitions created with OS X 10.6.5 are inaccessible from Windows 7
• Not all Windows versions support exFAT. See disadvantages.
• exFAT (Extended File Allocation Table)
• AirPort Extreme (802.11n) and Time Capsule do not support exFAT
• Maximum file size: 16 EiB
• Maximum volume size: 64 ZiB

If you want more information, here are just a few of many threads on this topic, found by searching the forum with MRoogle:

Mac Guide on External Hard Drives

[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/904281/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/899614/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/883573/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/875630/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/861006/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/824809/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/849529/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/847438/[/url]
[url=https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/834250/[/url]
... and many, many others.

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

I've always had good luck with Wester Digital products, but I know many would refute that claim.

That said, I have had three WD drives and none have failed, at least not yet.

 

[cafemoka]

Hey, i am very interested in buying a Mac. But I need an external hard drive for my stuff.

What are the best 1TB or higher external hard drives for a Mac Book Pro?

LaCie Big Disk Extreme 1TB

I am extremely disapponted in this drive which has corrupted twice and caused much lost time in retrieval of info. Colleague also bought at the same time and the same thing happened

 

[ECUpirate44]

I have a 640 GB WD my passport. Does the job well.

 

[ThaDoggg]

I have a 500GB Verbatim SureFire and it has been excellent. I believe it comes with a Scorpio Blue HD inside so a bonus.

 

[Andeavor]

I've always had good luck with Wester Digital products, but I know many would refute that claim.

That said, I have had three WD drives and none have failed, at least not yet.

I actually agree with that statement, I have three as well, and despite planning on replacing the first (1TB) with the second one (2TB) I kept it as it's still in great shape, even though it's almost twice the size.

The third one is a passport by WD with 500GB capacity... I used to have two older HDs 10 and 20 times the size of it.

LaCie sucks, tbh. I had a very big one that fell on its side after bumping into the desk a bit too harshly and ever since it was a paperweight.