best external hard drive for macbook pro

So if you want to get the most out of one, you’ve got to look for the best external hard drive. And then only from Recovery mode.External hard drives can improve your PC’s performance, securely back up important data, or even just hold more music and video. Only the “Data” drive should ever be modified or wiped. More so when your using the drive as a external boot drive.īut note: external boot drives on m1 and m2 macs require the internal SDD boot picker (on a encrypted locked partition on the internal SSD to still be functional, so never ever completely erase your internal SSD.

That spoed matters when you moving GIgabytes of files arround. A 2.5” ssd drive will be at least 2x as fast, maybe even 6x as fast, an NVMe ssd in a thunderbolt case will be up to 20x as fast. Many cheap/popular small usb drives have 5400rpm drives, larger have 5400, or 7200 rpm drives. If you need fast storage make sure that any external drive you buy has at least a 2.5” ssd, or preferably an NVMe drive inside. Just be warned external spinning hard drives are slow, slow slow by todays internal SSD drive speed standards. (Since upgraded with a much larger faster ssd component to the fusion drive which more than doubled the iMacs drive performance.) It’s actually faster as a external boot drive than the original internal 2017 fusion drive in my iMac. The WD black is about as fast as a single 3.5” spinning hard drive can achieve, was reasonably priced, and the $30 dongle can be moved between my archive drives with ease. A Samsung or western digital were my other proffered options for ssd brand.įor bulk storage I choose a Western Digital Black 4TB 7200 3.5” bare with a usb3 to SATA dongle because the drive will rarely be moved around. My preferred brand for the case is Orico (only one I could get my hands on), and I went for a mid range P.2 crucial drive which would just about saturate the thunderbolt connection, and well suited for high write contexts (such as as a boot drive) to give maximum iOP lifespan. Fast, bombproof reliable, with a certified connection technology well suited to your Mac. If your prepared to spend the money: a thunderbolt 3 or 4 case with a M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD, 2TB.

Best external hard drive for macbook pro