Seagate GoFlex DeskExternal desktop hard drive corrupt guide Mac ’s hard driving near capacity ? meter to add more storage The severe drive in your Mac is often touch on to as aninternalhard drive . Anexternalhard campaign is packaged in a display case and connects to your Mac unremarkably via USB or FireWire . External hard driveway can be portable , more often than not using smaller 2.5 - in drives and can function off of USB or FireWire bus power , or they can be design to find a home on your desk , using 3.5 - inch drive mechanism and requiring a power provision plug into a wall outlet .
External desktop hard movement are great because they have a more affordable cost per gigabyte than portable drive , allowing you to backup your authoritative data point without worrying about capability and toll . you could buy 1 TB USB 2.0 outside hard drives for under $ 100 . Hard crusade have faster data - transferral speeding than DVDs or CDs , and they ’re sluttish to use . They can be disconnected from one computer and attach to another , and they come in a variety of size and forms . If you ’re looking for a quick and painless way to add monolithic sum of money of storage for your music , picture , videos , or system substitute , an extraneous hard drive is hard to beat .
External hard drives buying advice
CapacityCapacities range from 160 GB to 3 TB . If you have lots of media or graphics files , more is good . If you ’re using Time Machine to back up your Mac , the larger the capability of your backup driving , the more edition of your documents will be stored . Often , the big useable capacity can get with a price premium , so bear to pay more per gigabyte for a 3 TB drive than for a 1 terabyte or 2 TB movement , which are more vulgar . Many 1 TB external hard drives be less than $ 100 .
ConnectivityYou’ll use USB 2.0 , USB 3.0 , FireWire 400 , FireWire 800 , eSATA , or Thunderbolt to associate to you Mac . Many drive feature multiple ports , but some put up only one ( usually USB or FireWire 800 ) .
USB 2.0 is n’t the fastest connection on the Mac , but it ’s the most common . Macs do not have USB 3.0 ports . USB 3.0 drives are compatible with USB 2.0 , but they will operate at USB 2.0 speeds . USB 3.0 ExpressCard adapter and PCI cards are available , but they often only stomach a single maker ’s thrust .
Seagate GoFlex Desk
MacBook Airs and the late discontinued ashen MacBook do n’t have FireWire port . If you have older Macs equipped with FireWire 400 , then it ’s squeamish to have a drive with FireWire 400 . FireWire 800 is faster and is backwards compatible with FireWire 400 with the right cable .
CalDigit AV DriveThe a la mode connection eccentric to collide with the storage view is Thunderbolt . While only a few movement feature Thunderbolt connectivity , all current Macs ( except for the current Mac Pro ) support this tiptop - quick interface . Unfortunately , no Thunderbolt drive presently available supports multiple interface case . If you do n’t have Thunderbolt on your Mac , you ca n’t apply a Thunderbolt drive .
Many high - capacity drives propose eSATA ( outside Serial ATA ) , which , at 1.5 or 3 gigabits per minute ( Gbps)—depending on which version of Serial ATA is follow through — can be fast than FireWire 800 . Owners of the 17 - column inch MacBook Pro can add eSATA by using an ExpressCard/34 card . Mac Pro users can intercept into the two fresh SATA porthole on the motherboard , using Newer Technology ’s $ 19 eSATA Extender Cable .
CalDigit AV Drive
SpeedThe quicker the platters in a grueling drive twirl , the better the performance . 7200 revolutions per minute ( rotation per minute of arc ) is stock for desktop hard drives and plenty fast for most substance abuser . ( Most Mac notebook computer feature 5400 - rpm drive . ) If your tasks admit show audio recording , work with TV , or gambling — tasks that require constant drive access — and you presently have a dim drive , a 7200 - rev external driving will leave better execution .
Mac Pro users who do professional - level audio or video production might count a 10,000- to 15,000 - rpm drive , for optimal performance . These mellow - performance drives usually offer less entrepot capability and require a SCSI connecter , so you ’ll need to either install a SCSI card like Atto ’s $ 295ExpressPCI UL4Sto support the connectedness , or consider a foray instead .
RAIDSome desktop external hard drives have more than one hard effort inside . With two drives , the building block can be configure as a disinvest array ( called RAID 0 ) , which pee-pee one partitioning of the two drives and write and take simultaneously for faster performance . If one of the drives dies , you lose all of your datum . The two drives can also be configured as a mirrored array ( call RAID 1 ) . Mirroring the drive safeguards your data by keeping two indistinguishable transcript of your drive . The downside is that you’re able to only apply half of the unit ’s storage electrical capacity .
ioSafe SoloPro
Some two - drive external devices can also be configure to utilise the drives individually in a JBOD ( Just a Bunch of Disks ) setup . This way both drives ride separately as if they were two one - saucer outside drives . If one drive drop dead , the other can continue to manoeuvre .
impart featuresAlmost all USB or FireWire external hard drive are compatible with Time Machine , as long as the drive is HFS+ initialise ( and , of course , you must be run OS X 10.5 or 10.6 , both of which admit Time Machine ) .
Some drives include extras such as wad software , one - touch fill-in , and software system encoding . And keep in mind that external operose drive are common targets of theft : if your parkway is publically exposed ( say , at oeuvre ) observe a private road with an antitheft port that you could use to tether the drive to your desk , and debate using encryption .
Our favorite external hard drives
TheCalDigit AV Drive ( ) was first USB 3.0 movement to support the Mac . It ’s a well - progress driving with impressive performance scores across the circuit board . Audio / optical professional and speed demons alike will want to check out this drive , available in capacity ranging from 1 TB to 3 TB . Read our full reappraisal . [ $ 199 for 1TB;Get best current Leontyne Price for the CalDigit AV Drive;CalDigit ]
TheSeagate GoFlex Desk ( ) endure out from the ring due to its large electrical capacity and its versatility . It includes a USB 3.0 arranger ( compatible with USB 2.0 ) , but if you ’re looking for a more Mac - friendly connector , you could get a $ 50 FireWire 800 / USB 2.0 adapter from Seagate ’s web site . Read our full review . ( $ 270 for 4TB;Buy the Seagate GoFlex Desk directly;Seagate ]
ioSafe SoloProDesktop drive supply security one of two room — by maintaining the unity of your information through redundance ( RAID , cloud , or offsite backup ) or by ensuring that nothing physically could happen to your parkway . Meant to survive conditions that standard hard drives cannot — namely fires and outpouring — anioSafe SoloPro ( ) may be idealistic when you ’re worried about the worst affair imaginable materialize to your home . The SoloPro is useable in 1 TB , 2 TB , and 3 TB capacities . learn our full review . ( Price start at $ 249;Buy the ioSafe SoloPro directly;ioSafe ]
[ James Galbraith is Macworld ’s research lab director . ]
