9 Best External Hard Drives and SSDs For MacBook Pro in 2022
The Macbook Pro is known for its expensive storage upgrades offered by Apple. It is also challenging to upgrade your Macbook Pro. It is almost impossible to upgrade the storage of your Macbook manually. This is why it is essential to have some external storage. In most creative fields these days, like photography or videography, high storage is a necessity.
If you have a 4K camera, it is harder to do work while using the internal storage of the Macbook Pro. Most 4K videos consume the entire storage in a matter of few hours. Many video creators are upgrading to 8K footage which consumes about 500 GB every 10 minutes. This makes it necessary to have external storage like a Hard Drive to store your files.
Buying Guide
The best external hard drive can be bought by noting the following features for your MacBook Pro:
Large Capacity
Hard Drives with large capacity are ideal for your MacBook Pro. Lower capacity hard drives may not be ideal for the ones with huge amount of data.
Basic feature
Look for hard drives with WD backup software, which is basic feature most-looked by the buyers. Imagine not having the basic features in your hard drive, which are present in all the other models.
Design
Rugged design hard drives for your MacBook Pro can be one of the greatest choices. Rugged design hard drives are most loved by the users and so is one of the popular designs sold under hard drives.
NFC Security
Check the NFC security feature before you buy any hard drive. In order to avoid any kind of data breach, have yourself on the safer side by choosing a hard drive consisting of NFC Security.
Pocket-friendly
Do not invest much on hard drives and look for a pocket-friendly hard drive for your MacBook Pro. Expensive products are not necessarily proved to be worthy, as these expensive items often provide the same features that are given by other low priced hard drives.
Transfer Speed
When it comes to external drives, size is not all that matters as transfer speed is equally important. Waiting for long hours in order to transfer file is a very boring task, hence look for hard drives that transfer files back in forth within seconds which not only saves time but makes your work easier.
Compatibility
These hard drives are regularly formatted for particular operating system. External devices working for windows may have problem connecting to Mac, hence buying a compatible hard drive is an important point to be noted.
External Hard Drives are also great for backing up your files. Backing up files is important as it prevents the loss of crucial files.
While picking the right Hard Drive, we must look at its storage capacity. We have also included Hard Drives with fast read and write speeds. This is important for large file transfers or while working off files present in the external HDD. It is also cheaper to buy an external HDD as compared to a storage upgrade from Apple. We picked the 9 Best External Hard Drives keeping in mind the features needed by everyone.
Best External Hard Drives For MacBook Pro in 2021
1. Western Digital My Passport 4 TB
For years, Western Digital has dominated the external HDD space. This is the latest edition of the popular My Passport series from WD. These Hard Drives come in storage starting from 1 TB and go up to 4 TB. This Hard Drive has the right mixture of storage and speeds.
You also get the WD Discovery software that can automatically backup your files. Its 4 TB storage is more than enough as external storage.
In addition, this Hard Drive features 256-bit AES hardware encryption. 256-bit AES encryption protects your data from intruders and is considered the industry standard. The design of this Hard Drive is also excellent, with a slim body and small size. This makes the WD My Passport Hard Drive pretty portable, and you can even fit them in your pockets.
Thus, the WD My Passport 4TB Hard Drive is an excellent external HDD for Macbook Pro users. Its use of USB 3.0 allows fast read and write speeds to help in transferring large files.
2. Buffalo MiniStation Extreme NFC
This Hard Drive is quite unconventional in its design and audience. The Buffalo Ministation focuses more on offering a rugged product that can last long. The company claims that this Hard Drive can take collisions or falls and are pretty durable. The read and write speeds of this Hard Drive are not that great, but the durability is much more than any in the segment.
Buffalo takes care of data security by including 256-bit AES encryption. This Hard Drive is not the fastest but has a high level of security and ruggedness. These qualities make it a great choice for creators who work in external environments a lot. You can carry it on treks or while filming inside a forest and not worry about its safety.
3. G-Technology G-Drive 4TB External HDD
This is one of the fastest external Hard Drives present in the market. The G-Drive has a storage of 4TB, which is enough for most creative workloads. This Hard Drive supports USB 3.0 technology that has data transfer speeds up to 165 MB/s. This makes it an excellent choice for people with large workloads that need to be done quickly. It has an all-aluminium enclosure that gives it a premium look and feels.
The aluminium casing also provides an extra level of rigidity that makes this drive pretty durable. The only drawback is the high price. You could buy two WD My Passport 4TB drives and still save some money at this price.
This drive is compatible with the Apple Time Machine software that automatically backs up your Mac’s data. Overall, the premium design and high data transfer speeds make it a decent choice.
4. iStorage diskAshur 2
If you are serious about the safety of your data, the diskAshur 2 seems an attractive option. This Hard Drive takes data security to a whole new level by offering pin-protected 256-bit encryption.
What’s weird about its design is the inclusion of a keypad. This keypad can be used to create a pin for the HDD. There is no other way to access the data present in this HDD without entering the code.
The drive locks itself after every unplugging, and it even has a self-destruct code. After entering the self-destruct code, all the data present on this drive gets wiped off. The security on this Hard Drive comes at a cost, but there are other benefits too.
The transfer speeds are high, but there is limited storage of 1TB. This Hard Drive is directed towards the extra cautious consumers. The high level of security more than makes for its high price.
5. Western Digital My Passport Ultra External HDD
Only a few companies match western Digital’s prowess in data storage, and this HDD is a fine example. The latest range of My Passport Ultra is here and comes with some amazing features. Like the My Passport, it comes in sizes ranging from 1 to 4TB, perfect for any content creator.
My Passport Ultra has support for cloud storage and 256-bit AES encryption. The AES encryption means your data is safe from any intruders. The My Passport is faster than most HDDs but still slower than a proper SSD. This makes it a good choice for people who don’t have the budget for high-end SSDs. It supports USB 3.1, which has faster speeds than USB 3.0.
6. LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive 4T
This is one of the higher-end HDDs present in the market. The drive comes with USB-A and USB-C support making it great for new Macbooks. It is one of the best styled Hard Drives that you can buy. The aluminium body paired with a clean design gives a minimalistic look.
This Hard Drive also comes with a USB 3.1 with speeds up to 300 MB/s which is pretty high, especially for an HDD. The LaCie Porsche Design Mobile Drive is an excellent choice for Mac users with USB-C ports. Its stylish design looks great in your setup.
7. G-Technology G-Raid with Thunderbolt 3
The G-Technology G-Raid takes an interesting approach to external storage. It gives the users the freedom to change the drive storage by themselves. The dual shelf design lets you use other Hard Drives to upgrade the total storage further. Its design matches that of Mac devices with an aluminium casing. This Hard Drive even has support for HDMI 2.1 that you can connect to an external display. The video output is transmitted over the thunderbolt 3 cable.
The G-Raid dual hard disk can transfer speeds up to 440 MB/s which is exceptional for a hard disk. With the easy removal system, you can buy a smaller capacity G-Raid and use off-the-shelf drives to make it cheaper.
Overall, the G-Raid is an excellent choice for Macbooks with its high transfer speeds. The upgradability also makes it a great choice for content creators.
8. Buffalo MiniStation Thunderbolt
If you are looking for a drive that solely works with thunderbolt ports, this is an excellent choice. The ministation thunderbolt offers almost twice the speed of USB-A due to its use of thunderbolt 3. It is compatible with new Macbooks, and you won’t need any adapters while using this drive. Unlike many thunderbolt SSDs, this is a fraction of their cost and delivers decent performance.
It also has 256-bit AES encryption that protects your data from invaders. This is an upgrade from contemporary Hard Drives but lacks behind SSDs due to SMR or Shingled Magnetic Recording. This is an excellent option, especially for new Macbooks.
9. Seagate Backup Plus Ultra Touch
Seagate is known for its quality storage products in the PC community. The Backup Ultra Touch combines functionality with affordability. Unlike other plasticky Hard Disks, this Hard Drive has a textured finish. The woven fabric finish offers a premium look and feels to it. It also has 256-bit encryption in addition to password protection for data safety. Now, the drive is formatted with the exFAT file system. Mac users may need to format it with HFS+ for using the Apple Time Machine software.
It also comes with Seagate Toolkit software. You can use this software to schedule automatic backups or restore data. The toolkit also helps in managing passwords and the security of the drive. To sum up, the Backup Plus has the right mixture of performance and looks that make it an excellent choice for your Macbook Pro.
Our Say
Having an external HDD is helpful especially for people with large workloads. The Macbook Pro comes with storage upgrades, but those are often more expensive than buying external storage. Thus, you can choose from the above list of the best external HDDs for Macbook Pro and upgrade your storage.
