With the recent introduction of cloud-based storage, such as Google Drive and Dropbox, external hard drives for Mac have become less popular for the casual user. What to look for in an Apple external hard drive? That said, the choice depends on what you’re using your drive for. They quickly became sought-after, especially as an external hard drive for MacBook Pro. Of course, SSD technology made its way to external hard drives too. The speed difference between SSD and HDD is so vast, though, that you’ll not want to go back. That’s why the latest Macs and MacBooks now have faster drives, but less storage space than they did five years ago. The newer technology means that SSDs are smaller, lighter, and faster - but they come at a greater price. Conversely, HDDs have a mechanical arm and magnetic tape that physically write and read information.

You might recall hearing about flash drives back when USB stick drives were popular - SSD technology is largely the same, just on a bigger scale. Also known as flash drives, SSDs store information on microchips and have no moving parts. In simple terms, SSDs are much faster than traditional HDDs. What’s the difference between SSD and HDD Mac hard drives? The quite obvious tradeoff here is that you have to carry external hard drives around with you, unless they are purely used as occasional backups.

It’s also a good way to transfer files quickly between devices, including between Macs and PCs - although this is generally best reserved for large files.įinally, external hard drives are great for making backups of your files so that they are physically isolated from your device - this is a good measure of security because your primary drive could become compromised. You can upgrade them, but Apple makes this both difficult and costly. MacBooks, in particular, often come with only 128 GB of Apple hard drive storage.

The most obvious reason to use an external hard drive over and above your existing one is to extend limited storage capacity - something which has ironically become smaller over the years thanks to the SSD technology. However, over the past decade, internal Hard Disk Drives (HDD) became bigger, cheaper, and faster to the point where needing an external drive for Mac was unnecessary for most users - until a new standard of technology was released with the Solid State Drive (SSD).

Get Setapp, a toolkit with fixes for all Mac problemsĮxternal hard drives are almost identical to the hard drives found inside of your MacBook or PC - they store information the same way, but happen to be enclosed in a separate case and connected via cable (or WiFi).ĭue to their portability, external drives have long been a favorite among those needing extra room for their files, backups of their important documents, or an easy way to transfer information between machines.

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