Best external hard drive for mac and pc 2017

#BEST EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC 2017 DOWNLOAD#

But if you want to access your Photo Library or edit raw 4K video from an external drive, youвЂ™ll want a speedy SSD-and probably Thunderbolt 3 if your Mac supports it. While a voluminous HDD might not be the best thing for running programs from, itвЂ™s perfectly suitable for Time Machine backups. So what hard drive should you get for your Mac? That largely depends on how you plan to use it. And some drives support esoteric technology like RAID. You have to choose between two kinds of drives-HDDs and SSDs-as well as the interface (USB or Thunderbolt). Our Consumer Score represents the percentage of customers who rated the product at least four out of five stars on retail and review sites like Amazon, Walmart, and the manufacturersвЂ™ pages.Buying a hard drive can seem harder than it should be, though. We researched ten expert sources such as Digital Trends, Tech Radar, and PC Mag, as well as 22,000 consumer reviews to select the best external hard drives. How We Selected and Rated ThemД®ach of these hard drives has been evaluated by our test of test editors. If youвЂ™re looking for storage you can take with you, some SSDs can even fit in the palm of your hand.

They usually cannot hold as much memory, but for most basic needs, theyвЂ™re more than adequate, many able to accommodate up to 5 TB. SSD: Solid-state drives are faster, smaller, and tend to be more expensive. They can also be a bit more delicate-if you move the drive while itвЂ™s in the process of reading or downloading files, it could damage the interior disks and make some of your information unreadable. The downside is theyвЂ™re physically much bigger. HDD: Hard disk drives are less expensive than SSDs but can store much more. This determines how quickly youвЂ™ll be able to access the data stored on the hard drive. Speed: HDDs tend to run around 100 MB per second to 200 MBps, with SSDs clocking about two times faster for an average of 400 MBps. Gamers or professionals looking to store huge commercial documents may want a hard disk drive (HDD) model that holds up to 24 TB. For saving larger files, many smaller solid-state drive (SSD) models go up to one or two terabytes (TB) while still remaining reasonably priced. Storage: The average person will often find 64 gigabytes (GB) to be more than enough, especially if youвЂ™re using the hard drive simply to store extra photos and documents. ItвЂ™s also worth mentioning that advancements in technology mean the type of USB ports that these drives use may become obsolete, requiring you to buy an adapter to connect them to your latest devices.

However, if your hard drive were to physically break, it may be difficult or impossible to get back the information you lost. Hard drives also have a fixed cost instead of a recurring fee. On the other hand, external hard drives have the upper hand in putting information security in your hands. YouвЂ™ll want to know what will happen to your data in every sort of situation-especially in the event that whoever youвЂ™re using (though unlikely) goes out of business. ItвЂ™s always best to look into the security info of the platform that you choose, too. But you may incur monthly fees for extra space, so putting everything on the cloud will be far more expensive in the long run. It also has the advantage of being accessible almost anywhere, allowing you to sync and reach your materials from services like Apple iCloud, Microsoft Dropbox, or Google Drive so long as you have a device with a Wi-Fi connection. On one hand, the cloud is typically more convenient, providing a reliable and safe option that allows you to keep adding more storage. When it comes to choosing between cloud storage and external hard drives, it really depends on preference. Take a look at our buying guide below before reading our reviews of several of the best hard drives.

Fortunately, many options exist to help you get the right size, storage amount, and durability features like waterproofing. External hard drives are excellent, often cost-effective, solutions when your computer runs out of space.

#BEST EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE FOR MAC AND PC 2017 DOWNLOAD#

Whether you need somewhere to download more games, a repository for all your family photos, or a secure place in which to store important documents, we can all use a little (or a lot of) extra storage. A hard drive is an important asset for anyone who spends a lot of time in the digital realm.

Best external hard drive for mac and pc 2017