- Best Internal Ssd For 2017 Macbook
- Best Ssd Internal Drives
- Best Internal Ssd For Mac
- Best Internal Ssd For Laptop
- External Ssd For Mac
- Best Ssd For Mac
BestUSB-C Hard Drives for MaciMore2019
Internal SSDs. A hard disk drive (HDD) stores every file that is saved to a computer. The units hold data and spin when users access their content. Mac owners should think twice about an SSD upgrade. Though you can upgrade some older (mostly pre-2013) MacBooks with standard SATA drives, you can’t do the same with the newest MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Laptops from 2013, 2014, or 2015 often support such upgrades, but only with specialized, expensive drives from just a couple of manufacturers.
The current line of MacBook Pro only has Thunderbolt 3/USB-C ports, but that's OK, because USB-C is fast, future-proof, and will likely replace standard USB, HDMI, DisplayPort, power, and more. A USB-C hard drive is the perfect storage box to locally back up all of your most essential files, including photos, documents, music, movies, and anything else that's important to you. Save your Mac's hard drive and pick up a USB-C hard drive. Here are a few options to get you started on your search.
Fan favorite: G-Technology G-Drive 1TB
Mick's FavoriteThe G-Drive by G-Technology is a great USB-C hard drive for most people. It has 1TB of storage and features a quick drive speed of 7200RPM, with transfer rates of up to 136MB/s, thanks to USB 3.1. It comes in silver, as well as Apple-exclusive colors: gold, rose gold, and space gray.
From $71 on AmazonBest for speed: Samsung T5 SSD 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB
Lory's FavoriteSamsung's T5 SSD is a solid-state drive that provides way faster transfer rates than physical hard drives. Solid-state drives don't have moving parts, so if you happen to drop this one, there's less to break! SSDs are more expensive, but with this one, you get write speeds of up 540MB/s, which is over three times faster than many hard drives. If you like to store TV shows and movies on your hard drive, consider a solid-state drive!
From $90 at AmazonRugged pick: Glyph Blackbox Plus 1TB
The Glyph Blackbox Plus is a rugged, portable hard drive that can keep up with you wherever you go. It's surrounded in rubber to protect from drops and has enough capacity for all your backups and then some. You get write speeds of up to 140MB/s from just 5400RPM, as well as a 3-year warranty in case anything goes wrong. It also features fan-free heat dissipation, so it's nice and quiet.
$120 at AmazonBest for video: Samsung 5X Portable SSD
With read and write speeds of up to 2,800MB/s and 2,300MB/s respectively, this portable drive is perfect for videographers. It's designed for rendering and compiling high res photos and videos with up to 40Gb/s data transfer. It also looks like the Ferrari of external hard drives.
From $489 at AmazonMost stylish: LaCie Porsche Design 2TB
LaCie is widely recommended for Apple users (they even sell LaCie products on Apple's site!) The Porsche Design external hard drive is a great-looking solution to your USB-C needs. The mobile version comes in 2TB, while the desktop version is available with 4TB of storage. If you have older devices you'd like to use as well, this hard drive is also compatible with USB 3.0 ports.
$80 at AmazonUpgrade option: SanDisk Extreme 900 SSD 480GB, 960GB, 1.92TB
SanDisk's Extreme 900 SSD is a powerhouse solid-state drive that offers up to nine times the transfer speeds of external hard drives. It's made of durable aluminum and rubber, and the solid-state core is shock-proof. So, this is far less likely to die on you should you drop it (compared to hard drives).
From $182 at AmazonBest value: G-Technology G-Drive SSD R-Series
With a low price for 1TB, G-Technology's G-Drive SSD is one of the more versatile solid-state drives on the market, and it comes recommended by Apple itself. You'll get transfer rates of up to 560MBps, and it comes with both a USB-C to USB-C and a USB-C to USB-A cable.
$240 at AppleLong-lasting: LaCie Rugged 2TB
The LaCie Rugged of yesteryear got me through my entire post-secondary education, and now that there's a USB-C option, it'll help get you (and maybe even your children!) through school or work with reliability and that fast connection. The body is rubberized to help it stand up to daily wear and tear, and 2TB should be more than enough for all of your files, documents, Final Cut projects, and much more. There's a 2-year warranty on these, which includes data recovery services.
$120 at AmazonDurable and reliable: CalDigit Tuff 2TB
CalDigit's Tuff hard drives are rugged, colorful 2TB drives that offer USB-C connectivity and there's even a USB-C to USB-A cable for backward compatibility. With an IP57 rating, these drives are water-resistant in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. They're dust-resistant, so you can take yours with you anywhere knowing that your data is safe from the elements.
From $120 at AmazonCompact pick: SanDisk Extreme SSD
You may know SanDisk for its SD cards, but its hard drives are excellent as well. This solid-state drive is smaller than the average smartphone and has a hole in it so that you can clip it to a bag. It's shock-resistant and ruggedly designed, so it's perfect for life on the move.
From $72 at AmazonBudget pick: WD My Passport
Western Digital makes some of the best hard drives around, and its 4TB USB-C hard drive fits right in with all its other excellent drives. This one can be found for under $120 and comes in six colors. This hard drive, however, is not inherently a USB-C drive — it's 'USB-C ready,' so it'll connect to your USB-C ports no problem, though it does not have a USB-C port itself.
From $60 at AmazonWaterproof-ish: G-Tech All-Terrain Drive
Best Internal Ssd For 2017 Macbook
For the extreme outdoorsmen and women, this rugged hard drive does more than protect your external hard drive from scratches and breaks. It's watertight, so you can drop it into a pool of water up to one-foot for 30 seconds without anything seeping in. The tethered Thunderbolt cable means you don't have to bring any extra cables, too.
From $153 at AmazonOur personal favorites
External hard drives are must-have peripherals for anyone with a computer. They give you additional storage space, which can fill up fast on laptops, and are essential to backing up your data safely and securely. Every one of the drives on this list is easy to set up and start using right away. All you have to do is plug one into your Mac.
Lory's go-to external hard drive is Samsung T5 SSD because SSDs are much more reliable, and this one, in particular, has super-fast data transfer speeds. The G-Drive is Mick's favorite portable hard drive because it's affordable and reliable.
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Just In CaseKeep your Versa 2 protected on-the-go with these great cases
Sometimes when you travel you want to bring your sport/smartwatch in addition to your regular watch, but you don't want your Fitbit getting scratched in your purse or backpack. These are some of the best cases you can get to protect your Fitbit Versa 2 on your travels.
The State of Solid State
If you need fast, local storage for lots of files (perhaps the ones that you collect on your phone or camera), you may want to consider a portable solid-state drive (SSD), rather than a portable hard drive.
Once prohibitively expensive, SSDs have continued to fall in price, and external SSDs have begun to emerge as an alternative to portable hard drives, delivering as much as five times the speed. They have no platters to spin up, nor read/write heads that need to travel to a specific point on a platter to find the file you need. And because of the lack of moving parts, external or portable SSDs are usually more compact, slimmer, and better-suited to frequent travel and accidental drops than hard drives—even the most rugged ones.
Best Ssd Internal Drives
Why (and Why Not) SSDs?
At their hearts, hard drives are mechanical devices that use moving heads to read data stored on platters (or disks) inside the apparatus. The good news is that hard drive technology is fairly advanced (it's existed in some form or another for about 60 years), so it doesn't cost much to implement and thus buy. This means you can get comparatively huge amounts of storage capacity for very little money.
But the same mechanical technology that makes hard drives such a tantalizing value proposition causes other unfortunate issues. If you drop the drive, you could damage the interior mechanism and make your data inaccessible. And, again, hard drives are slow because they can only find your data by physically searching for it. The fastest external drives you'll find spin at about 7,200 revolutions per minute (or rpm), which isn't really all that fast these days. For comparison, internal desktop-class hard drives can have speeds as high as 15,000rpm.
SSDs, on the other hand, store data on flash memory, and thus can access it very quickly. If you're connecting via a higher-speed protocol like USB 3.0 or USB-C, you'll see the most benefit, but there's basically no case in which an SSD won't be faster than a hard drive. And because SSDs have no moving parts, they're a lot hardier, and are better equipped to withstand the drops, bumps, and bruises of everyday use. This doesn't mean they can't be damaged or that you can't still lose data, but you have a lot more leeway.
One downside is that the memory used in these drives can only be written to a limited number of times, so your SSD may become unusable before a hard drive would, depending on how you use it. Another regards traditional storage applications: Hardware-based encryption is, in almost every case, a no-go on SSDs, because data is stored anywhere and everywhere rather than in one easily accessible chunk. And you should never, under any circumstances, run a defragmentation program on your SSD, as you'll be using up valuable writes for no speed benefit you're likely to notice.
Perhaps the biggest drawback of SSDs is price. Want a 2TB external hard drive? You can find one for as little as $75. A 2TB external SSD, on the other hand, will run you about $730, and no, that is not a typo—you'd be paying almost 10 times as much for exactly the same amount of storage. (That same $75 you could spend on the 2TB hard drive will only get you an SSD of about 120GB.) If speed and resilience are critical to you, all that extra money is probably worth it. If they're not, you're needlessly wasting hundreds of dollars. When considering whether to buy an external SSD, make sure you know what you're getting yourself—and your bank account—into.
For more on solid-state drives versus hard drives, read SSD and HDD: What's the Difference?.
Best Internal Ssd For Mac
External SSD Buying Basics
Here are four key things to look out for when shopping for an external SSD.
Cost per gigabyte: The way to calculate relative value on drives like these is to perform some simple division, and calculate the cost per gigabyte based on the pricing for a given drive on the day you're shopping. Because SSD pricing fluctuates all the time, relative value changes all the time, too. Like with internal SSDs, the way to weigh what you are paying is to divide the price of the SSD by the number of gigabytes in its capacity. So, for example, a $100 120GB portable drive yields a cost per gigabyte of about 83 cents; a $100 250GB drive, in contrast, comes in at 40 cents per gig. The basement for budget external SSDs at this writing was about 25 cents per gigabyte, mostly models from second- or third-tier makers. Use this math to calculate your bottom-line price when comparing a host of drives.
Interface: At the moment, most portable SSDs use standard USB 3.0, though USB Type-C ports are increasingly common. This has no speed consequence, but it's an easier connector to plug in. ADATA's SE730 External SSD and Samsung's Portable SSD T5 use both a USB-C port (at the drive end) and the new USB 3.1 Gen 2 tech (at the host end) for the fastest possible speeds. In our testing, however, neither drive was massively faster over the new port type. They're still plenty speedy if plugged into a USB 3.0 port. A few pricey external SSDs come with Thunderbolt interfaces, but these are generally specialized models meant for use with Macs.
Ruggedization: The degree of ruggedness does vary from drive to drive, with ADATA's SE730 offering leading the field at the moment among mainstream-price drives. IP68 certification is a good spec to look for if you're serious about waterproof and dustproof drives.
Carry Weight: Most SSDs weigh a negligible few ounces. We're partial to the retention loop on the SanDisk Extreme drives, as many of these drives are small and light enough that losing them is too easy and expensive a mistake to make.
Do Yourself a Solid
Best Internal Ssd For Laptop
Below are the top external SSDs we've tested recently. They vary widely in features and price, but should all deliver plenty of speed and peace of mind if that's what you want from your portable storage. Don't need (or don't want to pay for) an SSD? Then check out our roundup of the best external hard drives. If you're building or upgrading your desktop or laptop, read about how to buy the best internal SSD. For other ways to preserve your data, read our lists of the best cloud storage and file-sharing services, the top backup software, and our favorite online backup services.
External Ssd For Mac
Best SSDs Featured in This Roundup:
Best Ssd For Mac
LaCie Bolt3 Review
MSRP: $1999.00Pros: Blazing-fast throughput. Quiet. Includes Thunderbolt 3 cable. Can daisy-chain with USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 displays and accessories. Can charge laptop.Cons: Thunderbolt 2 compatibility requires adapter (not included). No USB 3.0 ports.Bottom Line: The 2-terabyte LaCie Bolt3 is the fastest external SSD we've tested. Take a look if 4K video editing and production are in your future, but be prepared to pay.Read ReviewSamsung Portable SSD T5 Review
MSRP: $799.99Pros: Excellent performance. Includes USB 3.0 and USB-C cables. Compact. Android-, Mac-, and Windows-compatible.Cons: While a comparable good per-gigabyte value, the drive itself is expensive.Bottom Line: Samsung's Portable SSD T5 drive has a speedy USB-C interface, plenty of reliable storage, and it takes up about as much room in your pocket as a short stack of credit cards.Read ReviewSanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSD Review
MSRP: $499.99Pros: Impact resistant. Fast performance. Can be used out of box with Mac or PC. Comes with USB-C-to-USB-C cable. Software enables 128-bit AES encryption. Reasonable price.Cons: Bulky for an SSD.Bottom Line: The SanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSD hits a rare sweet spot for solid-state drives: It's durable, versatile, speedy, and reasonably priced for its capacity.Read ReviewioSafe Rugged Portable SSD Review
MSRP: $649.99Pros: Speedy performance. Highly ruggedized against crush, immersion, shock, environment, altitude, and chemicals. One year of data recovery service protection. Backup and encryption software included.Cons: Bulky and heavy. Short warranty. Expensive. No USB-C.Bottom Line: If you and your files need to venture into the unknown, the ioSafe Rugged Portable SSD might be the trusty, nearly indestructible companion you're looking for. But for the average user, there are plenty of durable, reasonably priced external drives with higher capacity.Read ReviewADATA SD700 External Solid State Drive Review
MSRP: $189.00Pros: Rugged, compact design. Reasonable cost per gigabyte.Cons: No USB-C cable. Anemic and outdated backup software.Bottom Line: The rugged ADATA SD700 is a good choice if you are constantly on the go and need speedy storage, but other SSDs offer even faster speeds at similar per-gigabyte costs.Read ReviewADATA SE730 External SSD Review
MSRP: $149.99Pros: Incredibly lightweight and compact. Dust-, water-, and shockproof. Can be used with phones and tablets. Reasonable price.Cons: Slow transfer rates over USB 3.0 for an SSD. USB cable catches on port cover's lip. USB-C-to-USB-C cable not included.Bottom Line: The ADATA SE730 is a compact, ruggedized solid-state drive that delivers speedy transfers over USB-C. But its design is a little fussy and it doesn't come with a USB-C-to-USB-C cable.Read ReviewGnarbox Review
MSRP: $299.99Pros: Battery powered. SD and microSD card slots. USB accessory and charging ports. Rugged design. Works as external drive. Android and iOS support.Cons: Smartphone editing tools can use some work. File transfers can take some time. Doesn't support transfers while charging. 4GB file size limit.Bottom Line: The Gnarbox is a ruggedized SSD designed for on-the-go photo and video backup and editing.Read Review