Their strength is in their speed and power as well as their ability to chain more than one device to a single computer. Thunderbolt connections are the latest in data and power transfer, and they are popular amongst Mac devices. External HDDs that are not specific to Macs may also work, but you’ll need to reformat them first, which could take some time.Įven though Mac computers are capable of reading hard drives that are formatted for Windows, if you intend on using your external HDD as a bootable disk or want to use it to backup files with your Mac’s Time Machine, you must format it to be entirely Mac compatible.īestReviews Electronics Expert Thunderbolt This is because when you initially connect an external HDD made for Mac (to a Mac computer), you won’t be required to format it before you begin transferring files. Key considerations Formattingįor Mac users, buying an external HDD already formatted for your system makes getting started much easier.

There are varying levels of storage capacity in an external hard drive, and the overall size of the HDD depends on the model. Others will need to be plugged into the wall. Some external hard drives get power directly from the computer connection. Flash drives are external drives, but they aren’t as fast, and they don’t usually store as much space as their larger external hard drive relatives.

flash drivesĮxternal hard drives are basically hard drives (HDD) or solid state drives (SSD) that are wrapped in their own protective casing and connect to your computer from the outside as opposed to the inside. There are hard drives that may hold volumes like 3TB, 6TB, and 10TB, but they are much less common than the standard hard drives that hold: 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, 8TB, and 18TB.

Macbook external cd drive