Hi, I need some advice - what is the best external hard drive that is compatible with Big Sur OS? I would prefer SSD 3TB, but HDD is okay. I'm using it specifically to store thousands of tiff pictures. I have researched all over the internet and found huge issues with people losing external hard drive info. I have a 2018 13" MBp. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Tx.
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Advice Best SSD/HHD that works with new Big Sur OS
- Thread starter Blaze3
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Literally all of them are compatible. Well, literally is a strong word there and there may be extremely odd edge cases with super unique hardware, but anything you'd be reasonably looking at would be compatible, because talking to storage media is rather standardised for computers.
I personally like SanDisk Extreme Portable drives, and Samsung's T5 and T7 are rather good but to my knowledge netter go above 2TB.
But you don't need to worry about compatibility at least
I personally like SanDisk Extreme Portable drives, and Samsung's T5 and T7 are rather good but to my knowledge netter go above 2TB.
But you don't need to worry about compatibility at least
Any reputable brand such as Seagate or Western Digital for HDDs.
I wouldn't go for SSD because I would be surprised if you need the extra speed, and this is for long-term storage, rather than accessing files quickly.
As for Samsung T5 and T7, the T7 is more expensive than the T5, but does store large files more quickly, but you have to have the right hardware in your computer to take advantage of it.
If you are worried about reliability then consider getting two HDDs and mirroring them, either manually, or as RAID 1, which you can set up through Disk Utility.
In Australia, one 2Tb Samsung t7 SSD will cost you about $450, while two 4Tb WD HDDs will cost about $300. I imagine there would be a similar price difference where you live. If you couple them with a small USB 3 hub (about $30) you wouldn't take up any more ports on your computer, and you would have the storage and reliability you want.
I wouldn't go for SSD because I would be surprised if you need the extra speed, and this is for long-term storage, rather than accessing files quickly.
As for Samsung T5 and T7, the T7 is more expensive than the T5, but does store large files more quickly, but you have to have the right hardware in your computer to take advantage of it.
If you are worried about reliability then consider getting two HDDs and mirroring them, either manually, or as RAID 1, which you can set up through Disk Utility.
In Australia, one 2Tb Samsung t7 SSD will cost you about $450, while two 4Tb WD HDDs will cost about $300. I imagine there would be a similar price difference where you live. If you couple them with a small USB 3 hub (about $30) you wouldn't take up any more ports on your computer, and you would have the storage and reliability you want.
A mirrored RAID would definitely be a good idea. While it would not improve write speeds, mirrored reads can also give improved performance, so if access times do matter to the OP there's that too
Get TWO 4tb platter-based HDDs.
Use the first as your "primary storage" drive.
The second becomes your backup drive.
You DO NOT want to keep 3tb+ of important photos on a drive that is not backed up.
I recommend either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to backup the primary storage drive to the backup. Either will give you an exact copy of the source drive.
Also... if you go platter-based... DO NOT format the drive to APFS.
Instead, use HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).
APFS can severely fragment platter-based drives and slow them down.
Use the first as your "primary storage" drive.
The second becomes your backup drive.
You DO NOT want to keep 3tb+ of important photos on a drive that is not backed up.
I recommend either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to backup the primary storage drive to the backup. Either will give you an exact copy of the source drive.
Also... if you go platter-based... DO NOT format the drive to APFS.
Instead, use HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).
APFS can severely fragment platter-based drives and slow them down.
If you can afford it, I'd recommend an SSD. An SSD is less likely to be damaged if you drop it.
Like oter people said, keep a backup, for your internal drive as well as the external one. That can be a rotating hard drive. Just make sure you back up regularly.
Speed is not a huge issue. For your purposes an SSD will feel faster than an HDD, but you won't notice the difference between one SSD and the next. Pick brands based on their reputation for reliability rather than speed.
RAID is a complication that you probably don't need.
Like oter people said, keep a backup, for your internal drive as well as the external one. That can be a rotating hard drive. Just make sure you back up regularly.
Speed is not a huge issue. For your purposes an SSD will feel faster than an HDD, but you won't notice the difference between one SSD and the next. Pick brands based on their reputation for reliability rather than speed.
RAID is a complication that you probably don't need.
Not necessarily true. Samsung and Seagate are both quality SSD drive makers, but write speed, particularly sustained write speed can be quite different. I have found that after writing several Gbytes of data to my Seagate that transfer speed slows right down, to slower than HDD speeds, but I don't get that with my Samsung drives.
That's odd behavior for any SSD. It might have to do with power management settings. In any case, point taken, it's not something a consumer should have to worry about.
If you are working with TIFF files, a SSD makes sense IMO. I work with TIFF files frequently (specifically, 600+ DPI scans) and the file sizes are ginormous. The latency, slower transfer speeds, and small cache sizes of an HDD are all a nuisance to deal with here, especially when you are constantly moving them around and editing them.
As others have noted, there are a lot of brands that will work. If you want absolute tried and true, I recommend purchasing either a Samsung 860 Pro or Samsung 860 Evo and putting them in a decent external enclosure. Both drives have been on the market for a long time and have proven themselves. If you are going to constantly be writing to this drive rather than just storing and occasionally accessing, I highly recommend the 4TB 860 Pro, specifically, as it has the best endurance of pretty much all SSDs on the market (it's warrantied for like 5 petabytes and its actual endurance is likely several times this.)
To my understanding, the Big Sur data loss issue was with the OS drive and not with externals, and I believe this has been solved. However, Big Sur still isn't working correctly with some of the software I need so I am still using Catalina on my production machine and can't speak to extensive external use with that specific OS.
As others have noted, there are a lot of brands that will work. If you want absolute tried and true, I recommend purchasing either a Samsung 860 Pro or Samsung 860 Evo and putting them in a decent external enclosure. Both drives have been on the market for a long time and have proven themselves. If you are going to constantly be writing to this drive rather than just storing and occasionally accessing, I highly recommend the 4TB 860 Pro, specifically, as it has the best endurance of pretty much all SSDs on the market (it's warrantied for like 5 petabytes and its actual endurance is likely several times this.)
To my understanding, the Big Sur data loss issue was with the OS drive and not with externals, and I believe this has been solved. However, Big Sur still isn't working correctly with some of the software I need so I am still using Catalina on my production machine and can't speak to extensive external use with that specific OS.
SSD's can have internal caches. When the cache fills up transfer rates drop.
Are these pictures going to be heavily used, or just stored? The speed of an SSD can be useful when scrolling through large numbers of files, doing heavy editing, etc. Downside is the high $/GB cost. If you don't need the speed then most often a HD would be better. You'll need several (from different vendors, or different models) to implement a 3-2-2 backup strategy.