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External Hard Drive

imbadwithusernames

imbadwithusernames

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 17, 2016
270
54
Spain
Hey,
While I'm waiting for my MacBook Pro 15" TB to arrive I'm making a list of accessories I need so I'll be prepared, however, as I don't have any knowledge on External Hard Drives or Hard Disks (I don't know if there's any difference) I don't know which one to buy, so I thought you guys might help me.
 
Hard disks is mostly internal and needs an enclosure that will powers up your HDD. You will need a wall plug for your enclosure else its mostly useless. As for external, it can just run off from your laptop hence making it more portable.
 
Depends upon the budget and what you will be using it for. I have both a WD My Passport Metal for Time Machine backups as well as a Samsung 850 EVO in an enclosure for other external that I use for all of my photos and videos that I'm working on. You don't have to go that route though as Samsung already makes an external version of it. Look for the Samsung T3. There are other options but that and the Western Digital are excellent starting points. Again it all depends upon your needs. The one is an SSD so it's very fast and the other is a standard spinning disk.
 
imbadwithusernames said:
Hey,
While I'm waiting for my MacBook Pro 15" TB to arrive I'm making a list of accessories I need so I'll be prepared, however, as I don't have any knowledge on External Hard Drives or Hard Disks (I don't know if there's any difference) I don't know which one to buy, so I thought you guys might help me.
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There are not many USB-C external drives around yet. I noticed in another thread Apple is selling this Lacie USB-C drive with a pretty decent discounted price.

What I did was bought this USB-C enclosure and pulled the hard drive out of a USB-A enclosure I had and popped it in the new enclosure.
 
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Weaselboy said:
What I did was bought this USB-C enclosure and pulled the hard drive out of a USB-A enclosure I had and popped it in the new enclosure.
Click to expand...

Pretty similar to what I did: Samsung EVO 850 & a Satechi USB-C enclosure off of amazon. Works like a charm...minus other OSX issues.
 
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Kn!ghthawk said:
Pretty similar to what I did: Samsung EVO 850 & a Satechi USB-C enclosure off of amazon. Works like a charm...minus other OSX issues.
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I'm using the same SSD as you in that enclosure I linked for CCC clones and it just screams. Really fast clones.
 
Weaselboy said:
I'm using the same SSD as you in that enclosure I linked for CCC clones and it just screams. Really fast clones.
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I've got a bit under 1TB of raw photo files & some video clips stored on there. Needed something faster than what I had and I didn't want to have all of it on my MBP if I could avoid it. Little speed demon that drive is!
 
+1 Samsung T3. It is usb-c, it just doesn't come with a usb-c to usb-c cable. It comes with a usb-c to 3.0 cable. Super fast and small and light. However, even though it's reasonably priced, there are much cheaper HDD's out there. The question is what will you use it for so you can determine if you really need the speed. I don't necessarily need it, I just prefer speed like everyone else. For backing up in time machine and occasional file transfers, speed is not a huge issue, but it will save some time. My encrypted TM backups take 1 or 2 minutes on T3, about half of what my fastest HDD do. Transferring files is even faster (4x). What price are you willing to pay for speed. Again, T3 isn't that expensive.
 
I recomend samsung T3, i got it and its very fast for a small external, and has usb-c connection (but works on usb3 too) and its even same color as space grey macbook :D
 
Jaekae said:
I recomend samsung T3, i got it and its very fast for a small external, and has usb-c connection (but works on usb3 too) and its even same color as space grey macbook :D
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Haha. You had me checking my T3 to see if that's true. I always thought it was more bronze color. Upon closer inspection, it is a cross between space gray and bronze according to my eyes. T3 FTW!
 
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Just by the typical usb 3.0 drives. Buy some usb-c to usb A and usb-mini-b cables. Most of the Western Digital and Seagate drives have a usb-mini-b superspeed cables on the back of the drive.
 
As an FYI: keep a USB 2.0 hub handy. Some of us have been having issues with data transfer to external drives crashing the computer. Oddly enough it doesn't happen with a USB 2.0 hub or cable put in between. There's a few threads on that here if you care to look.
 
Precursor said:
Samsung T3 is the smallest and fastest external storage you can find
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I disagree with the fastest part, the Samsung T3 is usb 3.1 gen 1. However the Sandisk Extreme 900 which is usb-c 3.1 gen 2 allows faster throughput of 850 MB/s R/W.

I looked at both of the above when deciding to purchase myself, advantages of the T3 being the form factor, very portable. However if you want top performance and want to utilise the new MacBooks usb-c gen 2 ports then the Sandisk is a better option IMO.
 
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You can get a WD My Passport 4TB (3.0) for $129.00 versus the Samsung T3 for $100. In my opinion, the WD is a better deal. It is plenty fast for storage and backups. I have 3 of the WD My Passport connected to a hub, which is plugged into my AirPort Extreme. Has been working smoothly for backups and for media streaming to Apple TV.
 
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I've picked up a WD My Cloud 3TB from Amazon for £119, haven't used it yet as my tMBP isnt due until December 20th-29th but hopefully it will be a decent drive.
 
UnluckyXIII said:
I've picked up a WD My Cloud 3TB from Amazon for £119, haven't used it yet as my tMBP isnt due until December 20th-29th but hopefully it will be a decent drive.
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It doesn't work well for Time Machine (home or business network) backups. It will backup normally the first time or two. And after that, you will get messages saying that the Time Machine backup is corrupt and needs to be started again. WD has also been slow with software updates.
 
BasicGreatGuy said:
It doesn't work well for Time Machine (home or business network) backups. It will backup normally the first time or two. And after that, you will get messages saying that the Time Machine backup is corrupt and needs to be started again. WD has also been slow with software updates.
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So you think I'd be better to return it (it's still sealed) and Amazon have a good returns policy so it's not an issue??
 
UnluckyXIII said:
So you think I'd be better to return it (it's still sealed) and Amazon have a good returns policy so it's not an issue??
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I would. I wish I had known about all the problems before I purchased it. There have been a lot of reports on this forum and other places on the web as well.

If you want to use it strictly for storage and not for Time Machine, it will do fine, However, you can get more storage for less with other options.
 
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BasicGreatGuy said:
I would. I wish I had known about all the problems before I purchased it. There have been a lot of reports on this forum and other places on the web as well.

If you want to use it strictly for storage and not for Time Machine, it will do fine, However, you can get more storage for less with other options.
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Weaselboy said:
I'm with BGG on this... the forums are full of people having troubles getting that thing to work with Time Machine.
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Cheers guys, think I'll get on to Amazon and arrange a return, what would be a better option for Time Machine?
 
UnluckyXIII said:
Cheers guys, think I'll get on to Amazon and arrange a return, what would be a better option for Time Machine?
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If budget allows, I would go with an Airport Extreme ($200.00) and then get an external hard driver to plug into it directly or via a hub. Your Mac will see this set up as if it were an actual Time Capsule. Very easy to set up. Nice not to have external hard drives connected to the Mac with this method.

Weasel's option will work well.

You can purchase an actual NAS that works well with Macs and Time Machine. However, it can get expensive.
 
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