best external hard drives for macbook 2017

For each one, we ran HD Tune Pro, a benchmarking program that tests transfer speeds, access time, burst rate, and CPU usage across the entire disk. The 8 TB models usually have better prices per terabyte, but they're costly and have more storage than most people need.Īfter narrowing our list of finalists by price and capacity, we tested seven desktop hard drives. So we tested mostly 4 TB and 5 TB models, which met most respondents' price requirements, and still left plenty of additional capacity for future storage needs. About a third of respondents said they needed 2 TB or 3 TB drives, and another third wanted 4 TB or 5 TB models. Of 183 respondents, 55 percent said they'd like to spend less than $200 on a hard drive, and a third favored drives under $150. We started with a list of 14 current desktop hard drives, and we used data from an early 2016 survey of Wirecutter readers to guide our research.

Left to right: 2015 Seagate Backup Plus, Western Digital My Book, 2016 Seagate Backup Plus, and Toshiba Canvio for Desktop.

According to statistics from cloud backup service Backblaze, hard drives are most likely to fail either within the first 18 months of use or after three years. If you don't, well, say bye to your stuff. If your drive dies and you have a cloud backup, you won't lose data, but restoring from the cloud will take a very long time (and probably blow through your monthly data cap). You should consider replacing your backup drives between the third and sixth year of use. Your computer's internal drive will stop working someday, and backing up solely to an external drive isn't a bulletproof strategy to protect yourself from data loss.

Take a few minutes to set up a system that will back up your files automatically to an external hard drive and the cloud. If you're not backing up the important documents and photos on your computer, you should start. The Backup Plus has a great balance of speed and price and enough space for your future storage needs.

Read the full article here.Īfter 20 hours of new research and testing, we found the best external desktop hard drive for most people is Seagate's 4 TB Backup Plus Desktop Drive. When readers choose to buy The Wirecutter's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a buyer's guide to the best technology.

Best external hard drives for macbook 2017