Best External Usb Dvd Drive For Mac
I feel old saying this, but having used computers since before external hard drives existed, I can say with certainty that buying a hard drive is easier today than it’s ever been before. For traditional drives, prices are low, options are numerous, and capacities are so high that your only choices are “enough space,” “more than enough space,” and “way more than enough space.” I could point you towards a and end this article without another paragraph. Since Apple doesn’t even sell a Mac with that much disk space, you could back up five (or more) computers to that drive without running out of room. Or you could store a decade worth of digital photos alongside a giant media library. But buying an external hard drive isn’t necessarily that simple. There are a bunch of factors worth considering before making a purchase, including everything from reliability to portability, design, capacity, speed, and connectivity. Some hard drives are really cheap but have a higher chance of failing after a year or two of heavy use. So in this How-To, I’m going to discuss the big issues you need to consider, and guide you towards the best external hard drive for your needs Quick Overview Most hard drives are guaranteed to work for one to two years no matter what you do with them, ranging from occasional backups to continuous video streaming.
They’ll generally last much longer if you don’t use them every day. However — and this is really important — if you keep a typical drive mechanism running 24 hours each day for two years, it’s going to burn out. Hard drive longevity used to be measured with an estimate of “Mean Time Before Failure” (MTBF). Each year has 61,320 hours, so a drive with a MTBF of 300,000 hours would promise to last 4.9 years if actively used 24 hours each day.
Desktop drives typically promised higher MTBFs than laptop drives, but there were exceptions. Unfortunately, MTBF numbers were only predictions — and often inaccurately high. Consumers complained. So drive makers switched to a different but even less useful metric: Annualized Failure Rate (AFR), which estimates the percentage of total drives made that will fail in a year due to manufacturing defects. All an AFR of “0.73%” suggests is that 7,300 of 1,000,000 drives will likely develop problems in year one due to defects rather than abuse. That low percentage may seem reassuring, but it obscures the reality that heavy drive use increases failures over time, and some drives are much better-suited to heavy use than others. My advice: purchase your drive with a specific purpose in mind.
If you’re backing up precious photos, home videos, or important files, buy a name brand, desktop-sized hard drive from a company with a track record of reliability, and pay a little more for it. It doesn’t really matter how the drive looks, just that it will work for a long time. But if you’re just using a drive to store apps, games, or iTunes movies that you can easily re-download at any time, or only intermittently turn a drive on for backups, you can feel comfortable going with something cheaper, more portable, or fancier-looking. Capacity + Pricing It’s easy to pick the right hard drive capacity these days: most external drives now offer at least as much space as a standard Mac (1TB) — and there are — and you can get an. Most people will find that that 4TB is more than enough to hold years of accumulated photos, media files, and data, but there’s no wrong answer to the capacity question: it’s mostly a matter of personal preference right now.
That said, there are sweet spots. Expect to pay around,. By “basic,” I mean the popular and consumer-grade desktop drives shown above from Seagate, a major (but not top) drive manufacturer with a good (but not great) warranty. The are similar up until the 4TB mark, where the price doubles. Generally, 3TB to 5TB would be the sweet spots between capacity and pricing, but of the 3TB Expansion mirror comments I’ve seen elsewhere online: Seagate’s 3TB units had lots of problems.
You’re better off considering 2TB, 4TB or 5TB units instead. Don’t be surprised that longer-lasting drives can cost twice as much as basic models. They’ll typically last longer, which is worth something. Similarly, don’t be surprised if a solid state drive (SSD) costs much more and offers lower capacity than a mechanical drive. SSDs are just beginning to become mainstream internal drives for computers, and their capacities aren’t yet at the “more than enough space” point. Reliability Since MTBF and AFR are such sketchy measures of hard drive reliability, I suggest that you focus on two more tangible factors: the reputation of the manufacturer, and the length of the drive’s warranty. A three-year warranty is the best you can expect from a consumer-grade external drive from a top vendor, regardless of whether it’s a.
(Only the very best internal SSDs now offer and, though notably with much less storage space than the drives covered in this article. See my How-To guides to, and.) If reliability is your major concern, as it generally is mine, I’d suggest you look most seriously at (featuring ultra-reliable Hitachi hard drive mechanisms) and, all of which have three-year warranties. I G-Tech’s excellent for 9to5Mac, and have trusted their earlier drives for many years without any issues. Was covered in my, and while it’s more expensive and lower-capacity than the G-Drive USB, it has no moving parts to worry about.
Go with a G-Drive if you need a large reliable drive, or T1 if you want something small and reliable. Portability + Design There are five major types of external hard drives:,.
The first two use 3.5″ hard drive mechanisms and are effectively non-portable: they sit on your desk, depend on wall power, and aren’t easy to carry in typical bags. Flash drives are keychain-sized but relatively limited in capacity and crazy expensive when they begin to approach laptop drive capacities. So if you need a portable hard drive with respectable storage capacity at a reasonable price, you’ll most likely pick a laptop-class drive with a 2.5″ hard drive mechanism inside. Owned by Seagate, boutique drive maker LaCie’s lineup nicely illustrates the relative size differences between the categories of external drives, though there are even smaller laptop and slim laptop drives out there now. In January, I both, the world’s thinnest external mechanical hard drive, and, a boxy mirrored drive with twice the capacity. Both use USB 3.0 for data and power, with no need for an external power supply. Either one can easily fit into a laptop bag, backpack, or purse, but Seven is much, much smaller.
If you want a portable, reliable hard drive at a low price with minimal design frills, consider, which have a. But if you’re looking for something with a distinctive design — and willing to compromise a little on long-term reliability — are definitely the best around. Pick the one that appeals to your personal taste. Speed, Connectivity, iOS Compatibility, and Apple’s AirPort Time Capsules A lot could be said about each of these topics, but I’ll save you some time and cut to the chase: recent developments mean that most people will be best off with USB 3.0 wired drives, except under one of three circumstances: you need incredible speed for Mac video editing, you want to stream video to your iOS devices, or you want to do automated wireless backups. If you’re planning on doing 4K or other disk-intensive Mac video editing, Thunderbolt hard drives such as or can deliver dramatically better speeds than drives that share your Mac’s USB bus. They’re much more expensive than comparably capacious USB drives, but they’re built for professional use, and priced accordingly. That said, USB 3.0 drives tend to outperform prior-generation FireWire 800 drives, which were adequate for pre-4K editing, so most users will have no need to look for faster options. If you’re concerned about real-world speeds for a USB drive, check the manufacturer’s stated “up to XXXMB/second transfer rates” claims and subtract around 10-20% for real world performance.
If you want to use your hard drive to store content that can also be streamed to your iOS device, consider or, which offer integrated Wi-Fi streaming, a built-in battery for completely wireless operation, and USB connectivity for synchronization. I’ve tested both, and while Seagate’s version has the edge on pricing, speed, and battery performance, My Passport Wireless has an SD slot built in to back up your digital photos on the road. IOS users will have a better experience with the Wireless Plus, while Mac users and digital photographers with infrequent iOS needs may prefer My Passport Wireless. Go with the one that best suits your needs. Last but not least, if you want to do automated wireless backups, consider — but think carefully about — an.
I currently use the latest version of Time Capsule, which has been completely redesigned and has fast 802.11ac wireless with your choice of a or hard drive. On a positive note, it works completely as expected, and although the initial Time Machine backup process for a large Mac hard drive is incredibly slow, incremental backups later on are fine. My concerns are mostly in reliability and pricing. I’ve had two prior-generation Time Capsules experience hard drive issues, and though Apple may have fixed those problems with the new model, it’s very easy to go out and buy a standalone drive for much less. I’m not a big fan of wireless drives right now, but continue to hope that wireless technology will catch up with the demands of current machines. All of my important files are on a wired, and they will probably stay there for the foreseeable future. Author, lawyer, and award-winning restaurateur Jeremy Horwitz started his journalism career in the early 1990’s, covering video games as a freelancer for numerous publications before creating and running Ziff Davis’s Intelligent Gamer magazine.
Best External Usb Dvd Drive For Macbook Air
A graduate of Cornell Law School, he previously ran editorial for the Apple-centric site iLounge and created the historic iLounge Pavilion at CES before joining 9to5Mac and 9to5Toys as a Senior Editor. A lifelong consumer electronics expert and gourmet, he now focuses on the changing ways people work, play, eat, and travel. His Spanish restaurant Aro Bar de Tapas won Best New Restaurant (Opened 2015-2016), Best Charcuterie, Best Craft Cocktails, and Best Desserts awards.
There are a number of problems that can crop up with your computer’s memory. Even though most computers come with large hard drives, it is surprisingly easy to fill them up, especially with large files such as videos. When that happens, it can cause your computer to slow down. Even more seriously, the hard drive can become corrupted, making it difficult or impossible to access your files. And if something happens to the computer itself, all of your files could be easily lost.
An external hard drive can address all of those problems. It allows you to move files off of your computer’s hard drive, freeing up space, and providing a backup in case something happens to your computer. It’s an essential investment, and one that no computer owner should go without. Here is how you can find the best one. USB Flash Drives: These offer storage of up to 64GB and are the most portable external hard drives on the market.
Best External Dvd For Mac
They are small enough to fit on a keychain or in your pocket but offer enough space to fit many documents and multimedia material. Most flash drives are also compatible with both Mac and PC systems. These are the most convenient if you are always on-the-go and need to transfer or save small amounts of data but normally rely on your main computer for your files. Portable External Hard Drives: Also known as notebook external hard drives, these are larger than flash drives but are still small enough to fit in a coat pocket to be carried around. They connect to your computer via the USB component that is built into your hardware. These come in all sizes up to a maximum capacity of 1.5 TB.
Unlike desktop drives, these do not require a power adapter and are great for traveling and retrieving data on the go. Desktop Hard Drives: These are connected to your laptop or PC via a cable or wirelessly. They are normally designed to stay in one place on a work surface. This is a great option for storing large amounts of data as they have much larger capacities up to 6 TB. Durability: Keeping your files safe is a major part of what hard drives were made for. If your hard drive is portable, the hardware should be made of materials durable enough to protect it from shock and damage if you accidentally drop it.
Look out for materials like quality plastic or aluminum and avoid anything that looks flimsy or cheap. Transfer Speed: The happiest customers were those whose files transferred very quickly from their desktop to their hard drives.
If you’re going to be transferring a small volume of files, most external hard drives will do fine. If you want to transfer larger files such as videos, a hard drive with a USB 3.0 interface will transfer these much faster than its USB 2.0 counterpart. Size: The size of your hard drive should be reflective of its use. Most consumers said that when it comes to portable drives, they were more likely to choose one that would fit in their coat or in their work gear, but this is completely dependent on personal preference and may be a good starting point for you.
System compatibility: Many DVD drives are designed to work with just about all the popular operating systems, but it’s worth taking a second to look at the specifications of a potential drive to make sure that it’s designed to work with your computer. Software: If the drive you’re looking at isn’t a plug-and-play model, check out the kind of software you’ll need to download or install in order to get it running. Format compatibility: Some drives are designed specifically to work with DVDs, others with Blu-Ray disks, while some can handle both—along with other formats (like audio CDs).
Be sure to pick a drive that can handle the kind of disk that you have in your library. Speed: If you’re planning on using your drive to burn disks, check out the specifications with regards to writing speed and choose a model that will be able to quickly handle any copying job you need done. : Samsung is a South Korean electronics manufacturer.
Founded in 1938 as a food distribution company, they have diversified their business over the years, eventually expanding to manufacturing electronics and related accessories. Today, they are one of the world’s leaders in consumer electronics.: LG is a South Korean company that specializes in electronics and home accessories. The company began as a home electronics and appliances manufacturer in 1958, and is still a leading producer in both arenas.: Hewlett-Packard is an American computer company. Founded in 1939, HP is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of both computers and computer peripheral devices today.: Sanoxy is an American producer of computer accessories that was founded in 2005. They offer a wide range of peripherals for computer users, from external drives to computer carrying cases.: ASUS is a Taiwanese computer manufacturer.
The company was established in 1989 and produces a wide range of computers, computer accessories, and other electronic tools.