Best Portable Usb-c External Drives For Macbook Pro
Best Portable External Hard Drive

The G-Drive by G-Technology is a great USB-C hard drive for most people. It has 1TB of storage and features a quick drive speed of 7200RPM, with transfer rates of up to 136MB/s, thanks to USB 3.1. It comes Mac ready and USB-C ready. Even 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. Drive speed is measured in revolutions per minute (rpm), based on how fast the drive can spin. Most portable hard drives run at 5400 rpm. This reduced power draw helps preserve the battery life of the Mac you plug the drive into. Desktop external hard drives.

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Best USB External Hard Drive (Preformed for Mac) If you have an older MacBook then consider WD 3TB My Passport for Mac Portable External Hard Drive which only supports USB-3 ports. Western Digital is a known player on the market of hard drives and My Passport is their flagship product. The same ports can support up to 40 Gbps transfer rate if you use thunderbolt interface but those drives are expensive than USB-C drives. So here is a list of 5 best USB-C external storage drives which you can buy to take the full advantage of your MacBook power. Samsung T5 Portable.

Best Portable External Hard Drive

This one is my personal favorite: Samsung T5 SSD. The device is so small that it can fit in your shirt pocket. It’s a little bigger than a matchbox.

I love, love, love this little thing.

It comes with two cables: USB and USB-C which is super helpful if you have old and new Macs. So you can use USB cable with old MacBook, copy data on it and then plug in to a new MacBook with TouchBar and copy again.

And T5 is crazy fast. I was able to run Virtual Box image directly from Samsung T5. I never thought it would be possible because I tried to run VMs from external drives before and they were super slow, even unusable.

With T5, however, I didn’t even know that I am running VM on external hard drive. Partially, it was due to fast SSD inside and partially due to USB-C connector. According to the manufacturer the transfer speed is up to 540MB/s.

Don’t forget to buy the hard travel case when buying T5 to keep the cables together.

Pros: Speed, portability, USB and USB-C support

Cons: Size limited to 2TB

Best Thunderbolt USB-C External Hard Drive

I’ve been using LaCie external hard drives for years and they always have been super reliable and crazy fast compared to other models.

You can always recognize them by their orange cover. While I am not particular a fan of their color option, I loved that the device has a rugged surface. This extremely durable cover provides an excellent protection against dust, shock and water. Which make it a best choice for someone who travels a lot or even someone who carries the laptop and its accessories to school or work daily.

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When it comes to performance LaCie external hard drive provides an ok data transfer speed up to 130MB/s thru the Thunderbolt cable. If you need a faster drive go with USB-C SSD option. It will give you up to 510MB/s transfer speed.

Additionally, each LaCie drive comes with complimentary 3 year recovery service. Thankfully I never needed one, but it’s nice to have such a piece of mind option.

Pros: Reliability, durability, multiple size options up to 5TB

Cons: Color, speed

Best Portable Usb-C External Drives For Mac

Best USB External Hard Drive (Preformed for Mac)

If you have an older MacBook then consider WD 3TB My Passport for Mac Portable External Hard Drive which only supports USB-3 ports.

Western Digital is a known player on the market of hard drives and My Passport is their flagship product. I used My Passports before and I never had any issues with them.

What’s good about this particular product is it intended specifically for Macs, not for PCs. If with other external hard drives you need to format them first before the use, this one is already preformatted as HFS+ device (macOS format). So I just get it out from the box, connect to Mac and start using.

While it’s a little bigger than Samsung T5 it’s still small enough to be considered as portable external hard drive.

Pros: Preformatted for macOS, portable

Cons: Outdated, only supports USB

Budget option

If you need a reliable external hard drive under $100 consider Toshiba Canvio Basics 4TB Portable External Hard Drive USB 3.0.

This is not the fastest drive, but it’s reliable and cheap. You can buy a 4TB drive for less than $100 and in my opinion it’s a good deal.

I use this device for my archives. If I have files that I am not going to use for a while then instead of deleting them I shove them to my Toshiba drive. You never know when you will need that old VM and it’s nice to not waste prime drive space either.

Note, however this comes with USB cable, so if you have a new laptop with USB-C ports you will need to buy an adapter as well.

Best Portable Usb-c External Drives For Macbook Pro

Pros: Super cheap and super reliable

Best Portable External Hard Drive

Cons: Only supports USB

Best Portable Usb-C External Drives For Mac