Best external hard drive for Mac in 2024 (2024)

Finding the best external hard drive for Mac is crucial for those seeking optimal storage solutions, especially with the rising demand for expansive digital spaces.

When it comes to maximizing storage without denting your wallet, the best external hard drive is your best ally. It's known that Apple products, including the best Mac models, come with a heftier price tag and little space to upgrade the components inside yourself. While you have the option to enhance storage when choosing your Mac or MacBook, any internal upgrades can be costly. In fact, once you've invested in your Mac – barring the Mac Pro – expanding its built-in storage with one of the best SSD or best hard drives isn't feasible.

The best external hard drive for Mac fills this gap very well, and it's not only a cost-effective measure but, for many Mac models, the primary method to elevate storage capacity. To help you sort through your choices, we've researched various external hard drives, assessing critical factors such as speed, connectivity type, build quality, durability, portability, price, and warranty.

And while you're on the topic of business solutions, don't forget to check out the best business computer, best business laptop, and best business monitor if you're not sold on external storage for a Mac that's constantly running low on space. If you're leaning more towards solid-state drives, our guide on the best portable SSD is worth a read. Dive into the detailed analyses of each product to determine which storage solution aligns best with your Mac needs.

The best external hard drive for Mac in 2024

Below you'll find full write-ups for each of the best The best external hard drive for Mac in our list. We've tested each one extensively, so you can be sure that our recommendations can be trusted.

Best external hard drive for Mac overall

This rugged, external storage device still carries a premium on external hard drives but that is shrinking rapidly while other inherent features of SSD technology - speed, reliability, power consumption and size - have been improved. The drive offers IP67 water and dust resistance, and according to Western Digital, up to 3-meter drop protection and crush resistance of up to 900Kg.

In our tests, its speed is about twice what you’d get from a SATA-based device, making it great for quickly editing and saving large source files, be it image (RAW photos) or video (4K footage).

Read our full Sandisk Professional G-Drive rugged external 2TB SSD review

Best rugged external hard drive for Mac

SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE ArmorATD is a 2.5-inch conventional drive mechanism that has been elegantly engineered into an aluminium case and that’s had a rubberised bumper placed around it to further cushion it from physical abuse. It also has the IP54 dust and water protection rating (ie it’s only ‘splashproof’).

The speed of this unit is around 25% of what we’d normally expect from a Gen 1 SSD and 15% of a Gen 2 design. When you factor in that the SSD is likely to be lighter and more shock-resistant, the ArmorATD is relying on its price per TB to make that deal. It isn’t the cheapest, but it is high quality, and it comes with a three-year warranty.

Read our full SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE ArmorATD review

Best secure external hard drive for Mac

This G-DRIVE is exclusively USB 3.2, and the best port for it is one with USB 3.2 Gen 2 level bandwidth. It offers a useful level of durability and water/dust resistance. According to SanDisk, the protection is IP67 standard (not water submersion), and the enclosure can withstand 2000lb of crushing force alongside a drop of 3M onto a carpeted concrete floor.

It also has the capability for 256-bit AES-XTS hardware encryption, enabling the contents of the drive to be secured effectively. Although, the owner must provide encryption tools to lock and subsequently unlock the contents stored on the drive, if they want to use this functionality.

Read our full SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE SSD review

The best external hard drive for Mac by speed

The T-Create Classic is a Thunderbolt and USB 3.2 compatible drive built to a very high standard. While the minimalist milled-from-solid-aluminum approach keeps the SSD inside safe, the enclosure isn’t especially light, and the drive weighs 180g, including the cable.

Avoiding smaller capacities, the Classic comes in 1TB, 2TB or 4TB options, and our review was performed with a 2TB drive. It’s designed to excel when connected via Thunderbolt, managing speeds of up to 2700MB/s, meaning spending the not-insignificant asking price of this hardware is probably only worth it if you generally use Thunderbolt equipment computers, like most modern Macs.

Read our full Teamgroup T-Create CLASSIC External SSD review

Best compact external hard drive for Mac

The Netac ZX20 is a portable solid state drive that is lightweight, fast, compact, reasonably solid and borrowed that orange carabiner hole from a popular rival: a useful feature to have for anyone who wants to secure their most precious data storage device. It is not, however, a water-resistant device. It still feels reasonably solid but be aware of its limitations (even if it includes a three-year warranty).

Netac claims that the drive should reach read/write speeds of up to 2GBps/1.7GBps thanks to its USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 interface. It is absolutely tiny (71.5 x 43.5 x 8mm) and is probably as thin as it gets given that you still need to account for the thickness of the USB-C connector.

Read our full Netac ZX20 review

Best value external hard drive for Mac

The Canvio Flex is categorized as specialty storage because it carries a long three-year warranty and comes with a Type-C cable, although puzzlingly the device itself has a micro-B USB connector. We’d love to have seen Toshiba use a USB Type-C connector instead, but every cent counts at the lower-end of the market, and aiming for that side of the market makes the Canvio Flex very affordable.

It is reasonably compact (80 x 111 x 13.5mm) and light (149g) but its dimensions are constrained by the fact that it is, at its heart, a 2.5-inch hard disk drive.

Read our full Toshiba Canvio Flex 2TB external hard disk drive review

The best external hard drive for Mac by capacity

The SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE Desktop Drive is meant to live on a desk and provide a localised means to secure data and expand the internal capacity of a laptop or desktop system.

The two big selling points here are the quality of construction and the dramatic amount of capacity potentially on offer, going up to an impressive 22TB. It is, however, one of the more expensive ways to get extra space, and it's also relatively slow compared to SSD drives. In our review hardware, the 12TB model could reach read/write speeds of 250MB/s for both.

Read our full SanDisk Professional G-DRIVE Desktop (2022) review

Best external hard drive for Mac: FAQs

How to choose the best external hard drives for Mac for you

When choosing the best external hard drive for your Mac, you must consider other things beyond storage capacity and price.

Chiefly, your choice comes depends on your needs, which are likely to be very specific and possibly even unique. Will this be, for instance, a drive used as an extension to your iMac, and you’re on a tight budget? In which case, you’ll likely be better off with an external HDD, something you can plug in to power, with plenty of storage space, for a reasonable amount of money.

If however, you’re more an on-the-go person, who likes to work with your MacBook wherever you find yourself, from a hotel room, to a coffee shop, or even at the beach, then a portable SSD would be the better option: these will be powered directly from your laptop, and no moving parts means they are much more sturdy. But they are much more expensive.

Finding one that’s affordable and has enough storage space – a minimum of 1TB is highly recommended – for your present and future needs is ideal, even if you have more than enough money to splurge for something expensive.

Another deciding factor, however, is the connection. Many external hard drives have USB 3.0 connections, but since even the best MacBook and Mac accessories rely on the power and data transfer speed of USB-Cs, USB Type-C or Thunderbolt 3 or 4 connections are certainly favorable.

If you’re storing critical files, especially for work, consider getting one with more robust security features. There are other things, including a rugged build if you plan on taking it out in the field with you, while the best portable SSDs are ideal if you plan to travel around with it. We also recommend pairing your device with the best cloud storage and best backup software for additional data security.

How we test the best external hard drives for Mac

Although choosing the right drive can be very subjective, there are some parameters which can be useful to help gauge and compare the various devices we review. The most obvious one is price, of course - we all love a good deal, and price per GB or TB is a good indication of that. But this only tells us part of the story.

As you’ve seen through this list, we often mention the disparity between HDD and SSD when it comes to that value, primarily because HDD are much cheaper (being an older technology, that makes sense), and SSD are more expensive, but much studier, as they have no moving parts.

So it’s a balance between price, sturdiness, size, whether or not you need to drive to be powered by your Mac, or have to be powered independently, and perhaps most importantly, how quickly your Mac can read and write to that drive, i.e., how fast it can access and create information. And that depends both on the speed of the drive, but also on the type of cable you use.

All the best MacBook Pro devices, MacBooks and desktop Macs (iMac, Mac Mini, Mac Pro) come with one or more Thunderbolt ports which are also compatible with USB Type-C. So we look not only at the versatility and general performance of the drives - across several benchmarks - but also their relevance to specific use cases, after-sales and warranty, and sheer value for money.