The best external storage

If you have an external hard drive or USB flash drive that you’d like to use on both Macs and Windows PCs, choosing the right file system to format the drive can be confusing. Learn a few ways to make your drive Mac and PC friendly. A brilliant external hard drive for Mac or PC. Capacity: 4TB. Consideration when looking for the best external hard drive for your Mac, then this is the drive to go for. Ships with both USB. Right now, we think the overall best external hard drive for Mac and PC is the Western Digital My Passport 4TB. It offers the best balance of speed, reliability, portability and price. It offers the best balance of speed, reliability, portability and price.

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- Considerations before buying
- Hard drive vs SSD: which is best?
- The best external hard drives & SSDs

If you're looking for the best external hard drives for Macs and PCs, then you've come to the right place. No matter if you have an Apple device, or run a Windows 10 PC, the external hard drives on this page will let you quickly and easily expand the storage space of your device.

If you're a creative professional, then buying the best external drive for your Mac or PC is essential, as it's likely you'll need to store large files, such as raw video or photographs.

If you're using a laptop or MacBook for your creative work, then you may find your storage space is quite limited, and can quickly run out if you have a lot of files. Rather than opening up your device and fitting a larger hard drive (which is particularly difficult with Mac devices), an external hard drive can be quickly and easily plugged into your device for extra storage space.

While Cloud storage is another option, which allows you to store your files online, enabling you to access them from pretty much any internet-connected device, it takes your work out of your hands, and instead leaves them with other companies. Picking something that's reliably safe and has lots of space, speed and value for money is your best bet.

So what sort of external hard drive is best for your needs? An external hard drive or SSD (Solid State Drive) is a device that can plug into your machine, giving you an instant boost to storage space, without having to go down the road of pricey computer upgrades.

The other major plus is the portability of an SSD, take it with you and plug it into another device for instant file swapping – handy if you swap between PCs and Macs regularly.

Right now, our pick for best external hard drive for Mac and PC is the Western Digital My Passport 4TB. It offers the perfect balance of speed, reliability, portability and price. But there are many options out there – scroll down to see our full list of recommendations, and the best external hard drive prices too.

External hard drive storage considerations

There are a number of things to consider when looking for an external hard drive or SSD for your Mac or PC. First, is storage. You'll want to make sure you buy an external storage device that has enough capacity for your needs – without paying for high capacities you'll never use.

Around 500GB is a good sweet-spot for external storage, though you can buy smaller capacities, as well as larger ones at 1TB or greater.

Hard drive vs SSD: which is best?

Another consideration is whether to get an external storage device that uses a traditional hard drive, or one with an SSD. Usually, external hard drives with traditional drives are more affordable and come in larger capacities. There are external SSDs that come with large capacities – but these can be expensive.

SSDs are much faster than traditional hard drives, and because they don't have any mechanical or moving parts, they're generally more robust and smaller in physical size as well.

So, if you want to store huge amounts of data while keeping prices low, an external hard drive is the way to go. But if speed is your top priority – for example, if you move a lot of large files, or want to run programs off the drive – then choose an SSD.

External hard drive connections

The connection between the external hard drive and your Mac or PC is also important. The first generation rectangular USB-A ports are slowly being superseded by the newer, smaller reversible USB-C ports. These are now found on all modern PCs, and Macs.

Some high end PC and Macs, such as the new iMac and MacBook Pro, come with USB-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3. This is the fastest external storage connection there is, and it provides very fast data transfer speeds, though Thunderbolt storage is considerably more expensive than plain old USB. If you're in the market for a new laptop, don't miss our post on the best laptops for graphic design.

The best external hard drives: today's deals

Fancy getting your hands on the best external hard drive deals? Here's our pick of the very best deals we've found today:

Seagate 8TB External Hard Drive: ~~£179.99~~ £139.99
Save £40: This brilliant deal sees a decent 23% shaved off the retail price of this powerful Seagate 8TB external hard drive. Perfect for providing extra storage for your ever-growing collection of large files.

Seagate Expansion 4TB External Hard Drive: ~~$139.99~~ $86.68
Save $53.31: This excellent deal from Walmart knocks over $50 off the asking price for this speedy 4TB external hard drive from the experts at Seagate. Its USB 3.0 port is compatible with pretty much any computer, and 4TB is more than enough room for many people.

Best External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc 2017

Best external hard drives and SSDs for Mac and PC

01. Western Digital My Passport 4TB

The overall best external hard drive for Mac or PC

Capacity: 4TB | Interface: USB 3.0

Best External Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

Today's best Western Digital My Passport 4TB deals

Large capacity

WD backup software is basic

When it comes to the best external hard drives, look no further than the Western Digital My Passport range. This is the latest model to have launched, coming in sizes from 1TB to 4TB. It features cloud storage and 256-AES encryption, along with WD's own backup software.

It also offers top data transfer speeds. And while it doesn't quite offer a similar speed to solid state drive devices, the Western Digital My Passport range hits a brilliant balance between high storage capacities and quick file transfers without knocking the price way up.

02. Samsung Portable SSD T5

Capacity: 250GB - 2TB | Interface: USB 3.1 (Gen 2)

Very good performance

Expensive

The Samsung T5 SSD is a great performing storage device, reaching speeds up to 550 MB/sec, making the most of the USB 3.1 specification. It plugs directly into PCs and Macs with either a newer USB-C port or USB-A, is roughly the size of a matchbox and being a flash storage device, contains no moving parts, so can survive being dropped.

External SSDs may cost considerably more than hard disks, but the extra money and faster speeds go a long way. You’ll be able to easily load edit and save 4K video directly on the T5, which can be very slow with a USB hard disk, you can install applications onto it, or even run an entire alternative operating system off it at full speed, if you’re so inclined.

Best Network Hard Drive For Mac And Pc

The downside is the pricing. SSDs give you less capacity for more money, so we don’t recommend the T5 for backup. It’s better to have a bigger hard disk for that and use the T5 in more specialised situations that need all that lovely performance

03. G-Technology G-RAID with Thunderbolt 3

The fastest and largest external hard drive for modern desktop Macs

Capacity: 8TB - 24TB | Interface: Thunderbolt 3, USB 3.1

Easy removal of disks

Best Hard Drive For Both Mac And Pc