Mac storage improve: Finest, least expensive methods defined

Apple costs a ton for storage upgrades on Macs. Worse, you can not prolong the built-in storage after shopping for the Mac. Fortunately, smarter options exist, so long as you don’t thoughts plugging an exterior disk into your Mac.

Right here’s a breakdown of the perfect methods to increase your Mac’s storage, together with supreme options primarily based on specific wants.

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Simply improve your Mac’s storage

Macs are quick, beautiful, environment friendly … and wildly overpriced in the case of storage. Apple costs a premium to improve your Mac storage (assume $200 simply to double the SSD measurement of an M4 MacBook Professional from 512GB to 1TB). And the corporate affords zero choices to improve later.

Nevertheless, with an excellent exterior storage resolution, you’ll be able to add terabytes of quick, dependable storage to your Mac for lower than Cupertino desires for just a few hundred further gigabytes. In actual fact, in the event you juggle between a number of Macs, this resolution turns into much more engaging, particularly in the event you ceaselessly mess around with giant video recordsdata and paperwork.

Cult of Mac examined the perfect exterior storage options — from budget-friendly arduous drives to blisteringly quick Thunderbolt SSDs — that will help you discover the correct choose primarily based in your private wants, workflow and pockets.

Desk of contents: Simply improve your Mac’s storage

Exterior HDDs: The most affordable means so as to add extra storage

Need lots of storage on a price range for storing your film library and years of pictures? Get an exterior arduous drive if you need probably the most bang in your buck. Most 4TB or 5TB exterior drives retail for between $100 and $120.

The issue with this strategy to upgrading your Mac storage? Exterior arduous drives are gradual. I might solely suggest them for backup and information archiving functions. I exploit a 1TB exterior arduous drive to again up my whole Google Pictures library as soon as a month. Plus, I’ve a Western Digital 4TB exterior arduous disk completely related to my Mac mini for storing all my motion pictures, movies and different content material.

Ideally, I’d suggest selecting an exterior arduous drive with drop safety, reminiscent of these from LaCie. With out that ruggedization, a single unintended drop might put your information at critical danger.

Large capability

LaCie Rugged 5TB Moveable Exterior HDD

This tough little solid-state drive is USB 3.0/2.0 suitable, shock/mud/rain-resistant and designed for Macs and PCs. Is available in orange or grey colours.

Professionals:

• Inexpensive
• Large capability
• Comes with free Adobe software program membership

Cons:

• Not the quickest information switch
• Adobe software program membership is just one month

Exterior USB-C SSDs: Midrange possibility with loads of upsides

A USB-C exterior strong state drive supplies probably the most inexpensive technique to improve your Mac’s storage with out breaking the financial institution. In contrast to exterior arduous drives, the newest SSDs are transportable and simple to hold round. Extra importantly, they’re quick in the case of information switch — actually quick. Most exterior SSDs can attain speeds between 650 MB/s and 850 MB/s. That’s greater than sufficient to run your favourite Mac apps and retailer your ceaselessly accessed information.

I exploit a 1TB Samsung T7 SSD with my Mac mini to edit all my GoPro movies. With solely 512GB of inside storage, my Mac fills up quick, making the exterior drive a lifesaver. Plus, I can plug the SSD into my MacBook Professional and choose up modifying proper the place I left off. Since I don’t edit 6K, 8K or 10-bit movies, this resolution works superb.

I additionally sync my Dropbox and Google Drive folders to this exterior storage, saving house on the Mac mini.

Quick, transportable and inexpensive

One of the best half about these exterior SSDs? They provide a quick, transportable storage resolution on a price range. A 1TB Samsung T9 SSD retails for round $175, with a 2TB mannequin coming in at $215. This mannequin even helps sooner learn/write speeds of as much as 2,000 MB/s, although you’ll be restricted by your Mac’s 10Gbps USB-C port.

Alternatively, contemplate the Samsung T7 SSD. It’s extra inexpensive, with the 2TB mannequin accessible for simply $140. Whereas it’s not as rugged because the T9 and affords barely slower speeds, it nonetheless delivers nice worth for on a regular basis use.

Whereas exterior USB-C SSDs are already transportable, you’ll be able to contemplate the Kingston XS1000 and XS2000 for much more portability.

Try different choices in our purchasing information: Finest exterior SSDs for Mac or iPad in 2024.

Moveable, inexpensive SSD

Samsung T9 Moveable SSD

4.5

The Samsung T9 solid-state drive is sufficiently small and hard sufficient to go virtually anyplace. Join it to your Mac, iPad and even iPhone through its USB-C port to switch information at as much as 10Gb/s. Accessible in a variety of capacities from 1TB to 4TB.

Professionals:

• Small and transportable
• Quick USB-C connectivity
• Works with all of your computer systems

Thunderbolt SSDs and enclosures: The quickest, however priciest, Mac storage improve

Need more room in your Mac with out giving up on efficiency? Contemplate shopping for a Thunderbolt SSD. They use NVMe (quick for “Non-Unstable Reminiscence Specific”) drives and ship learn and write speeds that match your Mac’s inside SSD. In actual fact, in the event you personal an entry-level Mac with 256GB of storage, a Thunderbolt SSD will exceed its speeds. Most Thunderbolt 4 drives sometimes obtain speeds of two,700 MB/s or greater, with some able to reaching peak speeds greater than 5,100 MB/s.

With such speeds, you’ll be able to straight edit 8K RAW, ProRes and different heavy codecs off the exterior Thunderbolt SSD. That’s not it. Newer NVMe drives can hit peak speeds of greater than 7 GB/s, saturating the Thunderbolt 4’s 40Gbps bandwidth. In case you need much more velocity and don’t thoughts splurging, get a Thunderbolt 5 enclosure with one of many newer NVMe drives from Samsung or Western Digital. These can hit insanely excessive 10GB/s speeds.

Thunderbolt 4 drive or NVMe Thunderbolt enclosure?

To attain this type of speedy Mac storage improve, you’ll be able to both purchase an exterior Thunderbolt 4 drive or an NVMe Thunderbolt enclosure. With the latter, you have to purchase an NVMe drive your self. This offers you the pliability to extend the drive’s storage capability later if wanted. Nevertheless, you have to be sure that to purchase an enclosure that particularly says Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4.

Thunderbolt SSDs pack spectacular velocity right into a type issue that’s simply barely bigger than USB-C SSDs. They arrive with a heatsink or different passive cooling resolution for warmth dissipation. Because of USB-C compatibility, Thunderbolt SSDs work with all kinds of PCs. If you plug them right into a non-Thunderbolt USB-C port, their speeds drop to 10Gbps or much less.

Yow will discover high quality Thunderbolt enclosures for between $100 and $120, and a 1TB NVMe drive sometimes prices about $80. Exterior Thunderbolt SSDs sometimes price round $200. This makes them the most costly resolution of the lot, albeit nonetheless cheaper than what Apple desires for a storage improve.

Utilizing an NVMe drive and an exterior enclosure, you’ll be able to bump your Mac’s storage to as a lot as 8TB for much less $1,000. One of the best half? You should purchase one other exterior Thunderbolt SSD to immediately double your Mac’s storage.

OWC Specific 1M2 Moveable NVMe Thunderbolt (USB-C) SSD Enclosure

The OWC Specific 1M2 NVMe Thunderbolt enclosure stands out for delivering real-world speeds of over 3,100MB/s. It really works with a variety of M.2 SSDs in 2230, 2242, and 2280 sizes. It is usually backward suitable with USB-C.

Professionals:

• Aluminum warmth sink for warmth dissipation
• Helps full Thunderbolt 4 speeds with suitable drives
• Two-year guarantee

Cons:

• Not as transportable as exterior USB-C SSDs

In case you want entry to terabytes of superfast storage, get the OWC ThunderBay 4 enclosure. You hand over portability with this resolution, however it provides you with entry to as much as 96TB(!) of storage. The enclosure itself doesn’t include any drives. As an alternative, you have to purchase them individually. The enclosure can home as much as 4 SSDs and ship a sustained velocity of 1,500 MB/s over Thunderbolt.

Extremely succesful

OWC ThunderBay 4 enclosure

This rock-solid enclosure is nice for large video and picture libraries, Time Machine backups, or as a foolproof RAID array. Helps as much as 96TB of storage — sure, that is terabytes — and is tremendous simple to arrange and improve. By no means run out of storage once more.

Professionals:

• Tremendous high-speed Thunderbolt connectivity
• Stable steel development
• Easy setup