I just purchased a 2018 model MacBook Air. I’m not tech savvy and the idea of a built in app to back up my hard drive is appealing. What are the top native Mac external drives (created for OSX and not Windows, I mean) to use with Time Machine? I don’t want to keep photos and videos on my Mac, would prefer to store on the external. I don’t have a huge amount of either. Thank you.
MacBook Air 13", macOS 10.14
Just to expand on kaz-k's answer (which I agree with) many of us aren't fond of the prebuilt external drives found at big box and discount stores. These externals often have poorly shielded cases and cables and there's no telling what the actual drive is. OWC, the vendor kaz-k pointed you to, and Icy Dock are two companies whose external cases I recommend. At OWC you have the choice of purchasing the entire package all ready to use or, as with Icy Dock you can purchase just an enclosure and choose the specific drive you want. Both manufacture's provide instructions on how to put a drive in the enclosure and it is a matter of minutes and a small phillips screw driver to complete.
As far the the drive mechanism, you don't have to look for anything special although I am wary of Western Digital's green drive line. The one important thing though is that you purchase a drive that is large enough. The basic idea is this: look at how much you have to backup and purchase a drive that is at least 3 times larger than that. In other words if your computer has a 1TB drive with 400GB of data on it, you'd want to have a backup drive with at least 1.2TB of space. if you are taking lots of video and digital photos you should consider going with 4 times larger. This will give you at least a year's worth of incremental backups before TM starts to delete older backups.
In addition to the excellent answers here, there's not much to gain by purchasing an SSD. A good rotational drive will do. That's because speed isn't an issue with Time Machine. After the first backup, subsequent backups will be fast and you can continue to work while TM is performing the backup.
Also when you get the drive, even if it is formatted for Mac, it's a good idea to reformat it. That will remove any manufacturer installed software, which is neither necessary or recommended with a Mac.
Hi,
OWC carries good external drives for Mac.
Thank you for your response and the link!
I appreciate your taking the time to expand upon the earlier answer and for spelling this all out for me—exactly what I needed. I feel better equipped now to navigate this purchase.
Thank you much for this additional info. I always get such excellent answers in these forums.
Thank you for your helpful response.
Your welcome. I'm glad you find the forums a good resource.
Best External Drive for Time Machine in 2019
