Looking to find the best external hard drive for time machine backup on MackBook Pro

AJ_Big_Dog wrote:

Looking to find the best external hard drive for time machine backup on MackBook Pro

There is no best. Your biggest choice is HD vs SSD, and amount of storage.

The important thing is erase/format/initialize any new drive to verify no proprietary software comes pre-installed and the formatting is correct for your Mac.

Do not spend extra on any drive that is marketed as "Mac Ready" or some such. A drive is a drive.

Some options—

Owc/MacSales

Storage Solutions and External Hard Drives for Mac and PC

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/external-storage/portable

SanDisk 1TB Extreme Portable USB 3.1 Type-C External SSD

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1380214-REG/sandisk_sdssde60_1t00_g25_extreme_600_1tb_ssd.html/

-Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/use-external-storage-devices-with-mac-mchl027f1d66/mac

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac

https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/erase-and-reformat-a-storage-device-dskutl14079/20.0/mac/11.0

Hi,

You can use any external drive which has USB-C for backup like following.

https://www.apple.com/us/search/LaCie-2TB-Rugged-USB-C-Portable-Hard-Drive?tab=accessories

Another issue is whether you need to travel with the external drive or not.

If your MBP is primarily used as a desktop computer, then use a desktop-class external drive. Those have reliable 3.5-inch hard drives instead of the less robust 2.5-inch drives used in "mobile" external drive, and most have an independent power supply. That also increases reliability.

An SSD is overkill for any Time Machine backup drive. Once the initial backup completes, the incremental backups are quick and unobtrusive if you have a USB3 enclosure and a quality 7200rpm, 6GB/sec SATA drive inside it.

For our desktop drives, we buy these:

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/ME3NH7T00/

and install WD Black series bare drives ourselves. The install takes five minutes and one screwdriver, and I know what hardware is protecting my valuable data.

There are cheap external drives that go on sale every other weekend at the local office superstore. I avoid them now, wishing I'd figured that out earlier!

A BIG recommendation is do NOT install the software that comes with external drives. It is not needed for Time Machine and ofter causes more problems than it solves.

"Best" is extremely subjective. We've had outstanding performance and longevity from LaCie but others have not. It's always a crap shoot and the best you can do is research user experiences with the brand you are considering as well as actual real world tests and reviews.