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I'm writing a book and need to connect an external hard drive to my 2017, 27inch iMac to backup my work. It says I have a Thunderbolt drive but I've never attempted to use it. Does it still work and what kind of connector do I need to use it? And, what kind of hard drive do you recommend?
iMac 27″ 5K, macOS 12.0
First, everyone should have a back up drive which is used to completely back up the hard disk's data. Any good, functioning drive should do. Thunderbolt drives are faster than other drives and also are more expensive to purchase. I would assume that the drive came with its own Thunderbolt cable. That should be plugged into the Thunderbolt port on your Mac. If you do not have a cable, then you can get one on (for example) Apple's web site which has good illustrations of the cable connecters. Get one that has the appropriate connecters on each end to match the ports that it will be plugged into. You may have to format the drive to work with whatever operating system you have installed. As to your question about whether the drive still works, only you can answer that. Plug it in and see if it works. If not, there are plenty of reasonably priced non-Thunderbird drives available which will serve you just fine. Most of them are compact, come with vendor provided USB cables and do not require external power.
First, everyone should have a back up drive which is used to completely back up the hard disk's data. Any good, functioning drive should do. Thunderbolt drives are faster than other drives and also are more expensive to purchase. I would assume that the drive came with its own Thunderbolt cable. That should be plugged into the Thunderbolt port on your Mac. If you do not have a cable, then you can get one on (for example) Apple's web site which has good illustrations of the cable connecters. Get one that has the appropriate connecters on each end to match the ports that it will be plugged into. You may have to format the drive to work with whatever operating system you have installed. As to your question about whether the drive still works, only you can answer that. Plug it in and see if it works. If not, there are plenty of reasonably priced non-Thunderbird drives available which will serve you just fine. Most of them are compact, come with vendor provided USB cables and do not require external power.
In addition please refer to Back up your Mac with Time Machine. Operating any computer without a backup plan is shortsighted and a 100% guarantee of losing data. Do not be cheap and use cheap "Walmart Specials" EHDs, buy quality products. Why, because the enclosures used by these type of drives (WD, Toshiba, Seagate) do not provide adequate cooling and have a high failure rate. Use quality drives which only cost a few dollars more and they will be cheaper in the longer run. Something like a OWC Mercury Elite Pro
How to connect an external hard drive to my 2017, 27 inch iMac
