I have 2 questions, first I need to know which is better for my new MacBook Air, a External hard direct or an SSD. I am only really moving stuff from one Mac to the next.
My next questions is I need to move a great amount of music files from an old PC to either my Mac or an external device of some kind. Which is the best way to go about this?
MacBook Air, macOS 12.5
A HDD is cheaper. You don't really need an SSD for this specific task.
You can re-use the drive for a backup disk on the new Mac once you are done moving things, so buy one with at least twice the storage size of your new MacBook Air.
If you want to do that, an SSD is more durable. If you accidentally drop a HDD while it is running, even from a very low height, it will crash the drive.
If it was a desktop Mac, I would purchase a HDD for the cost benefit. But, for a mobile device, I would get an SSD for the durability.
Regardless, the format of the drive won't matter if moving from PC to Mac. Almost all drives come formatted NTFS (Windows). Your PC can write to it, and your Mac can Read from it.
Once you're done moving things and want to use it with your Mac, you'll need to format the drive for use on your Mac. If only using on your Mac, use APFS with GUID Partition Map. If you want to be able to use with Windows PCs and your Mac, use ExFAT.
A HDD is cheaper. You don't really need an SSD for this specific task.
You can re-use the drive for a backup disk on the new Mac once you are done moving things, so buy one with at least twice the storage size of your new MacBook Air.
If you want to do that, an SSD is more durable. If you accidentally drop a HDD while it is running, even from a very low height, it will crash the drive.
If it was a desktop Mac, I would purchase a HDD for the cost benefit. But, for a mobile device, I would get an SSD for the durability.
Regardless, the format of the drive won't matter if moving from PC to Mac. Almost all drives come formatted NTFS (Windows). Your PC can write to it, and your Mac can Read from it.
Once you're done moving things and want to use it with your Mac, you'll need to format the drive for use on your Mac. If only using on your Mac, use APFS with GUID Partition Map. If you want to be able to use with Windows PCs and your Mac, use ExFAT.
LynnHammond wrote:
My next questions is I need to move a great amount of music files from an old PC to either my Mac or an external device of some kind. Which is the best way to go about this?
If both PC and Mac are on your home network, then you can use some form of network sharing between the 2 devices. Either share your PC disk via Windows sharing and connect that share to your Mac, or share from the Mac and connect your PC to that share. Either way you can then drag and drop files between the 2 computers.
external hard drives vs SSD
