Can anyone recommend a good USB flash drive for a MacBook Pro?

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Level 1

59 points

Can anyone recommend a good USB flash drive for a MacBook Pro?

I've just set up a new late-2015 13" retina MacBook Pro and want to find a good 128 GB+ flash drive for quick backups while looking around for an external hard drive to use with SuperDuper or Time Machine.

I'm especially interested in: (1) A flash drive that is pre-formatted for a late-model Mac OS X platform. (Couldn't find this out from what I saw on Amazon.) (2) I believe the current MacBook Pro has USB 3.0 but there still seem to be a lot of 2.0 USB flash drives around. Has anyone found a good 3.0 Mac-compatible flash drive in the 128- or 200 GB size? (3) If you happen to have one, it would be swell to find a drive skinny enough to fit comfortably into a MacBook USB port even when something is next to it.

Thanks--any suggestions greatly appreciated!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), 13" early 2015

Posted on Jun 17, 2016 8:59 PM

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Answer 1

Jun 18, 2016 8:01 AM in response to Turtlewiz

Any brand name USB3 flash drive will work. You will need to format it for your Mac computer. This is a simple process.http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/04/format-an-external-hard-drive-or-usb-flash-drive- for-mac-os-x/

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Answer 2

OGELTHORPE

Level 9

57,329 points

Jun 18, 2016 2:49 AM in response to Turtlewiz

You are not likely to find any USB drives that come formatted for Mac. You will have to format them yourself as kaz-k suggests via Disk Utility.

USB3 should be much faster than USB2, so select one of those. I use Sandisk USB drives with no problems to date, the largest capacity being 128 GB.

If you cannot find a USB drive of a physical size that meets your needs, there are extension cables that will allow you to connect to a USB port that may be next to an occupied port. A Hub is another option to overcome that issue.

Ciao.

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Answer 3

philcool

Level 1

93 points

Jun 18, 2016 3:03 AM in response to Turtlewiz

hello! it's better to go to apple store so they can help you with what you need! and it's always better to buy sure product than a copy one! there's a lot of copy products over the web! so it's better not to waste money and go to apple store! you can visit their website if you want to buy online or go to apple store near you

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Answer 4

Jun 18, 2016 5:52 AM in response to Turtlewiz

I cannot really help with the FLASH drive idea as I've never used one for that. For TM or clones, I use Thunderbolt drives with my new 15" MBP Retina. I got a G-drive 4TB partitioned with 3TB for Time Machine and 1TB for a CCC clone, and then a 1TB bus-powered drive for a redundant backup as a CCC clone. Much better performance than USB 3.0, although one caveat about the 3 and 4 TB desktop G-Drives that Apple sells is they are not the quietest external drives you could get (but the G-drive enclosures with their big heat sink do run quite cool).

I've used a partitioned drive with CCC and TM like that for years - easy file recovery with the TM volume, but in the event of a need for a complete system recovery or just an external bootable device for some reason, a bootable clone on the one regularly used drive just makes life simpler IMO.

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Answer 5

Jun 18, 2016 12:07 PM in response to Turtlewiz

With Time Machine (or super duper or CCC), a thunderbolt drive is as simple to use as any USB drive. The G-Drives Apple sells are actually both Thunderbolt 2.0 and USB 3, and they ship with both cables. Just use one of your Thunderbolt ports instead of USB, but otherwise, you set up the drive in TM (or partition to use with super duper or CCC) just as you would any external drive. But while USB 3.0 is up to 5gbps, your Thunderbolt 2 ports are up to 20gbps.

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