

- Best external hard drive for macbook air 2016 how to#
- Best external hard drive for macbook air 2016 for mac#
- Best external hard drive for macbook air 2016 software#
- Best external hard drive for macbook air 2016 mac#
So when you’re plugging in a USB C drive into your Mac with USB 3.0 or 2.0 ports. The plug in connections changed between USB 3.0 and USB 3.1. It’s also worth knowing that USB 3.1 is also called USB C. And your older Mac would talk to the faster external hard drive as fast as it could. And that means those speeds are reduced in the real world by 20 to 30%.Īnd that means you could put a USB 3.1 external drive on your Mac with USB 3.0 Mac ports. That means the top speed that your drive could work at.īut. USB VersionĪnd note that the speeds shown in the table are theoretical max speeds. And you’ll see here the options along with their theoretical speeds. So let’s talk a bit about those interfaces. You can buy an external drive in a variety of capacities – storage sizes and with a range of interfaces. Now that’s all cleared up let’s talk options. There’d be no way to do that if your backup was on your internal drive. Then, if the worst happens you can restore your backup.

The right thing to do is to keep your backup separate. Then all your files are gone.Īnd that includes the backup you have on there. If your backup – your insurance policy – is on that same internal drive.Īnd you lose that drive. Your plan in case the worst happens and you lose your Mac’s internal drive. I’ll just backup to my internal hard drive. Let’s take a minute to explain the whole internal versus external thing. Why You Don’t Backup Your Mac To An Internal Drive You can get rid of the ‘About This Mac’ window by clicking on the small red button top left.

You can hover over each one and see what comes up. That mean 113GB is used.Īnd how it’s used is shown by the different colored bars. The Mac has a 250GB internal drive.Īnd 137GB is available. It’s the top right of your desktop screen.Īnd from that menu you pick ‘About This Mac’.
Best external hard drive for macbook air 2016 how to#
How To Find Out How Much Space You’re Using And Need To Backup? And how much of that drive space you’re using. Make a note of the size your Mac’s internal drives.
Best external hard drive for macbook air 2016 for mac#

Best external hard drive for macbook air 2016 software#
There are quantitative results that indicate longevity and a high MTBF, but those mechanical drives are still prone to software and hardware failures whilst the non-mechanical (SSD) drives are prone to software failures. So to synopsize, there aren't any "bests". I've had 3 failures from 8 possible drives over a span of 5 years. Keep in mind that NAS's and associated centralized server appliances are designed to be on 24/7 so the drives outfitted are the WD Reds and the Hitachi NAS Star drives. Those drives are primary and secondary drives and stay on with the system 24/7. Luckily, almost everything is backed up and the backups have backups so I didn't lose much.Īround 2015, I stumbled upon Backblaze's reports and saw that HGST and Toshiba's failure rates were pretty consistent.and low. I don't know what, if any, would have caused such failure rates, but they were high. That ratio almost evened out to 1:1 in 2012-3 as I was losing more Seagate drives in a 1 year period when compared to my WD's. Now as far as my subjective review goes (and this applies to only my experience and no one else's), Seagate prior to the Thailand disaster in 2011 were pretty decent and reliable drives. That being said, Backblaze does annual reports for hard drive failures. All drives will die over time, either by software failure or hardware failure. There's really no "best" when it comes to hard drives.
