Best external hard drives for Mac 2025: Get a low cost storage boost
Description
It’s not possible to upgrade the storage in Macs, so it’s a good idea to buy an external drive to provide extra storage for all your work files, photos, videos, and games. And, of course, you should always have an external drive available for making Time Machine backups in case anything ever goes wrong.
The best choice for you will depend on how much storage you want and how much you are willing to spend. Solid-state drives (SSDs) are the best option as they’re fast, reliable, and compact. Hard drives on the other hand are slower, but you get a lot more storage for your money. If a SSD sounds like it meets your needs, read Best external SSD for Mac. Otherwise read on to find the best hard drives we have used with our Macs.
Best Hard Drive Deals Available Now!
It’s a great time to buy a hard drive for your Mac. Black Friday week is here and we are already seeing deals on the Hard Drives we’ve reviewed below, including these:
- 19% off WD 5TB My Passport Ultra, Blue, Portable External Hard Drive at Amazon
- 19% off WD 16TB My Book Desktop External Hard Drive at Amazon
- 19% off Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive at Amazon
- 21% off Seagate One Touch 2TB at Amazon UK
- 17% off SanDisk Professional 5TB G-Drive ArmorATD at Amazon UK
- 40% off WD 18TB My Book external hard drive at Amazon UK
- 42% off Seagate FireCuda Gaming Hard Drive 2TB at Amazon UK
For more deals check out the Price Comparisons below. And for the best Apple Deals right now see Best Black Friday Deals on Apple gear.
Best Hard Drive for Mac
Below we rank the best hard drives we have reviewed recently, plus you’ll find general buying advice that explains what you should be looking for.
1. Seagate Expansion Desktop: Smart and fast
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Pros
- Low price per terabyte
- Up to 24TB
Cons
- Requires AC adapter
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You will need to reformat the Mac you will need to reformat the Seagate Expansion Desktop with a Mac. Once complete, the drive should be detected and you will be able to use it as you would any hard drive.
It measures approximately 7-inches long, by 4.9-inches wide, by 1.65-inches thick and weighs around 2.5-pounds and comes in black with plenty of ventilation grating, and diagonal grooves spicing up significantly what would otherwise be a bland countenance. It’s not bad looking.
The Seagate Expansion Desktop is available in a variety of capacities and can provide up to 24TB in a single unit. You won’t get that much storage in an SSD, and even if you could this will cost a lot less than the same allocation in an SSD. Of course, the difference is that an SSD is a lot faster, but our 16TB test unit was a lot faster than you might think. Instead of the usual 120- to 140MBps its smaller 2.5-inch cousins read and write at, the Expansion Desktop managed almost 280MBps.
While it’s not fast compared to an SSD, the Expansion Desktop is workable for streaming and background operations, is far faster than 2.5-inch external HDDs, and you sure as heck can’t beat the capacity.
Read our full
Seagate Expansion Desktop review
United States
