
- #Portable external hard drives for mac how to
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#Portable external hard drives for mac portable
If you have a SATA-based M.2 drive that you'd like to turn into a portable drive, Silverstone's MS09 enclosure lets you do just that. Dozens of 2.5-inch drive enclosures can be found online for between $10-$25 (£15-25) that will let you drop in an old drive easily, and turn it into an external hard drive or SSD.Īnd if you have an M.2 drive that you've swapped out of a gaming laptop, ultrabook or upgraded away from in your gaming PC, we've recently looked at NVMe enclosures from MyDigitalSSD and Pluggable. Read: 16TB Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q SSD Review Interface ShorthandĪlso note that, if you have a spare drive, you can easily make your own portable drive. But if you can't spend as much and/or you need USB support as well as Thunderbolt, one of the lower-capacity XTRM-Q drives will serve you better. At this price, nothing else compares to the sheer capacity and performance that it provides. But its Intel Optane-like cost of $2,899.99 makes the 16TB Rocket XTRM-Q is not just one of the highest-capacity storage devices we have tested, but also one of the most expensive. While the original XTRM-Q contained one Rocket Q M.2 NVMe SSD within, the new 16TB model has two of them behind a slightly different Thunderbolt 3 bridge, providing a ton of fast flash storage and potentially bus-saturating performance for those who need it. The new variant doubles capacity to 16TB, but it isn’t quite as portable as the 8TB model due to its larger form factor and power requirements. We thought that 8TB of flash storage was niche and extreme enough for most prosumers and enthusiasts when we first reviewed Sabrent’s 8TB Rocket XTRM-Q, but now the company is doubling down and pushing capacity to new limits with its 16TB model.

Sabrent has pushed the boundaries of fast flash and high capacity with its recent SSDs, surpassing the biggest names in the industry. Short 3-year warranty for the price -Slow write speed after write cache fills -Runs warm, but within spec -No USB support
#Portable external hard drives for mac upgrade
So if you opt for that model, you'll have far more drive options, and you could upgrade later to a speedier drive.īest External Hard Drives and Portable SSDs You Can Buy Today Also note that a recent Silverstone Raven SSD enclosure works with both SATA and NVMe drives.

#Portable external hard drives for mac how to
We've detailed how to build your external SSD here.

But with dozens of external drives available, how do you know which is the right external drive to buy? Should you opt for a faster, more rugged (and more expensive) external SSD instead of a portable hard drive made up of comparatively fragile spinning platters? To help you pick the best portable external drive for your needs, we meticulously test and review dozens of drives and publish our list of specific recommendations of the best portable SSDs and hard drives on this page.īut before we get to the picks, there are important things to think about, whether you need a drive for work, school, or home use.
