The Best External Hard Drives and SSDs We’ve Tested for Mac in 2026
The Best External Hard Drives and SSDs We’ve Tested for Mac in 2026
https://uk.pcmag.com/ssds/8059/the-best-external-hard-drives-for-mac
Publish Date: 2026-06-02 16:10:00
Source Domain: uk.pcmag.com
Buying an external hard drive or solid-state drive for your Mac is much like buying one for your Windows PC; most computers of either stripe now have at least one oval USB-C port for drive connections. The main difference? Some drives designed for Macs utilize the pro-focused Thunderbolt interface for extremely fast data transfers. Do you just want to back up using Time Machine or stash an extensive video collection? An inexpensive, non-Thunderbolt drive that isn’t explicitly intended for Macs should suffice. We’ve been testing PC storage for four decades, and for every drive we review, our analysts run standardized benchmark tests measuring speed and program launch times, and assess drives on design, bundled software, cost per gigabyte, and more. Our top general-use external SSD for Macs is Crucial’s X10, but we have plenty of other top-tested picks, plus all the shopping advice you need.
Deeper Dive: Our Top Tested Picks
EDITORS’ NOTE
June 2, 2026: With this update, we replaced the Crucial X9 Pro, which is unavailable, with the Crucial X10 as the Best General-Use External SSD for Mac. The rest of our picks have been vetted for availability and currency. Because of the ongoing memory shortage, many of the SSDs mentioned here are now significantly more expensive than when we reviewed them. Since our last update, we have reviewed seven new storage products for possible inclusion in this and our other storage roundups. We currently have four storage products in PC Labs for evaluation, from Corsair, Seagate, and Orico.
Pros & Cons
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