Drive Recommendations for Time Machine and more

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Whether you need drives for additional storage or for Time Machine backups, these drives are what I recommend for most people. If you have special needs such as RAID redundancy and Network Area Storage (NAS) then you will probably need a solution that is tailored to your needs. If you don’t know what RAID and NAS are, don’t worry about it; if you need that you’ll know what those terms are.

Time Machine is the backup software included with your Mac and I recommend you use it. That is the primary use for hard drives these days. Most of your important stuff is probably already stored in iCloud if you have it fully configured, but Time Machine backs up absolutely everything on your Mac and protects you from mistakes. If you delete something from your computer or make a change, it’s deleted or changed in iCloud. But Time Machine keeps a history for you to roll back. Installed a system upgrade that failed partway through or screwed everything up? Time Machine can roll your computer back! Did you drop your computer in a lake? Time Machine will restore everything to a new Mac just as it was, including applications, settings, etc.

Time Machine is included with every Mac. All you need to enable it is an external hard drive. There is some confusion because Apple previously sold Time Capsule, which was a dedicated wireless hard drive that could be used with Time Machine. But honestly, wired hard drives are far more reliable so I can’t blame Apple for discontinuing Time Capsule. Any brand hard drive will work but I’ll give you my specific recommendations.

How much capacity do I need?

Generally, I recommend a backup drive that is at least twice as large as the drive of the computer you are backing up. Not the amount of storage you are using, but the entire capacity of the computer as you may fill it up in the future. To find out:

• on macOS 13 Ventura and later: Apple menu > System Settings > General > Storage
• on macOS 12 Monterey and earlier: Apple menu > About this Mac > Storage

I recommend SSD drives. They back up faster, restore faster, are smaller, and are more reliable because they have no moving parts. Probably tens of times less likely to fail and literally about 100 times faster. But sizes over 4 TB can be quite costly. Fortunately, most people need just 1 or 2 TB.

The best drive for most people

What I like about this drive is that the body is rubberized, so when you throw it in a bag with your computer it will not scratch. And Sandisk (now owned by WD) has more experience with SSD manufacturing than just about anyone else.

The Sandisk Extreme Portable v2 drive is available in multiple colors (pick different colors for different household members to avoid mixing them up) and it comes with a USB-C cable for newer computers, as well as a USB-A adapter for older computers. It will work with any Mac (or iPad with USB-C, iPhone 15, or even a PC, though those systems don’t use Time Machine).

• 500 GB Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD v2 model SDSSDE61-500G-G25 is available from Amazon / Sandisk / Best Buy
• 1 TB Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD v2 model SDSSDE61-1T00-G25 is available from Amazon / Sandisk / Best Buy
• 2 TB Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD v2 model SDSSDE61-2T00-G25 is available from Amazon / Sandisk / Best Buy
• 4 TB Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD v2 model SDSSDE61-4T00-G25 is available from Amazon / Sandisk / Best Buy

If you are willing to spend the money, the one 8 TB SSD on the market from a major manufacturer is the $650 Samsung T5 EVO Portable. It will be significantly faster than the below recommendations and be far more reliable, but at almost four times the cost.

Recommendations for larger drives

While I recommend SSD drives because of their speed and reliability, I realize that it can get quite costly to get an SSD drive over 4 TB. For those who really need something huge, you can get a desktop hard drive. These drives cost less per gigabyte, but be aware that they are dramatically less reliable, several times larger, much slower, and require an additional power adapter.

But I know that’s a little out of reach for a lot of people so I recommend the WD My Book. It is available in capacities ranging from 6 to 18 TB. There are capacities listed up to 36 TB, but beware of those “Duo” drives which put two drives in one box. Because there are two drives that act as one, it is twice as likely to fail. If one goes, the whole thing goes. But for those who have exceptional storage needs, it’s an option. The Duo drives alternatively can be configured so that they are redundant, but then you would get half of the advertised storage.

• 6 TB WD My Book (Amazon)
• 8 TB WD My Book (Amazon / Best Buy)
• 12 TB WD My Book (Amazon)
• 14 TB WD My Book (Amazon / Best Buy)
• 16 TB WD My Book (Amazon)
• 18 TB WD My Book (Amazon)

Setting up the drive

These drives often include software on the drive itself, but I recommend not installing this. Apple has fantastic drive software in the Mac already. I really can’t go into the specific steps for configuring the drive for use with Time Machine because there are so many variables based on how the drive was initially formatted, how your computer is currently configured, and what system software you are running. For those of you who are my clients, I recommend booking an appointment and we can walk through setting up a new drive in a matter of minutes.

If you need to reformat your drive the best option for Mac users will almost always be APFS.