


Booting from an external USB 2.0 drive, whether a flash/thumb drive or a spinning hard drive, is, however, quite slow. I have not specifically measured drive speeds in this scenario I'm just saying that it performs quite well.Īs far as I know, all Macs with USB have been capable of booting from an external drive connected via USB-all the way back to the first iMac circa 1998, which only made use of USB 1.0. When booting from an external spinning hard drive over USB 3.0 on my new MacBook Pro, the external hard drive sends data back and forth to the Mac about as fast as it would if it were installed internally. I know of no reason why it would not work on a MacBook Air. Whatever your storage needs, here’s something for everyone.Yes, I just got a new Mid-2012 MacBook Pro 13" and did this very thing over USB 3.0. Here’s our pick for the best external hard drives that you can buy right now. The best external hard drives are those which offer ample storage, fast read and write speeds, and are not heavy on the wallet. There are secured drives as well, which are specifically designed to keep your files extremely secure.

Portable hard disks are one of the best ways to store and secure large files that require a lot of storage space and faster read/write speeds.įurther, portable SSDs take the external hard drives up a notch and offer a more durable and a lot faster solution. That’s where external hard drives come into play.

They are comparatively low on read and write speeds and carrying large files could be an issue on these. USB flash drives and microSD memory cards are not always enough to get the work done. External hard drives are an excellent way to protect, secure and save all your files and folder. They bring a backup solution that can be used for carrying your files wherever you go. And the best external hard drives offer an effective way to counter that. At times we are short on inbuilt storage and have to rely on some kind of external backup solution.
