Best External Hard Drive 2TB for Mac
Most years, Apple has been the highest revenue firm in the tech industry. Every person knows a couple of people who are keener on buying Apple products rather than their Android competitors, some because of trust in the company, some for the style and reputation, and some for the performance. However, there is a certain group of people who use Mac devices, and this group tends to be made up of video editors, music producers, and other professionals who work mostly in the entertainment industry. Together with working in the digital entertainment industry comes a need for huge storage spaces to store a lot of video, music, documents, 3-D designs, VR software, etc.
As good as Mac-s are, they are most likely to run out of space quite quickly for someone working in the aforementioned sectors. In that case, they will require a good external hard drive that will be able to store all the surplus information, and that is fast, secure, reliable, and is also compatible with Mac systems. In this article, we wanted to break down some of the best 2 TB devices to extend storage space for people using Macs, and we decided to do that in different categories to make the decision-making process that much easier for all. Read on for the best 2 TB external hard drives for Mac systems!
Best External Hard Drive 2tb for Mac – Overall
In the Overall part of this review, we were looking at all aspects of the devices and how they fare against their competitors, to choose an all-round winner. We didn’t take into consideration devices that excelled in one domain but were weak in others since here the important part is for the device to be well-balanced and rounded. The nature of the review also means that this device should be the best choice for the largest portion of external drive buying customers, but if you aren’t interested in this model, read on and you will definitely find something that suits you.
Our choice for the best 2 TB external hard drive for Mac systems (Overall) is the Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2 TB external HDD. It is a sleek-looking device with a simple, but elegant feel to it. The Backup Plus Slim is also available in 7 different colors (Red, Silver, Light Blue, Space Grey, Black, Gold, Rose Gold), so matching it with your style shouldn’t be a trouble.
One can’t really write a review of external drives and not mention the name Seagate at least once. It is arguably the most widespread tech company that sells external drives; most tech and electronics stores around the world will have a couple of Seagate devices ready to sell. They create some of the most reliable devices with really good value-for-money ratios, which is one of the main reasons they hold a place on all reviews and lists of best drives.
The speed of this device according to the ads is up to 120 Mb/s, which is not a bad speed for an HDD and is sufficient for any everyday tasks one might want to carry out. The Seagate Backup Plus Slim is all-in-all, quite a steal if you take into consideration the decent speed, the massive 2 TB storage space, the exceptional reliability, well-thought-out design, and the price of around 90 USD.
We also decided to test the device out for ourselves in order to be able to back up the company’s claims with our own. Upon arrival, we opened the package and were greeted by the elegant and simple design of the device. We ordered it in red color, which we must say was a really good choice, the color red has a really nice aesthetic next to a computer. The build quality was not one to criticize: for a 90 dollar machine, it was surprisingly well put together. We then connected it to our iMac to test compatibility and speed.
The connection process was simple, we didn’t need to format the device or make any other changes, we just plugged in the external drive, and after a couple of seconds, it was ready to use. We decided to test the speed of this drive as well with the CrystalDiskMark program, and we got back better results than we could’ve hoped for. We had 143 Mb/s read speeds and 129 Mb/s write speeds, which is very good for an HDD. A 1 GB movie will take about 5-7 seconds to transfer, which is more than enough speed for everyday use. We highly recommend the Seagate Backup Plus Slim 2 TB external HDD, since it provides some of the best value for your money and is an exceptionally well-built and fast all-rounder, that will be your trusty companion for possibly years to come. Click here to check it out on Amazon!
Best External Hard Drive 2 TB for Mac – Budget Pick
Our budget pick in the category for best 2 TB hard drive for Mac systems is the WD 2 TB Elements Portable External Hard Drive. It is the best cheaper alternative to the Seagate or other even more high-end devices since regardless of its lower-class rating, it still performs reasonably well.
Western Digital (WD) is a company you can really trust. Aside from Seagate and Toshiba, as mentioned before, WD is the largest name in the industry. These 3 companies make the best and most widely accessible external drives, with WD having a lot of loyal customers just like the other companies. The reason for their loyalty is the absolutely amazing value-for-money this company tried to provide, and the close to 50 years of experience the company holds in the tech sphere.
The WD 2 TB Elements HDD is the epitome of budget products: it costs around 50-65 dollars on Amazon, which is significantly cheaper than the already quite cheap Seagate we talked about before. On the other hand, it certainly doesn’t feel like a 60 dollar device. Though the design is way more simplistic and less elegant than the Seagate or e.g. a Samsung T5, it is still a perfectly acceptable, simplistic one. It doesn’t try to be something it isn’t, which we applaud it for. It is the perfect option for someone who doesn’t really care about good looks or blazing speeds, but would rather like a device which will serve them well and securely store their surplus data. According to WD, this device can handle data at speeds of up to 120 Mb/s, which is a good speed for a budget device.
We tested it as well to see how well it stood its ground in real life. There isn’t much to be said about the design when we opened the packaging, it is a standard-looking, black, simple HDD with nothing fancy but nothing ugly or cheap-looking about it either. It hits the mark for budget devices. Then, we connected it to our iMac and tested the read and write speeds of the WD Elements HDD. For read speeds, we got 101 Mb/s and for write speed, we got 93 Mb/s. It undoubtedly isn’t the fastest one we have tested, but again, this is the budget pick section, and for the price at which this device is available to you, you will struggle to find anything better than this device. It also will be perfectly fast enough to handle everyday tasks. Check it out on Amazon if you are interested!
Other Good External Hard Drives 2tb for Mac
The budget-pick and the overall winner won’t cover the entire spectrum of people who are looking for an external drive, so we decided to make a couple of smaller and more specific categories to help you find exactly the drive you need!
The Fastest External Hard Drive for Mac (2 TB)
For some people, the speed of an external drive is the absolute most important feature by which they evaluate the worth of an external drive. For some people, it is even necessary to own a really fast external drive due to their work requirements or hobbies. In this case, someone who understands the basic difference between HDD-s (Hard Disk Drive) and SSD-s (Solid State Drive) will have probably guessed by now that the winner of this division will have to be a high-quality SSD since even lower-end SSD-s have a speed of multiple times that of a higher-end HDD.
The winner in the category for the fastest external hard drive for Mac devices with 2 TB of space is the Samsung X5 2 TB Portable SSD. It is quite an expensive piece of equipment, listed at 550 dollars on Amazon at the time of writing this article. That figure might make you want to skip this section altogether, but the specs on this thing will make you reconsider that idea for sure.
No more beating around the bush, here we go with the specs and features of the Samsung X5 2 TB SSD, starting with the most important one, the speed. This incredible piece of machinery, according to Samsung, can perform at speeds of up to 2800 Mb/s. That might seem like an unbelievable number because it almost is. For the every-day, moderately tech-savvy person, transfer speeds of half that are already very impressive, let alone the ones this device can produce.
Transferring 500 GB of data takes around 3 to 3 and a half minutes with this device, which is insane speed. The design of the X5 has also been given quite a lot of attention; it has a full metal casing with a non-slip texture on the bottom to provide better grip when holding and carrying around, and a glossy metallic finish on top for style. The X5 comes with a Thunderbolt 3 cable in the packaging which lets you unleash the full potential of the device.
We ordered and tested a Samsung X5 2 TB Portable SSD with our iMac, to be able to confidently recommend it. We already felt on the packaging that we were dealing with a high-end product, and the look and feel of the drive itself just reassured us that it is the case. It looks amazing, so amazing in fact that it should be left out on a table with caution since the likelihood of someone taking a liking for it and stealing it is quite high. However, it is quite unlikely that they could do anything with it, seeing as though the device can be protected with a password and is also hardware encrypted.
After examining the looks and design of the X5 and also reading the manual, we decided to set it up for testing. We connected it to our iMac and it worked immediately. Then came the moments we were all waiting for, the speed testing. We received 2851 Mb/s of reading speed and 2703 Mb/s of write speed as results. It was almost a scary experience after the much, much slower devices we tested. The 10 GB test folder that we use to test transfer speeds as well took about 3-4 seconds to transfer.
We know that the Samsung X5 2 TB SSD is not for everyone, it is expensive and for some people, unnecessarily fast. But if you are a video editor who works with a lot of Raw footage and wants to perhaps real-time edit 8k video directly off of the drive, or you are a music producer with tons of unfinished projects and possibly music videos that need storage space and you need to constantly transfer a lot of data, this device will perform those tasks like no other. It has a couple of competitors on the market, but the legacy of Samsung as one of the world’s most reliable tech brands just gives the extra weight to this device that is necessary to make it the number 1 in its category. Check out this link to Amazon if you are interested!
The Safety Guru – 2 TB SSD for Mac
If you are exceptionally worried about your data’s safety and would like an external drive that will surely fulfill your needs in this regard, the Samsung T7 2 TB SSD is your best bet. Anyone who works in a company or government agency that handles somewhat sensitive information and also needs some extra space to store it on might try to look for the absolute safest choice out there. The Samsung T7 is the best option when it comes to keeping your data safe, mostly because of the built-in fingerprint sensor.
The specs of this device are also remarkable, with the device being able to handle up to 1050 Mb/s transfer speeds according to the official Samsung website. The 2 TB storage is more than enough storage for the large majority of people looking for some extra space, and the speed of this device will allow you to handle that caliber of data with ease. The main safety feature is the built-in fingerprint sensor, which adds a significant layer of security onto the already encrypted and password-protected device. It is also shock-proof and can withstand drops from 1.8 meters.
We, of course, tested the Samsung T7 as well, since we want to avoid ever reviewing a device we haven’t had physical contact with. Upon arrival, we opened the box to find the drive and two cables(USB C to C and USB C to A), along with some manuals. The neat and elegant design was readily apparent as soon as we saw the drive itself, and the feel and texture of the device were in line with our expectations. It is a compact, elegant, and sleek device which we believe would suit a Wall-Street broker the same as it would a 19-year-old gamer. We connected it to our iMac as we did with all other devices to check the speed and functionality of the device and it was exceptional.
Not X5 type of exceptional but fast enough to be called exceptional. On our speed test, we received sequential read speeds of 994 Mb/s and sequential write speeds of 923 Mb/s, which is easily fast enough for any task one might have to do, possibly except real-time 8k video editing. We transferred our 10 GB test folder in just around 10 seconds which didn’t come as a surprise but was still really great to see. 10 GB is around 5 average-sized movies, so transferring that much data in 10 seconds is really satisfying. We also tested the fingerprint sensor which works like a charm, just like modern Samsung smartphones. Having that one extra step of physical security feels great, it makes the device feel just that much more secure, so if you are handling any sensitive or possibly top-secret information, this device will serve you well. Here is a link to Amazon for those interested!
