The versatile built-in multimedia players - Video Station, Photo Station, and Audio Station, each of which having a companion mobile app - make it effortlessly easy to access and view your media files. While offering typical NAS options, it's also a versatile home media hub that's able to stream images and video to computers and mobile devices, as well as Apple TV. Synology has a reputation for producing top quality NAS devices, and the DiskStation DS218play is a great option for amateur photographers.

NAS drives are also loaded with a simple computer operating system, allowing you to browse their file contents, view photos and videos, all from a remote location. But unlike a normal external hard drive, a NAS drive adds a network connection, so it can be linked via your internet router to your home network and the web. It allows your entire photo and video collection to be stored in one physical location in your home or studio, just like a conventional external hard drive. However, if you want to use them with Time Machine, they'll need to be reformatted, but it's a simple procedure.Ī NAS (Network Attached Storage) drive is essentially an external hard drive on steroids. It's slower on paper, but will operate at similar speeds to the Extreme Pro when connected to a USB 3.2 port.Īlso bear in mind that both these drives will be pre-formatted to work with both Windows and Mac. If you're using an older Intel-powered Mac, then we'd recommend the cheaper SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD V2 (non 'Pro') as a portable option. That means this SSD can still unleash its maximum speed potential of up to 2000MB/s, really putting the 'extreme' in Extreme Pro!Ĭapacities range from 500GB to 2TB, which isn't all that much by today's standards, but the payoff is that this is one of the very fastest external hard drives for an M1 Mac. This is linked to your Mac via the short-lived USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 connection - the USB generation that directly preceded the current USB 4 standard - but the USB 4 ports on an M1 Mac are backward compatible with USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. Although strictly speaking a portable hard drive rather than a device that lives on your desk, there's no reason why it can't be used in place of a bigger external desktop hard drive.Īnd while most external drives use older, slower mechanical hard disk drives to store your data, the Extreme Pro Portable SSD V2 is based around a blazing fast NVMe SSD. Sadly, buying a hard drive that can utilise this tech is currently almost impossible, but this SanDisk drive is the next best thing.

If you're rocking one of the latest M1 MacBooks or iMacs, you're able to connect a hard drive using the latest Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 interface.

The best external drive for mac