Best USB-C Hard Drives for Mac in 2019

The G-Drive by G-Technology is a great USB-C hard drive for most people. It has 1TB of storage and features a quick drive speed of 7200RPM, with transfer rates of up to 136MB/s, thanks to USB 3.1. It comes in silver, as well as Apple-exclusive colours: gold, rose gold, and space grey.

Samsung's T5 SSD is a solid-state drive that provides way faster transfer rates than physical hard drives. Solid-state drives don't have moving parts, so if you happen to drop this one, there's less to break! SSDs are more expensive, but with this one, you get write speeds of up 540MB/s, which is over three times faster than many hard drives. If you like to store TV shows and movies on your hard drive, consider a solid-state drive!

The Glyph Blackbox Plus is a rugged, portable hard drive that can keep up with you wherever you go. It's surrounded in rubber to protect from drops and has enough capacity for all your backups and then some. You get write speeds of up to 140MB/s from just 5400RPM, as well as a 3-year warranty in case anything goes wrong. It also features fan-free heat dissipation, so it's nice and quiet.

With read and write speeds of up to 2,800MB/s and 2,300MB/s respectively, this portable drive is perfect for videographers. It's designed for rendering and compiling high res photos and videos with up to 40Gb/s data transfer. It also looks like the Ferrari of external hard drives.

LaCie is widely recommended for Apple users (they even sell LaCie products on Apple's site!) The Porsche Design external hard drive is a great-looking solution to your USB-C needs. The mobile version comes in 2TB, while the desktop version is available with 4TB of storage. If you have older devices you'd like to use as well, this hard drive is also compatible with USB 3.0 ports.

SanDisk's Extreme 900 SSD is a powerhouse solid-state drive that offers up to nine times the transfer speeds of external hard drives. It's made of durable aluminium and rubber, and the solid-state core is shock-proof. So, this is far less likely to die on you should you drop it (compared to hard drives).

With a low price for 1TB, G-Technology's G-Drive SSD is one of the more versatile solid-state drives on the market, and it comes recommended by Apple itself. You'll get transfer rates of up to 560MBps, and it comes with both a USB-C to USB-C and a USB-C to USB-A cable.

The LaCie Rugged of yesteryear got me through my entire post-secondary education, and now that there's a USB-C option, it'll help get you (and maybe even your children!) through school or work with reliability and that fast connection. The body is rubberized to help it stand up to daily wear and tear, and 2TB should be more than enough for all of your files, documents, Final Cut projects, and much more. There's a 2-year warranty on these, which includes data recovery services.

CalDigit's Tuff hard drives are rugged, colourful 2TB drives that offer USB-C connectivity and there's even a USB-C to USB-A cable for backward compatibility. With an IP57 rating, these drives are water-resistant in three feet of water for up to 30 minutes. They're dust-resistant, so you can take yours with you anywhere knowing that your data is safe from the elements.

You may know SanDisk for its SD cards, but its hard drives are excellent as well. This solid-state drive is smaller than the average smartphone and has a hole in it so that you can clip it to a bag. It's shock-resistant and ruggedly designed, so it's perfect for life on the move.

Western Digital makes some of the best hard drives around, and its 4TB USB-C hard drive fits right in with all its other excellent drives. This one has a budget price tag and comes in six colours. This hard drive, however, is not inherently a USB-C drive — it's "USB-C ready," so it'll connect to your USB-C ports no problem, though it does not have a USB-C port itself.

For the extreme outdoorsmen and women, this rugged hard drive does more than protect your external hard drive from scratches and breaks. It's watertight, so you can drop it into a pool of water up to one-foot for 30 seconds without anything seeping in. The tethered Thunderbolt cable means you don't have to bring any extra cables, too.