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hard disk

Which external disk?

Overall summary of a year’s testing external hard disks and SSDs ranging in cost from $50 to more than $200 per TB. Which is best?

November 23, 2022 Macs, Technology

Which are more reliable: hard disks or SSDs?

Two reasons for paying more and using SSDs are that they’re faster and more reliable. Data on failure and reliability don’t appear as clear as the ads, though.

June 2, 2022 Macs, Technology

Does a faster external SSD help M1 Macs boot faster?

With the right enclosure, a Samsung 980 PRO NVMe SSD delivers transfer speeds of around 2.8 GB/s. Does that make booting from it any faster, compared with an SSD at half the speed?

May 25, 2022 Macs, Technology

How much free space does an APFS disk need?

It depends whether you’re going to boot macOS from it, on the space required for snapshots, and how large they could become. And there’s more.

May 18, 2022 Macs, Technology

How hard disks get slower as they fill up

File data stored towards the periphery of the disk is read and written nearly twice as fast as that near the centre. How to take advantage of this.

May 17, 2022 Macs, Technology

Should you continue using HFS+?

Which is faster with a hard disk: using APFS or sticking with HFS+? Are there any differences in their performance on SSDs?

May 16, 2022 Macs, Technology

Which SSDs can you boot your M1 Mac from? Do hard disks work too?

Which of the external disks tested can be used to boot from? Do they work reliably with Secure Boot? Could you boot from an external hard disk?

April 29, 2022 Macs, Technology

Which external storage?

Internal or external? Hard disk or SSD? USB or Thunderbolt? Cooled or compact? Branded or separates? An external boot disk? Do you have a return and refund option?

April 21, 2022 Macs, Technology

Last Week on My Mac: Why M1 Macs don’t have full support for USB-C

M1 Macs don’t support SMART monitoring over USB-C, forcing us to choose between Full Security without SMART, or Reduced Security with SMART support.

April 10, 2022 Macs, Technology

Explainer: defragmentation

Not long ago, many of us paid for software which tied our Macs up for hours every month or so, defragmenting their hard disks. Why, and why not now?

November 20, 2021 Macs, Technology

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