What USB Cable for extended Hard Drive

[MacWannabeNTX]

Pardon this really basic USB cable question but I have never had to buy one before. I have a new (well refurbished) May 2015 Retina 15" Macbook Pro and want to order an extended hard drive for time machine backup. So I need to order a USB cable, please advise me specs of a USB cable to go from my rmbp to an EHD such as 3.0 or 2.0, type A, B or ? and what kind of ends should this cable have on both ends? I am wanting to order from Amazon and their many choices got me confused. I tried researching on the internet and got more confused so I figured you guys had ordered these before.

I have not exactly decided which EHD I will order but I'm thinking a Western Digital 2tb, I have 1tb drive on the mac. I'm hoping to get a Western Digital HD that has a USB 3 port on it. I hope I have even made sense in my questions above, I basically am looking for an exact description of the USB cable that I need to order.

 

[Slydude]

If the drive supports USB 3 then you will need something with ends that look like this one. These are commonly referred to as USB 3 male A to male B. If the drive only supports USB 2 search for USB 2 male A to male B.

 

[chas_m]

EDIT: I unfairly maligned Western Digital due to misremembering, so I've deleted the earlier part of this comment. See post #5, below, for the correction.

You mean "external" not "extended," by the way. That might just be autocorrect talking, though.

Any drive you buy that has USB 3.0 will include a cable, so I don't think you even need to worry about this.

 

[MacWannabeNTX]

Thanks much for the cable specs. Yes, I did mean External! I can get the larger 3tb WD, I thought the WD was an ok brand, is there another that you recommend that is more reliable?

 

[chas_m]

Lemme find the chart from last year:

EDIT: my mistake, it wasn't WD that was the problem child, it was Seagate. Disregard my earlier post, but if you want to see the results:

http://www.macnn.com/articles/15/02...13.2014.put.online.for.analysis.by.backblaze/

Relevant chart: