Need Portable Hard Drive That Will Work With High Sierra

Hi All,

New member who knows nothing about computers here. I have a MacBook Pro and recently purchased a Toshiba external hard drive to perform back-ups on my machine. When I couldnt get the drive to work I called Toshiba and they said none of their external drives will work with High Sierra. I contacted Apple and of course they only recommended their drives so I wanted to see if there were recommendations for a budget external drive that will sync-up to High Sierra?

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance!

Welcome to Mac-Forums.

Any hard drive that is accessible through USB (the most common method) will work with a Mac and High Sierra (HS). When Toshiba claimed that they don't support HS, they meant the stupid software that a lot of these manufacturers put on top of their devices doesn't work with MacOS or HS specifically, likely only windows. You absolutely do not need any of that extra software, but some of the drives won't even function until that software is running.

Ideally you just want a "dumb" enclosure that holds your external drive (spinning or SSD) to have it work with your MBP without anything getting in the way.

If you go for a drive that pretends to be a NAS or Cloud storage or any fancy stuff, that usually brings along software that might prevent the drive from working. But if you focus your search purely on a drive, that'll work great.

Ashwin

As the OP has already purchased the Toshiba EHD (Storage capacity unknown), would it be reasonable to advise re-formatting the drive to OS X Extended (Journaled)? It's quite likely formatted for Windows?

Ian

IWT said:

Ashwin

As the OP has already purchased the Toshiba EHD (Storage capacity unknown), would it be reasonable to advise re-formatting the drive to OS X Extended (Journaled)? It's quite likely formatted for Windows?

Ian

Click to expand...

It was formatted for MAC and Toshiba support tried to walk me through a reformat, but HS was having none of it. Toshiba knows its a problem and said that they "can't keep up with the MAC OS updates." They were very helpful and refunded my money for the drive. So now I need some recommendations for manufactures whose drives may work.

Ian,

This is a similar problem to some Samsung USB Flash drives that when plugged in use the Windows auto-start functionality to run an application that gives you access to the flash drive. The drive, physically/hardware wise, should work, but the software becomes a gate to accessing it. You will run into this problem with any USB flash drive that has "security" features built into it. You just want a dumb drive to do what you need.

The Toshiba external drive might fall into a similar category is my guess. Also, Toshiba's response is odd since they should be able to write software that works on Yosemite at least and it would work fine on most OS' after that. The only thing they'd have to do with HS and beyond is ensure that their app is 64-bit compliant (in most cases, just a recompile).

Obviously Toshiba doesn't care enough about KoobCAM and other Mac users to make their drives work.

I have found that many manufacturers print the apple finder logo on their packaging indicating that it's macOS compatible.
Still you may need to use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the Volume. That is the item in the sidebar below the name of the device.
This will need to be named and formatted Mac OS Extended (Journalled) unless you wish to transfer data from a Mac to a Windows PC (or vice versa) in which case FAT32 or Ex-Fat can be used.

I can recommend Samsung T5 SSDs - I've got two and both work absolutely fine with High Sierra. They are way faster than old style hard drives.

If you want a more traditional spinning external hard drive, then again I can recommend WD My Passport drives. I have several, all running fine with HS.

I'll second Nick's recommendation here that unless you are totally cash strapped, going with SSD (internal or external) is the best thing.

Raz0rEdge said:

I'll second Nick's recommendation here that unless you are totally cash strapped, going with SSD (internal or external) is the best thing.

Click to expand...

Thanks for all the recommendations. I just order an external SSD, will let y'all know how it works out.

I have a Seagate portable hard drive which has seen me through several OS updates including High Sierra.

I also have spinning disk 512Gb Seagate and WD My Passport devices but my longest surviving drive is a 256Gb Transcend. Over 8 years old now.

Good news the Samsung T5 worked like a charm. Thanks to all for your suggestions, I'm backed-up!

nickyr said:

I can recommend Samsung T5 SSDs - I've got two and both work absolutely fine with High Sierra. They are way faster than old style hard drives.
… … …

Click to expand...

I wonder what was wrong with this unit the fellow was having trouble with???

Samsung T5 (500gb) not detected on MacBook Pro (2017)
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8389165

Do they really have some security software installed??




- Patrick
======

pm-r said:

I wonder what was wrong with this unit the fellow was having trouble with???

Samsung T5 (500gb) not detected on MacBook Pro (2017)
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8389165

Do they really have some security software installed??




- Patrick
======

Click to expand...

no idea
both mine worked straight out the box with no need to install any drivers

Most will. No real need to reformat even if they are DOS and you wont see the security programs built in because the Mac can't read them but the total memory will reflect that there is something else on the drive. If its used for Time Machine then that choice will erase and reformat the drive automatically.

Mac can't read them but the total memory will reflect that there is something else on the drive.

Click to expand...

I't easier, at least IMHO, to Enable Disk Utility's Debug Menu. That gives an option to see ALL partitions and sizes using Disk Utility.app.

For directions, see:
Enable Disk Utility's Debug Menu
https://www.lifewire.com/enable-disk-utilities-debug-menu-2260807

PS: BTW, I haven't come across "DOS format" for years!!!





- Patrick
======

Nice try Patrick, except:

Debug for OS X Yosemite and Earlier

With the release of OS X El Capitan, Apple finally decided to remove support for Disk Utilities hidden debug menu.
This means the Terminal commands outline below will only work for versions of OS X Yosemite and earlier.

;D

Over the last 7 or so years i have used WD drives for all my macs, both internal and external and have had great service out of all of them. At present i have a Macbook Pro that i use 2 of the small external USB drives as storage. One is used as extra storage for programs and backup and one is used to hold my mp3 library. Both are formatted in the mac extended format and both have worked flawless for the last couple of years. They give the Macbook and extra 2T of storage.

Oh ya, i guess i should mention i am not running Sierra any more now i am running Beta 8 of Mojave, but they also ran fine when i was running High Sierra also. I highly recommend WD drives, but also am a great fan of the SSD's also as i have 3 of those running in my 2009 MacPro desktop.

chscag said:

Nice try Patrick, except:

Debug for OS X Yosemite and Earlier

With the release of OS X El Capitan, Apple finally decided to remove support for Disk Utilities hidden debug menu.
This means the Terminal commands outline below will only work for versions of OS X Yosemite and earlier.

;D

Click to expand...

Interesting and thanks Charlie, but I guess I'm not surprised that Apple would remove the feature from Disk Utility.app itself, yet it can be enabled via Terminal it seems:

Use Terminal for OS X El Capitan and Later
Viewing hidden disk partitions can still be performed in OS X El Capitan or later, you just need to use the Terminal app instead of the Disk Utility app. To view a complete list of drive partitions do the following:

Launch Terminal, located at /Applications/Utilities.
In the Terminal window, enter the following at the command prompt:
diskutil list
Then press enter or return.
Terminal will display all of the partitions currently connected to your Mac.
That's all there is to enabling or disabling the Disk Utility Debug menu. Go ahead and see what features are available under the Debug Menu, you will probably find the Show every partition item and the Force update of disk list item the most useful.

Click to expand...

https://www.lifewire.com/enable-disk-utilities-debug-menu-2260807

I'm sure I have it as such on my El Cap'n 2007 MBPro but it's not handy to check at the moment.

But not as convenient or handy as the old method, that's for sure.



- Patrick
======

As you pointed out the "diskutil list" command in terminal still works to show all partitions but not graphically. That command has always existed so really nothing new there. It would have been nice if Apple had kept the enhanced version of Disk Utility available, however, I can see their concern with the newer APFS format being more complex.