Mac Studio M2 external SDATA drives?

[Mac4EveryPerson]

Anyone recommend SATA dock stations or hard drive enclosures (ie., multiple drives) that are reliable and compatible with MacOS without issues?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

What is SDATA? Never heard of it. Are you referring to SATA?

 

[Mac4EveryPerson]

What is SDATA? Never heard of it. Are you referring to SATA?

Oh shoot typo on my iPhone… sorry bout that 🫣

 

[Raz0rEdge]

OK, so if you're referring to SATA. The interface is not that, it's really USB-C and the media is either spinning or SSD.

All external drives are compatible with macOS. There's nothing special here. The only thing to watch out for is drives that try to provide "extra" functionality through an app you have to run to add encryption or other BS. Avoid those things like the plague. Whenever I get a device like that, I first format it to basic APFS or HFS (back in the day) and use it.

You will get a lot more helpful answers if you state what you are looking to do with this drive.

 

[Mac4EveryPerson]

OK, so if you're referring to SATA. The interface is not that, it's really USB-C and the media is either spinning or SSD.

All external drives are compatible with macOS. There's nothing special here. The only thing to watch out for is drives that try to provide "extra" functionality through an app you have to run to add encryption or other BS. Avoid those things like the plague. Whenever I get a device like that, I first format it to basic APFS or HFS (back in the day) and use it.

You will get a lot more helpful answers if you state what you are looking to do with this drive.

Hi so just looking to use as backups. Thought i would get An enclosure to house multiple drives. Not sure if that would pose any issues
Thankx for replying back

 

[Randy B. Singer]

Thought i would get An enclosure to house multiple drives. Not sure if that would pose any issues

Those are very common and they work fine on a Macintosh. There are at least a half dozen different brands to choose from.

The most common/popular ones are from Synology:

https://www.synology.com/en-us/dsm/solution/personal_backup

https://www.synology.com/en-us/products

Synology are not the cheapest (not the most expensive either) but most will agree that they are the best. They also offer superb support.

The thing is, if you are simply looking to have one external drive to use as extended storage, and another external drive to have for backups, using something like a Synology is both overkill and it will be over-priced for your needs. You could instead just purchase two of these:

Samsung T7, 1TB external SSD
$67
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0874YJP92

 

[MacInWin]

Hi so just looking to use as backups. Thought i would get An enclosure to house multiple drives. Not sure if that would pose any issues
Thankx for replying back

Just curious, are you talking about a network attached enclosure, to put the drive on your internal network to be available to all of your devices, or are you just looking to put more than one drive into an enclosure to directly attach to the Mac by USB? What enclosure you might consider depends on which you want to do.