Best drive options?

When it comes to external storage, Thunderbolt products come at premium cost, typically around twice the price of USB drives. What’s less apparent is the gap in performance; while Thunderbolt 3 SSDs readily exceed 1.5GB/s transfer speeds, and can reach 2.8GB/s, many USB equivalents struggle to reach 1GB/s, and some even fall below half that.

One reason is the confusion of opaque USB 3.x standards, against Thunderbolt’s minimum of two-lane PCIe 3.0, which guarantees at least 1.5GB/s. USB 3.x performance also varies more across different Mac models. Worryingly, some of the slowest are those with Apple’s latest M1 chips, with older Intel Macs often proving faster and more consistent in the face of USB connections.

For reliable speed and consistency, Thunderbolt is worth its premium.