There’s also a larger dual-drive model, called the My Cloud Home Duo, which houses two matching drives and offers considerably more storage. The slimline white-and-silver unit is neatly designed, and only measures 2in wide, so it’ll sit easily on your desk or on a shelf close to your router without taking up too much space. It comes with a range of storage allocations 8TB should be more than enough for most homes, as well as small offices and self-employed users. However, you’re probably better off getting the newer My Cloud Home model shown here, which is a little more expensive, but is faster and provides additional features such as support for the Plex Media Server software (although that’s probably not a must-have for Mac users). The original single-drive My Cloud is getting a bit old now, but it’s still around and extremely affordable. You’re spoilt for choice when it comes to Western Digital’s My Cloud range, with several models available for home users and small businesses, as well as a number of Expert and Pro models for larger organisations. If you’d like more advice about what to look for in a good NAS drive, such as the amount of storage you’ll need and the features to look for, jump down to our buying advice. So, in this article we round up the best NAS drives for a Mac owner.

Using a NAS to your files means you aren’t reliant on a good internet connection, you don’t need to upload your data to an external service, and you don’t (generally) have to pay a monthly subscription. With the advent of home working meaning fewer people are confined to the office, lots are turning to cloud storage for collaboration, but there are downsides to this, not least the fact that typical cloud storage solutions are not really suitable for backing up (iCloud doesn’t work with Time Machine for example). A NAS drive is a good solution if you are looking for a shared storage solution for a team of people in an office, or if you are looking for a way to keep your Mac backed up without needing to leave it plugged into a drive. The third kind of storage is a NAS (network-attached storage).

Mac external drives info