Finding a future-compatible external drive

stephenfromcolumbia wrote:

How can I find an external drive that will work now through 28 and beyond? Thanks

It depends…

I’m not aware of any version dependencies for direct-attached HDDs, SSDs, or NVMe devices. Not across the past decade or so.

This past details such as adapters and compatibility with then-available storage hardware connections, or just not having enough storage for trends and particularly for usually-increasing future storage usage or performance needs. And when the storage is reformatted to use native formats such as APFS, rather than depending on (for instance) NTFS add-on apps.

Current common external storage connections would be USB-C using USB4, or USB-C using Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 5 for higher-end storage devices.

Storage devices that require apps for managing RAID or such, or for managing storage-based encryption keys, can potentially become unsupported if (when?) the apps become unsupported by the vendor.

I’m not aware of any single, isolated HDD, SSD, or NVMe storage devices that need apps, though vendors like to provide add-ons. Various of which can be unnecessary. Storage arrays that present as just-a-bunch-of-disks should also need no apps, and should have no version compatibility issues.

Other storage devices depends on the device, and your plans.

If you’re looking for Time Machine external network-attached storage (such as to replace Time Capsule), there are options:

• Time Machine and Time Capsule replacement - Apple Community

The NAS boxes that are (or can be) web managed will be expected to still work, while those NAS boxes that are (exclusively) app managed dependent on the availability of those apps.

TL;DR: if the storage device works without needing apps and without needing Rosetta installed, it’s likely to continue to work. And if the storage does need apps, those storage devices with apps that already support Apple silicon will probably still work. But nothing is guaranteed, even Apple.

stephenfromcolumbia wrote:

now through 28 and beyond?

Depends on your timeframe. macOS 28 is expected only about 1 year in the future, so there shouldn't be much of any change in support for peripherals, esp. external drives.

"Now" would be any good quality USB or Thunderbolt drive that supports one or more of the following:

• Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gb/s)
• USB 4 (up to 40Gb/s)
• USB 3.1 Gen 2 aka USB 3.2 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)

"Beyond" would be the above plus whatever new comes along. I don't think you would go wrong with a drive that supports the above standards.

At this point, I would just go for an external drive that has a USB-C cable connection.

I say that, because USB-C is the least likely connection to be changed or dropped in the near future.

True Thunderbolt drives that use the same port configuration are faster, but that speed comes at a higher price.

Over the very long haul, nothing is guaranteed. Apple has been releasing Macs since 1984, and you're not going to have much luck reading

• 400K floppies
• 800K floppies
• HFS ("no +") formatted volumes of any kind
• Drives that attach only using the Apple floppy disk port, SCSI, or FireWire

on any modern Mac.

That said, just about any current drive that connects via USB 3.* (whether USB-A or USB-C), USB4, or Thunderbolt 3 – 5 should be fairly "future-proof" provided that you do not rely on the drive vendor's software … and that you do not use encrypted versions of HFS+ (Mac OS Extended). (Apple plans to remove support for encrypted HFS+, and leave encryption only as an option for APFS.)

Why would you depend on the drive vendor's software?

• Some drives come formatted with NTFS. Out of the box, macOS can read, but not write, NTFS.
• Some drives may support hardware encryption, but require use of the vendor's software to set it up.
• High-end multi-drive units or enclosures may feature support for software-based RAID.

Ways to avoid depending on drive vendor software in the first two cases:

• If a drive comes formatted with NTFS, use Disk Utility to reformat it using a Mac filesystem (APFS, non-encrypted HFS+) or exFAT.
• If you want to use encryption, use encrypted APFS as an alternative to drive-based encryption.

Agree with Carol. There's no "beyond" that can be guaranteed. Over several decades, we've already gone through DB25 Serial and Parallel ports, SCSI, PATA / IDE & Early Docks, eSATA, FireWire, Lightning, Thunderbolt and various USB interfaces.

You can't. Try contacting the drive manufacturers to see what they say. But I doubt you will get more than, "well, it should work."