As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy something through a link on this page, I may get a small commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change what I recommend and it does not change your price.
How to pick
Two things trip people up on a Mac. The first is ports: modern MacBooks have very few, and they are all USB-C, so nearly everyone ends up needing a hub. Buy one from a name you recognise, because cheap USB-C hubs are the single most common cause of a MacBook that will not wake up properly or randomly disconnects a screen. The second is drive formatting. A drive out of the box is usually formatted for Windows, and while a Mac can read it, you want it reformatted to APFS if it is only ever going to be used with the Mac. If you need the drive to work with both a Mac and a Windows machine, format it exFAT instead. On memory and storage inside the machine itself, neither can be changed after you buy on any current Mac, so decide at purchase and buy more than you think you need.
What I recommend
External drive for backups
macOS has a backup system built in called Time Machine and it only needs a drive plugged in to start working. Get one roughly twice the size of your Mac's storage, plug it in, and say yes when it asks. That is genuinely the whole job.
- For
- Time Machine, built into macOS
- Size
- Twice your Mac's storage
- Setup
- Plug in and say yes
- Type
- Spinning is fine for this
USB-C hub for MacBook
Adds HDMI, USB-A and a card reader back to a laptop that only has USB-C. Buy a decent one. Cheap USB-C hubs are behind an enormous share of the MacBook problems I get called about, from screens that drop out to machines that will not sleep properly.
- Adds
- HDMI, USB-A, card reader
- Buy
- A brand you recognise
- Why care
- Cheap hubs cause wake and display faults
- Charging
- Look for pass through
Portable SSD for a Mac
For files you want with you rather than a full backup. Reformat it to APFS if it will only ever be used with the Mac, or exFAT if it also needs to work with a Windows machine. Either takes two minutes in Disk Utility.
- Format APFS
- If Mac only
- Format exFAT
- If shared with Windows
- Speed
- Far quicker than spinning
- Where
- Disk Utility, two minutes
USB-C monitor
A monitor that takes USB-C means one cable carries the picture and charges the laptop at the same time. That is the tidiest setup there is for a MacBook that lives on a desk. Check it supports power delivery of at least 65W.
- One cable
- Picture and charging together
- Power delivery
- 65W or more
- Size
- 27 inch is the sweet spot
- Resolution
- 1440p at that size
Related reading
Moving from Windows to a Mac?
The move is mostly painless if the files come across properly. I do this regularly and nothing gets left behind.