Drive performance does not matter to me here since my backup software is scheduled to run automatically at hours when I am not awake or working at the computer. For my backup system, inexpensive USB external hard drives are just fine. For my backup system, high-speed connectivity do not matter at all. The opposite is true though for the series of external hard drives that I use to protect my work. The read-write speeds that USB drive connections permit are less than ideal for professional-grade daily use for my primary image storage drive. USB does not compare to Thunderbolt in terms of real-world drive performance. Sitting around waiting for this external hard drive to do something is not a productive use of my day. I am willing to spend a lot more for my primary photo storage disk because time is money. For my primary storage, for the drive that holds my Photos Go Here folder, I am willing to spend more for features like a faster rotational speed and Thunderbolt connectivity. For my primary image storage, meaning the copy of my images that I work on everyday with Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic and Adobe Photoshop, drive performance matters. I use external hard drives for two very different purposes. Although any brand or model of external disk will suffice for image storage these devices are not all the same. For Mac users like me, external storage is often the only way to hold an image library that contains thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of digital images.

External hard drives are an inexpensive way to store our digital photos.

Ideal external storage for imac