Low-Cost USB 3.0 Mac Backup Drive : More affordable than ever, laptop drive prices have become ridiculously cheap and capacities up to 2 Terabytes are now possible in a 2.5" laptop backup drive mechanism. Western-Digital continues to deliver the #1 best-selling Apple backup drive in it's Passport series which also offers a few red, blue, silver and black color options for those who might want a bit more eye-candy in their backup solution. These days many Apple laptop backup products start around $55 - quite affordable for this must-have Mac accessory.

The transition from USB 2.0 to SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interfaces on newly released storage products has been swift and (unlike ThunderBolt) hasn't added one cent to the cost of manufacturing a drive that's USB3 capable - and still backward compatible with legacy USB 2.0 and even 1.x computers. Although the latency of a mechanical storage device is still a peak performance bottleneck, at least USB 3 offers other technical advantages for less CPU intensive and more efficient bi-directional data transfers, more current to power the drive via USB, and more intelligent power management from a MacBook's usable battery life.

Although Western-Digital, Seagate, LaCie and others offer 'Mac-Specific' models of external backup drives for Apple users, usually they're priced at a $10-or-more premium when all you really need to do when you get the drive is simply reformat it from Windows to Mac OSX. That can be done with Apple's Disk Utility in less than 1 minute to make it optimal for Mac file transfers and data backups.

For some other Apple desktop and MacBook external USB 3.0 backup drive options visit mac-backup-drives.com for a sampling of Mac compatible data storage solutions.