Mac Compatible USB 3.0 Flash Drives High-speed USB 3 thumb drives are ideal for smaller files, select backups of mission critical accounting or business data, or for offsite storage. Apple compatible USB flash memory disk drives can be an affordable, compact and simple solution for transferring files Mac to Mac - or Mac to PC. Compact storage to go for easy transfer of photos, data and music, and cross-platform use. Patriot's Ultra-Fast Drive SanDisk's Top Performer Lexar Ultra Hi-Speed Flash Most USB thumb drives come pre-formatted for PC in a FAT file format for out-of-the-box cross-platform PC AND MAC compatibility. But if your needs are strictly Macintosh, re-formatting a thumb drive explicitly for Mac OSX is slightly more efficient and will copy files a bit more quickly.
For most Apple computer users, just plug the flash drive in and it will show up on your Mac's desktop, ready for file copies. USB Flash Drive Speeds Like all types of memory - and Flash memory in particular - not all thumb drives are created equal. How fast do you want to go? How much are you willing to pay? Affects this market because there are premium priced Super-Speed USB 3.0 drives that are significantly faster - especially at Writes - which tend to lag Read speeds. So not all USB thumb drives are created equal.
Fastest USB Flash Drives in 2018 NAND flash memory is now capable of exceeding USB 2 speeds. Forward thinking Mac users may want to consider a SuperSpeed. Enjoy USB 2.0 backward compatibility while being ready for the SuperSpeed+ on Macs that offer built-in USB 3.0 / 3.1 ports. These USB keychain drive are exceeding the theortical limits of USB 2.0 port transfer speeds with Read speeds of up to and over 100MB per second and admittedly slower but faster Write speeds than ever before bringing a significant performance edge over previous generation thumb drives. How To: Format Flash Drive For Mac This is optional: Most drives are aready preformatted in DOS-FAT format for cross-platform use that a Mac can read.
However if you want to prepare it exclusively and optimally for Mac use. Note that Apple has stopped shipping retail OSX DVD disks - or even Apple flash drives with OSX installers with many Mac models.
With OSX Mountain Lion, we're forced to DOWNLOAD OSX from the Apple App Store, and if you're smart you'll create a flash drive with the installer on it to recover your MacBook or Mac desktop in an emergency. + Insert the USB drive and wait for it to appear on the MacOS Desktop. + Go to your Applications folder.
Scroll down to the Utilities Folder (this is nested in Applications) and click it. This will expand the Utilities folder and show it's contents.
Scroll down to 'DISK UTILITY' and double click it. + Select the drive that you wish to manage in Disk Utility. The available drives will be listed in the left hand column. In this case, click on the drive labeled 'USB Flash'. Be careful here: You really need to verify and make sure you have the Flash drive selected - and not another hard drive on your system! + After the flash drive has been selected click on the 'Erase' tab at the top of the screen in Disk Utility. This will open a screen with formatting and naming options for your drive.
Give your USB drive a name by typing it into the field provided, and select 'Mac OS Extended Journaled ' as the Volume Format. Then click the 'Erase' button on the lower right of the screen to begin the formatting process. FYI: If you have an Intel CPU Mac - AND a Flash Drive large enough to hold an OSX install (Ideally 32GB or larger) - you may want to create a BOOTABLE flash drive for emergency startup - and backup as well.
Usb Driver For Mac
In this case it's critical to PARTITION the drive with a GUID Partition Table in the Partition options of Apple's Drive Utility to make it bootable on Intel Macs. Hold OPTION key at startup to allow you to choose when you want to boot from the flash drive. The Fastest USB Flash Drives For Mac. For smaller files, photo, picture and music transfer from one Mac to another or to a PC, USB 3.0 thumb or key-chain flash drives make for easy, convenient, compact and quick file exchange. USB3 flash disks are also ideal for off-site backup and storage of critical business files, accounting data that demands an extra copy of otherwise utterly essential files that deserve getting backed-up twice over - and stored away from the office. For the absolute peak performance with an eye towards the future, ponder a USB 3.0 to enjoy backward compatibility with legacy USB 2.0 ports today - an take advantage of the Super-Speed USB 3.0 ports on modern MacBook, iMac and Mac mini systems.