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Are there any wireless hard drives to use with a mac?

I need to copy paste files from and to this hard drive, when the disk on my mac is full. Do I need to look for a specific Apple drive or will any network writable drive work for basic file storage?

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Why does it need to be wireless? In general wireless drives work like any other NAS, so any one should work ok. – patrix♦ Jul 27 '12 at 14:37
@patrix Sorry ? I would prefer to not have to connect the cable every time – Patrick Jul 27 '12 at 15:34
Throughput over WLAN is usually slower than over Ethernet, depending on the usage scenarios this might be an issue. – patrix♦ Jul 27 '12 at 15:40

2 Answers

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There are a couple of good options, depending on what you are looking for.

The most obvious option is to use an Apple AirPort WiFi router to provide NAS:

  • The AirPort extreme supports attaching an external USB drive
  • TimeCapsule devices combine WiFi and an internal drive. TimeCapsule is intended to be used for backup with TimeMachine, but you can use all or part of your drive as a mountable volume (just like any NAS solution). TimeCapsules also have a USB port so you can add an external drive if desired.

Many other vendors sell Mac compatible NAS drives, but the reason I'm partial to Apple's drives is that there were driver compatibility issues when OS/X Lion first came out. Apple's drive were and are the most compatible (even if they are not the most cost-effective in $/GB).

If you are looking for a portable solution, you may be out of luck. The portable Wi-Fi drives, which are becoming popular nowadays, are intended as media "servers" for smart phones and tablets; they are read-only over Wi-Fi and require a USB connection to "load" music, movies, etcetera.

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There are a few wireless hard drives that work well with the Mac. The best and most popular is the Apple Time Capsule which is available in a 2TB or a 3TB version.
The Western Digital My Book Live 2 TB Personal Cloud Storage Drive is another good option but it would need to connected to your wireless router.

On this site, there are some good reviews on wireless hard drives to help you out with this issue.

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