When Apple added the third and faster version of USB to its latest generation of MacBook computers, we were really happy. With the format now likely to appear in all upcoming Macs, Western Digital is releasing new drives to support it.
Badged under the “My Passport for Mac” range, the new drives are portable fit-in-your-hand hard drives running on USB 3.0 for Macs.
Backwards compatible with the more common form of USB, version 2.0, the drives aim to provide storage sizes from 500GB to two terabytes, which is more than most new MacBook Pros can be configured with.
While the drives will work with the older USB 2.0 ports, the higher transfer speeds capable of moving one gig of data in roughly ten seconds will only be offered if your Mac supports the USB 3.0 technology, which will only be the case if you bought a MacBook Pro or Air since June 12 this year.
The new My Passport for Mac drives are also technically compatible with Windows PCs, event the upcoming Windows 8 operating system from Microsoft, but come formatted for Mac OS out of the box, so if you want to use them on a PC, make sure to reformat them.
Western Digital’s new drives will be hitting stores later this week, with the 500GB fetching $119, the 1TB hitting $159, and the 2TB model coming in at $299.
