Perhaps, you need to choose an SSD for your 2018 MacBook Air. But, you don’t know which the best USB-C SSDs are for MacBook Air you can choose to use. Some detailed comparisons can help you make a good selection. Read this post to obtain these comparisons and make your own choice.

The 2018 MacBook Air is a kind of solid entry-level laptop, but there is one exception – the paltry 128GB PCIe-based SSD. Don’t worry. There are some external SSD which can be used on these modern Macs.

Now, in this post, we will introduce some best MacBook Air SSDs which are mainly USB 3.1 SSDs.

Every drive mentioned in this post has at least 1TB capacity, can be connected to a Mac via a single USB-C cable directly, supports USB 3.1 gen 2, and be bus-powered and truly portable. And we can say that they are USB-C SSDs for MacBook Air.

All of these mentioned SSDs have a 3-year warranty, and the Seagate and LaCie-branded drives offer a free limited-time Adobe Creative Cloud subscription.

Performance

Performance Ranking:

  • Glyph Atom SSD
  • LaCie Portable SSD / Seagate Fast SSD
  • SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD
  • Samsung T5
  • WD My Passport

All of these SSDs are SATA III drives and they have the similar read/write performance. Glyph Atom SSD, which has the best performance, is better than the worst WD My Passport by 21MB/s read and 13MB/s write.

It means that all of these USB-C SSDs for MacBook Air can perform well and they are all suitable for 4K workflows.

Since the performance of these SSDs is similar, you had better judge them from other factors, like the build quality, portability and price.

Build Quality

Build quality Ranking:

  • Glyph Atom SSD
  • Samsung T5
  • Seagate Fast SSD / LaCie Portable SSD
  • WD My Passport
  • SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD

To be specific, the outer shell of Glyph Atom SSD is composed of dense durable anodized aluminum entirely. And it also includes a rugged protective sleeve.

Then, it is Samsung T5. Its outer shell is also made out of aluminum, but the density is lower.

The next are Seagate Fast SSD and LaCie Portable SSD. They are made of plastic mostly. But they have an aluminum top plate, and the use high quality plastic to maintain the drive under normal usage.

As to WD My Passport, its outer shell is also made up of plastic, but it has a metal-like finish. It weight is light and airy which is not as sturdy as the above mentioned SSDs.

The last one is SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. It comes from the parent company of WD which is the maker the WD My Passport. It is light and portable, but the outer shell is made out of plastic and rubber which means that it is not durable as the other SSDs mentioned in this part.

Activity Lights

Activity light ranking

The LED lights of the SSDs can be annoying when you use it in a dark environment. Except WD My Passport and SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD which omit the lights completely, the rest ones always have this issue.

Among these drives, the bright green light of Glyph Atom SSD is the most annoying one. Then, there are Seagate Fast SSD and LaCie Portable SSD, and both of them have bright white lights.

Samsung T5 is using blue LED light which is hidden behind the end cap. It is not as bright as others.

Portability

Portability ranking

  • Samsung T5
  • WD My Passport
  • SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD
  • Glyph Atom SSD
  • Seagate Fast SSD / LaCie Portable SSD

All of them are small and portable. Besides, they are bus-powered which means that they just need a USB cable to be connected with MacBook Air.

If you care much about the portability of the SSDs, you can consider using Samsung T5, the WD My Passport, or the SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. And Samsung T5 is the shortest one.

Price

Price ranking

  • WD My Passport SSD
  • SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD
  • Samsung T5
  • Seagate Fast SSD
  • LaCie Portable SSD
  • Glyph Atom SSD

As to 1TB SSD, WD My Passport SSD is the cheapest one followed by SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD. Next comes Samsung T5 which is at least less than $200.

LaCie is expensive than Seagate which probably because you need to find the LaCie version only from the manufacture directly.

Glyph Atom SSD is the most expensive one as $300 which is largely caused by its high quality build materials.

After reading these comparisons, you can make your personal decision now.

  • linkedin
  • reddit

About The Author

Stella
Stella

Position: Columnist

Stella has been working in MiniTool Software as an English Editor for more than 8 years. Her articles mainly cover the fields of data recovery including storage media data recovery, phone data recovery, and photo recovery, videos download, partition management, and video & audio format conversions.