This is why with Apple Mac's you go with ThunderBolt standard external drives. This is why like you I also purchase the highest ThunderBolt cable I can because it is backward compatible with USB devices. Before ThunderBolt 5 it was the Cable Matters [Intel Certified] 40Gbps Active Thunderbolt 4 Cable 6.6 ft with 100W Charging and 8K Video - Fully Compatible with USB C/USB-C, USB 4 / USB4, and Thunderbolt 3. So if I need to purchase new cables it will now be the Cable Matters ThunderBolt 5 version.
It's not just with Mac. It's because the 20Gbps USB (3.2 Gen 2x2) Bridge from those external SSD and 40Gbps USB (4.0) port are not fully compatible. So when you plug 20Gbps-capable external SSD to 40Gbps-capable USB port, it will fall back to 10Gbps speed, which is theoretically 1250MB/s. The actual speed is then lower due to data overhead.
Great video. I'm not worried about speed, I just want it to work. I use External HDD and SSD;s. As long as I can play my videos from the external drives, I'm good.
Clickbait title. Slower than the maximum advertised speeds does not mean the Mac doesn't like these drives. Yes, the maximum USB 3.2 gen 2 speed isn't achievable on a Mac because that protocol is not supported. Go with Thunderbolt if you need all the speed out of your external ssd. That being said, all these drives work perfectly well on any recent Mac.
@@rorobeckley My late 2012 Intel Mac Mini LOVES my Crucial 4TB SSD drive. But I do agree that with the new M-chip Macs, Thunderbolt is the way to go, and I will adapt to it when I eventually upgrade my computer.
@@rorobeckley If you say a Mac doesn't like something it implies it doesn't work properly. There are no issues with data corruption/data loss nor unexpected unmounting of the drive. The drives work great. Still clickbait.
I see where you’re coming from but still disagree. I’ve used these drives in a professional setting for years and work just fine. But them being limited to half of their potential is fundamentally wild 🤷🏽♂️
I just ordered a Mac Mini M4 & a 4tb drive + a thunderbolt 4 enclosure. I was planning on just buying a mid-range drive with speeds near what my setup will be capable of until I started reading about all of the potential issues with different drives & peoples experiences. In the end, I decided to go with a higher end drive that due to it's compatibility.
It was one of the biggest mistakes of the entire Computer Industry to fail with the “new” USB Standards naming. So chaotic with all the changes, so confusing with all the Name additiona and Generation numbers etc. The customers are confused and unsure.
I bought the Prograde USB4 CFexpress card reader and Prograde 1TB cards. The Prograde cards were very fast in that reader, but my Sony cards were painfully slow. When I tried the Prograde reader with an OWC TB4 cable the Sony cards were fast (though slower than the Prograde), and the Prograde cards worked at full speed as well. Naturally I ditched the Prograde cable, but I'm surprised Prograde shipped their product with such an obvious defect.
Bought a Sandisk for my M1 Macbook Air not realizing that they came with just one cable that was usb-c to usb-a. So tried different usb-c to usb-c cables, none worked. Tried a hub, it was very slow and when tried to format it to APFS I would get an error message. Returned it and bought a Samsung T7 Shield, which has both cables, and worked just fine.
thanks Royce,, you did a great job. I haven’t seen anyone address the issue of speed like you have, especially telling us about the bottleneck offered by what is on our Macs. I think I have almost all those SSD’s you have shown. Yes, important little piece of info to help, if possible mark your cables, so you know what they go with. Especially your thunderbolt cables. btw, not all of these cables that you can buy, ie from Amazon etc, have markings , bold markings to indicate Thunderbolt Logo, and which Gen, and from what Manufacturer.. Sure would be nice feature offered when buying these cables. Good to consistently look at reviews of these TB cables.
What a great explanation! I received my M4 Mac mini 2 weeks ago and am still looking for a good external SSD solution that takes advantage of the Thunderbolt 4 ports. The info out there is still a bit confusing but this video here is clear and sheds a lot of light unto to USB 3.2 issue with the Mac, the cables to use and the advertised speed. Great job, man! Subscribing now!
I've watched several videos around this topic and the answer is Thunderbolt. I have P3 NVMe SSDs but only get 900 Mbps on a cheap Orico enclosure. The crazy thing is that I have an old Windows desktop with two NVMe slots and I get full 3,500 Mbps on the NVMe drives in it - and that's for free. Apple could just add standard NVMe slots for storage and you could buy 4 TB for $250 and get screaming speeds. The thing is that a good Thunderbolt external enclosure runs about $200 and you might even have power and heating issues. I'm considering moving my NAS from my Mac Studio to my Windows desktop because it provides full speed of the drive and cooling isn't an issue as my system has a lot of large, slow fans and the system runs cool and quiet.
The key modern drives that macs dont like are usb-4 /thunderbolt drives that switch between usb and thunderbolt. These occasipnally require unplug replug to benefit from the faster thunderbolt conection. The handshake needs to be just right. Some thunderbolt 4 drives actually run slow because they have dock chips, not drive chips and only provide one channel of pcie. Thunderbolt3. Is best not pluged into a hub.
Lots of misinformation in this video. Macs do support USB 3.2 Gen 2 which is 10Gbps. I believe what Royce is referring to is dual lane or USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 which is 20Gbps. Keep in mind that Macs do support faster speeds through Thunderbolt 3/4 which is 40Gbps. The latest TB5 is 120Gbps.
I agree. Some of these drives that Mac "doesn't like" are good for TimeMachine in which a low cost is important, high speed doesn't really matter if you back up at midnight every day, or cases in which having no back-up is the alternative. If you do not have enough internal space in your device, and you need to actually run apps on an external SSD drive, then this has to be considered a separate topic. Please stop the alarm.
@@pan6593 it’s not an issue though. You have 10Gbps for compatibility and if you want max speed, you’d go for Thunderbolt anyway. None of this middle of the road BS.
Great video. My Crucial 2 TB and 4 TB drives also unmount when my Macbook Pro Max is in sleep mode and the error Message ‘drive not ejected properly’ appears after waking it up an hour later. This doesn’t happen with my Samsung and SanDisk 2 TB drives, they all get only about half of their advertised speeds on the Mac as you show in the video
wow thanks for the video you just helped me solve my issue with drive speeds just ordered my sabbrent thunderbolt 3 enclosure for 40$ on amazon, this is my first new Mac ( base m4 ) and other than storage space I really like it so far . I am running a xbox seagate 5TB star field edition formatted apfs as my Time Machine drive purely because the usb gen 3.2 is painfully slow at about 40 Mb/s and I'm running a sandisk 256 Gb dual drive usb c gen 3.2 that reports about 80 Mb/s . I just don't understand why these are running so flipping slow for such fast drives .
Wow, I can forget about buying any 2000m/s portable SSD because I nearly bought one last week! I have been wondering if I need an external Thunderbolt 3 SSD. Thanks to your info, Thunderbolt has become the only option for me.
The big problem with the new faster speeds are that many dont relize the CABLE makes a huge difference on what your max speed will be! Theres a reason the cable sellers have speed ratings on the web sites. Always make sure you use the high speed cable that came with the srive or one that is sold rated at the higher speeds.
I learned of this a few years when I bought a new M1 mini. So I got the cheaper and larger San Disk on sale at Costco. I was not alone and they sold out fast. That model was also orange and black but had that same smaller hole in it. I guess to help differentiate them, they are now green and black. Back then, the faster Thunderbolt drives were too costly and I did not need the speed. I have not looked but, I imagine, they still cost the most. The implication in the video, but not mentioned? is that this drive type issue still remains the case Apple…
Great job! YES! USB is inherently ambiguous. And wow!, even on the m4mini they only support 3.1?.... ouch. Gee (intel), I guess I'll have to up my docking options.... Go big, or go home. Adam Savage dissected a Apple TB cable, revealing lots of tiny chips and circuits... s'pensive stuff, but great performance (=saving TIME).
USB as a whole has always been like this to be honest. You’ll get the peak speed for a short time, but when the drive gets a bit warm it’ll throttle down tremendously. As for Macs, you’ll get fast speeds but not the peak when it comes to their USB protocols. Thunderbolt is what professionals should still stick to when on Macs to get the maximum performance. Plus, the Mac ports do support the max bandwidth. But the controller of the SSD is what makes the difference in taking advantage of it.
I have all of those drives and they work just fine for me, I edit 4K video no problem off them with a Mac Studio Max M2. Thunderbolt 4 driver are just too expensive still. I am going to build my SSD which might be faster than the standard Sandisk Extremes but still plenty enough. Good video though.
Yes this was the first test I tried back when I first learned about this. But the thunderbolt cable doesn’t affect speeds because the drives themselves don’t support thunderbolt so it rolls back to usb 3.2
And just looking at the animosity in these comments, this just illustrates the confusion that the manufacturers cause when they aren’t clear about the products they’re peddling served up without the full facts which results in misinformation.
Apple was slow to incorporate the faster protocols but try these same SSDs on the newer models and you’ll see some blazing results. Make sure you’re connected with some 40Gb/s cables as that’s often the bottleneck
Whoa, this is excellent info, thank you! I'm a longtime mac user and could not figure out why some of the drives I've puchased, especially over the past few years, don't work as advertised. It also took me some time to figure out that cabling had to be rated to a codec equivalent to that of the devices you intend to connect. I now probably have enough cable to reach from here to Mars - no rocket required. Anyway, I'm so glad I just stumbled upon your channel, and I look forward to more of your videos. Cheers!
That's why I choose NAS :D. I'm limited to 10Gbps, but at least I have 50TB of storage :D. I can upgrade to 25Gbps, but I do not need it for my 250Mbps codec. But other than that ... very useful info. Thx.
That could help on a case basis. I’ve experienced some drives get a slight bump but I’ve also experienced some drives slowing down after doing so. Always worth testing.
This is a great video that taught me a subtlety that I wasn’t aware of regarding usb3.2. I have been tearing my hair out trying to figure out what combination of ssd, cable and enclosure to use for a new m4 Mac mini and now with this info I can eliminate a whole category of products reducing my chance of making the wrong purchase. Why on Earth it’s not generally made clearer that macs don’t support usb 3.2 is beyond me
Those drives are ok though. Because It's the folks who economize with a base 256 GB hard drive on their macs. People who really need speed for work would have gotten 1 TB macs and bought the faster thunderbolt external drives.
For the most part this is true but there are those who may have to choose between getting less internal storage vs a thunderbolt drive and still need speed for work.
They'll definitely work. But they won't get the speed they expected. I know two people who got the 256GB option and then went with external. It's their first Mac for one. This has the potential to hurt the brand. When a drive works faster on a Windows PC the end user is going to think it's Apple's fault. I'd argue, it is. Of course consumers need to be informed, but Apple stuff is just supposed to work, and work well.
Macs support usb 3.2 at 10 gbps. The thunderbolt 4 ports on mac and on pc don't support usb 3.2 at 20 gbps. For some unknown reason, intel did not build support for the usb3.2 20 gbps mode on its thunderbolt 4 controllers. Asmedia usb4 host controllers support the usb3.2 20 gbps mode. And someone needs to test apple's thunderbolt 5 solution to see if they finally added support for usb3.2 gen 2x2. But if you get a usb4 enclosure like the owc express 1m2, you get 3500 MB/sec on the new m4 Macintosh. So don't even waste your time time with other usb3.2 20 gbps drives, it's not worth it.
@rorobeckley no idea if changing my external Ssd's to Apple APFS had any play in it but my Samsung T7's get close to the 1,050 Read & the 1,000 write I also have a Samsung 970Evo Plus in an acasis Thunderbolt 4 enclosure getting close to 2,000/2,558 Read/Write. I expect varying degrees of results for everyone.
That definitely can help and is technically recommended if the drive will only be used on Mac. But I’ve also seen where the speeds drop after doing this so it can be a toss up. As for the speeds I agree they are theoretical to a point but the numbers can’t be drastically off and with no USB3.2 support that is unfortunately the case.
Simply not true. Sorry. A few years ago I had my iMac (late 2011) and my MacBook Pro (mid 2012) updated to 8GB memory and 1 TB resp. 500 GB SDD. Done by a competent and certified Apple lab. The result? Both more than fast enough for each and every programme I use (mostly photography ans music - not professionally, though). Because the iMac can't run all programmes any more because of the obsolete macOS, I have ordered a new one (M4, 24GB, 1TB). But this is, as stated, not because of a lack of speed!
Not exactly clickbait there is a lot for people to learn here… these companies don’t explain nor advertise this and capitalize off it. F apple as always….
Correct they do support USB4 I never said they didn’t. I’m only referring to them not supporting USB 3.2 which is correct. When I show system settings in the video it displays Thunderbolt 4/USB4
Yes the problem with that explanation is it will cause more confusion for Mac users as the Mac labels them as USB 3.1. So part of the larger issue is the out of control naming of each iteration. It shouldn’t have to be as confusing as it is.
This is why with Apple Mac's you go with ThunderBolt standard external drives. This is why like you I also purchase the highest ThunderBolt cable I can because it is backward compatible with USB devices. Before ThunderBolt 5 it was the Cable Matters [Intel Certified] 40Gbps Active Thunderbolt 4 Cable 6.6 ft with 100W Charging and 8K Video - Fully Compatible with USB C/USB-C, USB 4 / USB4, and Thunderbolt 3.
So if I need to purchase new cables it will now be the Cable Matters ThunderBolt 5 version.
It's not just with Mac. It's because the 20Gbps USB (3.2 Gen 2x2) Bridge from those external SSD and 40Gbps USB (4.0) port are not fully compatible. So when you plug 20Gbps-capable external SSD to 40Gbps-capable USB port, it will fall back to 10Gbps speed, which is theoretically 1250MB/s. The actual speed is then lower due to data overhead.
I’m a Mac newbie so I’m very thankful for all your honest advices. 😊 Thank you and have a happy and healthy year. 😊
Thank you. This video has saved me money as I'm not looking at the more expensive advertised speed SSD anymore.
This just helped me decide which ssd i shouldn't go for. Thanks, mate!
Great video. I'm not worried about speed, I just want it to work. I use External HDD and SSD;s. As long as I can play my videos from the external drives, I'm good.
Clickbait title. Slower than the maximum advertised speeds does not mean the Mac doesn't like these drives. Yes, the maximum USB 3.2 gen 2 speed isn't achievable on a Mac because that protocol is not supported. Go with Thunderbolt if you need all the speed out of your external ssd. That being said, all these drives work perfectly well on any recent Mac.
Yes but their main selling point is not supported so I would disagree with the click bait. Macs may tolerate them but they clearly don’t like them…
This is not clickbait.
@@rorobeckley My late 2012 Intel Mac Mini LOVES my Crucial 4TB SSD drive. But I do agree that with the new M-chip Macs, Thunderbolt is the way to go, and I will adapt to it when I eventually upgrade my computer.
@@rorobeckley If you say a Mac doesn't like something it implies it doesn't work properly. There are no issues with data corruption/data loss nor unexpected unmounting of the drive. The drives work great. Still clickbait.
I see where you’re coming from but still disagree. I’ve used these drives in a professional setting for years and work just fine. But them being limited to half of their potential is fundamentally wild 🤷🏽♂️
I just ordered a Mac Mini M4 & a 4tb drive + a thunderbolt 4 enclosure. I was planning on just buying a mid-range drive with speeds near what my setup will be capable of until I started reading about all of the potential issues with different drives & peoples experiences. In the end, I decided to go with a higher end drive that due to it's compatibility.
I think what you meant was USB3.2 Gen 2*2, that’s the 20gbps protocol. USB3.2 Gen2=USB3.1 Gen 2, and USB3.2 Gen 1=USB3.1 Gen 1=USB 3.0, damn USBIF!
Haha yes! But man that’s a crazy thing to try and explain 😖
It was one of the biggest mistakes of the entire Computer Industry to fail with the “new” USB Standards naming. So chaotic with all the changes, so confusing with all the Name additiona and Generation numbers etc.
The customers are confused and unsure.
I bought the Prograde USB4 CFexpress card reader and Prograde 1TB cards. The Prograde cards were very fast in that reader, but my Sony cards were painfully slow. When I tried the Prograde reader with an OWC TB4 cable the Sony cards were fast (though slower than the Prograde), and the Prograde cards worked at full speed as well. Naturally I ditched the Prograde cable, but I'm surprised Prograde shipped their product with such an obvious defect.
Bought a Sandisk for my M1 Macbook Air not realizing that they came with just one cable that was usb-c to usb-a. So tried different usb-c to usb-c cables, none worked. Tried a hub, it was very slow and when tried to format it to APFS I would get an error message. Returned it and bought a Samsung T7 Shield, which has both cables, and worked just fine.
thanks Royce,, you did a great job. I haven’t seen anyone address the issue of speed like you have, especially telling us about the bottleneck offered by what is on our Macs. I think I have almost all those SSD’s you have shown. Yes, important little piece of info to help, if possible mark your cables, so you know what they go with. Especially your thunderbolt cables. btw, not all of these cables that you can buy, ie from Amazon etc, have markings , bold markings to indicate Thunderbolt Logo, and which Gen, and from what Manufacturer.. Sure would be nice feature offered when buying these cables. Good to consistently look at reviews of these TB cables.
Glad you enjoyed the video and thanks for sharing that tip! I really need to start marking my cables as well!
What a great explanation! I received my M4 Mac mini 2 weeks ago and am still looking for a good external SSD solution that takes advantage of the Thunderbolt 4 ports. The info out there is still a bit confusing but this video here is clear and sheds a lot of light unto to USB 3.2 issue with the Mac, the cables to use and the advertised speed. Great job, man! Subscribing now!
Awesome glad the video helped and thank you for the sub!
Really useful video especially easy for non tech oldie who just treated herself to new Mac mini for Christmas
Glad it was helpful and congrats on the new Mac mini!
I've watched several videos around this topic and the answer is Thunderbolt. I have P3 NVMe SSDs but only get 900 Mbps on a cheap Orico enclosure. The crazy thing is that I have an old Windows desktop with two NVMe slots and I get full 3,500 Mbps on the NVMe drives in it - and that's for free. Apple could just add standard NVMe slots for storage and you could buy 4 TB for $250 and get screaming speeds. The thing is that a good Thunderbolt external enclosure runs about $200 and you might even have power and heating issues. I'm considering moving my NAS from my Mac Studio to my Windows desktop because it provides full speed of the drive and cooling isn't an issue as my system has a lot of large, slow fans and the system runs cool and quiet.
The key modern drives that macs dont like are usb-4 /thunderbolt drives that switch between usb and thunderbolt.
These occasipnally require unplug replug to benefit from the faster thunderbolt conection.
The handshake needs to be just right.
Some thunderbolt 4 drives actually run slow because they have dock chips, not drive chips and only provide one channel of pcie.
Thunderbolt3. Is best not pluged into a hub.
Lots of misinformation in this video. Macs do support USB 3.2 Gen 2 which is 10Gbps. I believe what Royce is referring to is dual lane or USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 which is 20Gbps. Keep in mind that Macs do support faster speeds through Thunderbolt 3/4 which is 40Gbps. The latest TB5 is 120Gbps.
I agree. Some of these drives that Mac "doesn't like" are good for TimeMachine in which a low cost is important, high speed doesn't really matter if you back up at midnight every day, or cases in which having no back-up is the alternative. If you do not have enough internal space in your device, and you need to actually run apps on an external SSD drive, then this has to be considered a separate topic. Please stop the alarm.
That‘s exactly the issue.
@@pan6593 it’s not an issue though. You have 10Gbps for compatibility and if you want max speed, you’d go for Thunderbolt anyway. None of this middle of the road BS.
Great video. My Crucial 2 TB and 4 TB drives also unmount when my Macbook Pro Max is in sleep mode and the error Message ‘drive not ejected properly’ appears after waking it up an hour later. This doesn’t happen with my Samsung and SanDisk 2 TB drives, they all get only about half of their advertised speeds on the Mac as you show in the video
wow thanks for the video you just helped me solve my issue with drive speeds just ordered my sabbrent thunderbolt 3 enclosure for 40$ on amazon, this is my first new Mac ( base m4 ) and other than storage space I really like it so far . I am running a xbox seagate 5TB star field edition formatted apfs as my Time Machine drive purely because the usb gen 3.2 is painfully slow at about 40 Mb/s and I'm running a sandisk 256 Gb dual drive usb c gen 3.2 that reports about 80 Mb/s . I just don't understand why these are running so flipping slow for such fast drives .
Wow, I can forget about buying any 2000m/s portable SSD because I nearly bought one last week!
I have been wondering if I need an external Thunderbolt 3 SSD. Thanks to your info, Thunderbolt has become the only option for me.
Very helpful video with some fantastic content. Will definitely be taking the recommendation.
The big problem with the new faster speeds are that many dont relize the CABLE makes a huge difference on what your max speed will be! Theres a reason the cable sellers have speed ratings on the web sites. Always make sure you use the high speed cable that came with the srive or one that is sold rated at the higher speeds.
Agreed!
Thanks for the tip on using the about this Mac to help see what interface is being used.
No problem! It’s an overlooked feature for sure.
I learned of this a few years when I bought a new M1 mini. So I got the cheaper and larger San Disk on sale at Costco. I was not alone and they sold out fast. That model was also orange and black but had that same smaller hole in it. I guess to help differentiate them, they are now green and black. Back then, the faster Thunderbolt drives were too costly and I did not need the speed. I have not looked but, I imagine, they still cost the most.
The implication in the video, but not mentioned? is that this drive type issue still remains the case
Apple…
Brand new subscriber here! I really like the way you present your stuff!
Appreciate it! Glad you enjoyed the video!
Subed, merry xmas and yeah I get it and its what I like about youtube! You find something out and this is the platform to share that wisdom!
Great job! YES! USB is inherently ambiguous. And wow!, even on the m4mini they only support 3.1?.... ouch. Gee (intel), I guess I'll have to up my docking options.... Go big, or go home. Adam Savage dissected a Apple TB cable, revealing lots of tiny chips and circuits... s'pensive stuff, but great performance (=saving TIME).
USB as a whole has always been like this to be honest. You’ll get the peak speed for a short time, but when the drive gets a bit warm it’ll throttle down tremendously. As for Macs, you’ll get fast speeds but not the peak when it comes to their USB protocols. Thunderbolt is what professionals should still stick to when on Macs to get the maximum performance. Plus, the Mac ports do support the max bandwidth. But the controller of the SSD is what makes the difference in taking advantage of it.
Thanks Royce for all the information on drives and cables - Learned a lot - Liked and subscribed
Glad to help and appreciate the support!
Very useful, thx for sharing
I have all of those drives and they work just fine for me, I edit 4K video no problem off them with a Mac Studio Max M2. Thunderbolt 4 driver are just too expensive still. I am going to build my SSD which might be faster than the standard Sandisk Extremes but still plenty enough. Good video though.
Excellent info, thanks.
No problem!
Last time I checked, USB 3.2 gen 2x2 available only on some desktop PC. Windows laptops does not support gen 2x2 either.
Good to know. Thanks!
Have you tested them with a different cable,? A thunderbolt cable for example.
Yes this was the first test I tried back when I first learned about this. But the thunderbolt cable doesn’t affect speeds because the drives themselves don’t support thunderbolt so it rolls back to usb 3.2
Just built thunderbolt ssd with thunderbolt enclosure
@@ahmadafnan3756 Which case and which cable do you use? Would you recommend it to buy them?
And just looking at the animosity in these comments, this just illustrates the confusion that the manufacturers cause when they aren’t clear about the products they’re peddling served up without the full facts which results in misinformation.
Good video - clear explanation 👍😊
Glad it was helpful!
Apple was slow to incorporate the faster protocols but try these same SSDs on the newer models and you’ll see some blazing results. Make sure you’re connected with some 40Gb/s cables as that’s often the bottleneck
Whoa, this is excellent info, thank you! I'm a longtime mac user and could not figure out why some of the drives I've puchased, especially over the past few years, don't work as advertised. It also took me some time to figure out that cabling had to be rated to a codec equivalent to that of the devices you intend to connect. I now probably have enough cable to reach from here to Mars - no rocket required. Anyway, I'm so glad I just stumbled upon your channel, and I look forward to more of your videos. Cheers!
very useful. Thanks
Thanks for a great video explanation.
No problem, glad it was helpful!
That's why I choose NAS :D. I'm limited to 10Gbps, but at least I have 50TB of storage :D. I can upgrade to 25Gbps, but I do not need it for my 250Mbps codec.
But other than that ... very useful info. Thx.
Don’t get the Crucial X10 Pro, get the X9 Pro and save some money.
They will be slow also unless you have 512 sod on the Mac. The 256 standard is a bottle neck for Mac’s.
You are 100 % correct, I've learned this the hard way.
Thunderbolt all in one drives are extortionate..double the price. Maybe a thunderbolt enclosure + SSD would be the best option.
Helpful, thanks!
Glad it was helpful!
Great, useful vid. Small tip… Please process your audio to even out the volume. Volume of your voice was kinda all over the place. 👍
Build your own external SSD and your Mac will love it!
Get a cheaper drive that caps out at 1000MB/sec anyway or go thunderbolt is the solution
How about reformatting those drives for APFS (Apple File system)? Would that help?
That could help on a case basis. I’ve experienced some drives get a slight bump but I’ve also experienced some drives slowing down after doing so. Always worth testing.
This is a great video that taught me a subtlety that I wasn’t aware of regarding usb3.2. I have been tearing my hair out trying to figure out what combination of ssd, cable and enclosure to use for a new m4 Mac mini and now with this info I can eliminate a whole category of products reducing my chance of making the wrong purchase. Why on Earth it’s not generally made clearer that macs don’t support usb 3.2 is beyond me
Those drives are ok though. Because It's the folks who economize with a base 256 GB hard drive on their macs. People who really need speed for work would have gotten 1 TB macs and bought the faster thunderbolt external drives.
For the most part this is true but there are those who may have to choose between getting less internal storage vs a thunderbolt drive and still need speed for work.
They'll definitely work. But they won't get the speed they expected. I know two people who got the 256GB option and then went with external. It's their first Mac for one. This has the potential to hurt the brand.
When a drive works faster on a Windows PC the end user is going to think it's Apple's fault. I'd argue, it is. Of course consumers need to be informed, but Apple stuff is just supposed to work, and work well.
Well reported and explained. It helps me to choose the right device for my music workstation.
Glad you found it helpful!
Macs support usb 3.2 at 10 gbps. The thunderbolt 4 ports on mac and on pc don't support usb 3.2 at 20 gbps. For some unknown reason, intel did not build support for the usb3.2 20 gbps mode on its thunderbolt 4 controllers. Asmedia usb4 host controllers support the usb3.2 20 gbps mode. And someone needs to test apple's thunderbolt 5 solution to see if they finally added support for usb3.2 gen 2x2.
But if you get a usb4 enclosure like the owc express 1m2, you get 3500 MB/sec on the new m4 Macintosh. So don't even waste your time time with other usb3.2 20 gbps drives, it's not worth it.
Superb video! Helpful information, factual, well presented ... nice dry sense of humour as well.
Much appreciated!
Welp no ish sherlock the Read/Write Speeds are Theoretical but they Go very very very close.. Whether on windows or Mac
But the problem is they weren’t close…
@rorobeckley no idea if changing my external Ssd's to Apple APFS had any play in it but my Samsung T7's get close to the 1,050 Read & the 1,000 write I also have a Samsung 970Evo Plus in an acasis Thunderbolt 4 enclosure getting close to 2,000/2,558 Read/Write.
I expect varying degrees of results for everyone.
@rorobeckley regarding the speeds it's like a known secret that they're Theoretical but I guess staring that would suck for marketing 😂
That definitely can help and is technically recommended if the drive will only be used on Mac. But I’ve also seen where the speeds drop after doing this so it can be a toss up. As for the speeds I agree they are theoretical to a point but the numbers can’t be drastically off and with no USB3.2 support that is unfortunately the case.
All these drives work perfectly well for me and have done so for as long as I have been using them with both intel and M1/M2 Macs!!!
So using them with both Macs prevent the loss of transfer speed?
Really useful video, thanks for sharing this!
Glad I could help!
What a bunch of trolls in these comments. That was great video. Very informative. Thanks!
Appreciate it! The trolls keep the engagement up so can’t complain lol
My M4 Mac Mini has USB 4 ports, so…..
Simply not true. Sorry. A few years ago I had my iMac (late 2011) and my MacBook Pro (mid 2012) updated to 8GB memory and 1 TB resp. 500 GB SDD. Done by a competent and certified Apple lab. The result? Both more than fast enough for each and every programme I use (mostly photography ans music - not professionally, though). Because the iMac can't run all programmes any more because of the obsolete macOS, I have ordered a new one (M4, 24GB, 1TB). But this is, as stated, not because of a lack of speed!
Not exactly clickbait there is a lot for people to learn here… these companies don’t explain nor advertise this and capitalize off it.
F apple as always….
The Mac Mini Pro has USB4 so saying Mac’s only support USB3 and not 3.2 is not correct.
Correct they do support USB4 I never said they didn’t. I’m only referring to them not supporting USB 3.2 which is correct. When I show system settings in the video it displays Thunderbolt 4/USB4
Yes the problem with that explanation is it will cause more confusion for Mac users as the Mac labels them as USB 3.1. So part of the larger issue is the out of control naming of each iteration. It shouldn’t have to be as confusing as it is.