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External Thunderbolt 3 SSD seen as USB

E

edco

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 21, 2017
15
1
Hi,

I have a Mac mini (2018) running on 10.14.6. I added an external SSD connected to the mac via Thunderbolt 3 (Thunderbolt 3 to USB-C cable).

The SSD case and cable are from ICY BOX.

When I go into "System Information" I can't find the SSD under thunderbolt. Instead I find it under USB


USB 3.1 Storage Device:
Product ID: 0x0583
Vendor ID: 0x152d (JMicron Technology Corp.)
Version: 2.04
Serial Number: ***
Speed: Up to 10Gb/sec
Manufacturer: JMicron
Location ID: 0x01100000 / 1
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 896
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
Media:
SSD 970 EVO 1B2Q:
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Removable Media: No
BSD Name: disk5
Logical Unit: 0
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
USB Interface: 0
Volumes:
EFI:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
File System: MS-DOS FAT32
BSD Name: disk5s1
Content: EFI
Volume UUID: 0E239BC6-F960-3107-87CF-1C97FXXXB46B
disk5s2:
Capacity: 1 TB (999,995,129,856 bytes)
BSD Name: disk5s2
Content: Apple_APFS


This leads me to the following questions:

1) Why is the disk not recognised as connected to thunderbolt?
2) As it is seen as a USB disk, could it be that TRIM is not activated (would explain the slowness)
3) If the case/cable is the issue, what would you recommend?
4) How can I solve this? ;)

Thanks!
 
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It doesn’t work like that. You would need a thunderbolt enclosure which I’m not sure is sold as a stand-alone. Is there a specific reason you need thunderbolt 3 instead of USB?
 
edco said:
Hi,

I have a Mac mini (2018) running on 10.14.6. I added an external SSD connected to the mac via Thunderbolt 3 (Thunderbolt 3 to USB-C cable).

The SSD case and cable are from ICY BOX.

When I go into "System Information" I can't find the SSD under thunderbolt. Instead I find it under USB


USB 3.1 Storage Device:
Product ID: 0x0583
Vendor ID: 0x152d (JMicron Technology Corp.)
Version: 2.04
Serial Number: ***
Speed: Up to 10Gb/sec
Manufacturer: JMicron
Location ID: 0x01100000 / 1
Current Available (mA): 500
Current Required (mA): 896
Extra Operating Current (mA): 0
Media:
SSD 970 EVO 1B2Q:
Capacity: 1 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
Removable Media: No
BSD Name: disk5
Logical Unit: 0
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
USB Interface: 0
Volumes:
EFI:
Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
File System: MS-DOS FAT32
BSD Name: disk5s1
Content: EFI
Volume UUID: 0E239BC6-F960-3107-87CF-1C97FXXXB46B
disk5s2:
Capacity: 1 TB (999,995,129,856 bytes)
BSD Name: disk5s2
Content: Apple_APFS


This leads me to the following questions:

1) Why is the disk not recognised as connected to thunderbolt?
2) As it is seen as a USB disk, could it be that TRIM is not activated (would explain the slowness)
3) If the case/cable is the issue, what would you recommend?
4) How can I solve this? ;)

Thanks!
Click to expand...
You have a USB-C enclosure, not a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure. You’d need to get a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure to see the drive as Thunderbolt.
 
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Thank you both for your replies!

@Strelok, I wanted Tunderbolt to make sure I had no bottleneck. I see that my USB 3.1 can reach 5Gb/s (as above) which, If I'm not wrong, is almost six times slower than the theoretical write speed of the SSD.

I am also worried that TRIM is not supported for USB connected drives.


@chrfr, I realised that just as I sent the link. It said Thunderbolt 3 compatible... sigh. I am basically looking for a way to use the full speed of my SSD and make sure TRIM is enabled.


If anyone has had success even finding out if TRIM is enabled, please let me know. My initial post shoes I have no TRIM information in the 'System Information' window and trimenforce has no way of telling me either.
 
edco said:
Thank you both for your replies!

@Strelok, I wanted Tunderbolt to make sure I had no bottleneck. I see that my USB 3.1 can reach 5Gb/s (as above) which, If I'm not wrong, is almost six times slower than the theoretical write speed of the SSD.

I am also worried that TRIM is not supported for USB connected drives.


@chrfr, I realised that just as I sent the link. It said Thunderbolt 3 compatible... sigh. I am basically looking for a way to use the full speed of my SSD and make sure TRIM is enabled.


If anyone has had success even finding out if TRIM is enabled, please let me know. My initial post shoes I have no TRIM information in the 'System Information' window and trimenforce has no way of telling me either.
Click to expand...
Macs don’t do TRIM over USB, so no, you’re not using it with this enclosure.
 
If you're only getting 5gb per second, something is wrong, because a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure should give you reads around 960mbps.

It -might be- the cable you're using. Not all USBc connecting cables will yield full speed. WHICH cable are you using? Is it going to a USBc port?
You want to buy a cable that is specified to support 10gb data transfers.

TRIM is a paper tiger.
Doesn't mean much of anything in real-world usage (at least not in my experience).

There are a very, very few actual thunderbolt3/nvme enclosures "out there".
Those that are tend to be costly.
And they just about ALL run quite HOT.
 
Fishrrman said:
If you're only getting 5gb per second, something is wrong, because a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure should give you reads around 960mbps.
Click to expand...
960 megabits per second (Mbps) is 0.96 gigabits per second. (Gbps) I have no idea what you’re trying to communicate here.
 
Hmmm... okay. I must have added a "0" where I shouldn't have. The theoretical max for USB3.1 gen2 is 1000mbps, I believe (that's 1gbps, right?).

The OP thinks he has a "thunderbolt3" enclosure. He doesn't.

If the OP has a "USB3.1 gen2" enclosure and an nvme drive, he should be getting reads around 950-960mpbs.

But then he said "I see that my USB 3.1 can reach 5Gb/s".
Well... it can't.

OP:
Download the free app "BlackMagic Speed Test", run it on your drive, and report here with the results you get.
 
Fishrrman said:
TRIM is a paper tiger.
Doesn't mean much of anything in real-world usage (at least not in my experience).
Click to expand...
Over time the SSD writes will slow down and it wears out, TRIM can help reduce that. I’ve noticed the difference using SSDs in my macs over last decade between those that were TRIM enabled in the OS and those not. It of course won’t just “go slower” from the start as OP said and won’t impact read speed.
 
Stephen wrote:
"USB3.1G2 is 10Gbit/sec, with an expected max of ~1GByte/sec transfers."

Yes, I know that.
In previous posts here, I reported on a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure I bought with an nvme drive inside.
I got read speeds of 965mbps, using BlackMagic Speed Test.
I posted those results here.

But the OP is all mixed up.
Haven't heard from him in a while.
I asked him to use BlackMagic to report the speeds he's getting -- nothing yet.
 
Last edited:
Fishrrman said:
I got read speeds of 965mbps,
Click to expand...
You keep using the upper/lower case letters incorrectly, and it's very confusing. Mbps is megabits per second, MBps is megabytes per second. You're probably getting 965 megabytes per second from an NVMe drive, not 965 megabits.
 
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