Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

lucanicchia

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 28, 2021
2
0
Hello. I have a samsung t7 ssd and a 14" m1 pro MacBook Pro. I want to get the fastest connection in between the 2 devices. I originally bought a usb 3.2 gen 2X2 usb c cable that says supported 20gbps transfer speeds. The connection works on my older 2018 15" MBP. The drive doesn't show up at all (not even on disk utility) on my new 14". I have had ridiculous conversation over iMessage with apple support where they had no idea about what I was talking about and kept showing lack of knowledge about usb standards (which is understandable for a consumer considering the crazy naming of USB versions, but not for a certified technician). They eventually had to reach out to someone else to tell me that the 14" MacBook Pro is not compatible with usb 3.2...
Now my question is... would anyone be able to tell me which is the fastest way of connecting a samsung t7 ssd (a "USB 3.2 Gen2 10 Gbps" device) with the new usb4 MacBook pros?
Any suggestion outside of overpriced apple branded cables would be really appreciated. I also currently don't have the money for a thunderbolt dock and I need to carry the t7 around to a single cable is what I'm looking for.
Thank you!
 
T7 is USB3.1 gen2 (insofar as speed is rated).

Get a USBc cable that is rated for 10GBps.
That's the limit of the t7, anyway.
NOT ALL USBc cables are rated for that, you must be careful when buying.

You probably won't see "working speeds" that high.
I'd expect to see reads in the 850-900MBps range.
 
What's wrong with the cable that came with it? You won't really get much faster than the cable that came with it. Even using TB3/4 cable won't help much. Also, USB-C SSD drives are 10-20% slower on M1 Macs than the Intel Macs unfortunately for whatever reason.
 
My Samsung T5 2TB SSD is rated at 625MB/s speed but in reality it gets around 325MB/s to 360MB/s on my MacBook Air M1 when using a USB-C cable that came with it. It also gets that speed using a USB A cable on my 2014 MacBook Pro 15”. The T7 is a faster SSD, but I wouldn’t expect it to reach anywhere near the maximum speed of 1050MB/s that Samsung lists in the specs. Companies love to list the theoretical speeds, but reality is usually much lower…
 
My Samsung T5 2TB SSD is rated at 625MB/s speed but in reality it gets around 325MB/s to 360MB/s on my MacBook Air M1 when using a USB-C cable that came with it. It also gets that speed using a USB A cable on my 2014 MacBook Pro 15”. The T7 is a faster SSD, but I wouldn’t expect it to reach anywhere near the maximum speed of 1050MB/s that Samsung lists in the specs. Companies love to list the theoretical speeds, but reality is usually much lower…
I have a 1 TB T5 but it's not rated that high and should be similar to 2 TB device. It should be rated in the mid-500's.
BTW, both T5 and SanDisk Extreme SSD writes and reads at max ~450 MB/s on my 14" M1 but only mid 300's on my Mac Mini M1. They used to be ~500 or so on my 2018 Mini.
 
Last edited:
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.