iPad Pro iPad Pro M4 Thunderbolt Transfer Speed

[Macintosh101]

Quick question for anyone who knows. I’m using a Samsung T7 External SSD Drive tomove an 80GB folder onto my M4 iPad Pro’s internal storage (1TB), using a Caldigit Thunderbolt Cable.

When I transfer the same 80GB folder to my M4 MacBook Pro (which has a Thunderbolt 5 connection), it does it in 2 minutes, but using the same external drive and same cable, it takes more like 45 mins to my iPad Pro. My understanding is the the iPad Pro M4 has a thunderbolt 4 connection, so I’d expect it to be much quicker than this.

Any idea what’s going on?

Thanks in advance.

 

[steve123]

iPadOS feature.

Might want to download the Jazz benchmark app and check the transfer rates for the Samsung drive connected to the iPP. There is a TB performance hit with iPadOS when I ran these tests on a TB enclosure with NVMe SSD ... but not as much as you experienced. Are you sure you have a proper cable? Sounds like you are getting USB 2 speed.

 

[sparksd]

Quick question for anyone who knows. I’m using a Samsung T7 External SSD Drive tomove an 80GB folder onto my M4 iPad Pro’s internal storage (1TB), using a Caldigit Thunderbolt Cable.

When I transfer the same 80GB folder to my M4 MacBook Pro (which has a Thunderbolt 5 connection), it does it in 2 minutes, but using the same external drive and same cable, it takes more like 45 mins to my iPad Pro. My understanding is the the iPad Pro M4 has a thunderbolt 4 connection, so I’d expect it to be much quicker than this.

Any idea what’s going on?

Thanks in advance.

Something not right. I just tested copying a 16GB folder (8 videos in it) from my T7 SSD to my M4 13" Pro using the as-delivered cable and it took just around 30 secs.

 

[Macintosh101]

Something not right. I just tested copying a 16GB folder (8 videos in it) from my T7 SSD to my M4 13" Pro using the as-delivered cable and it took just around 30 secs.

Thanks. yes I suspected something was off. I'm running a beta so I wonder if that's causing the issue.

 

[bytefusion]

Are there any results yet with the new iPad Pro M5, which has been available since October 2025? What improvements does iPadOS 26 offer in terms of data transfer between the iPad Pro M5 and the MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 5 ports?

 

[Digitalguy]

I made a test copying a big 14GB+ file from a TB4 enclosure with a 980pro to:
- my Macbook air M3: 16 seconds
- my M1 iPad pro 2TB on iPadOS 26: it said it was ready after 10 seconds by the message disappeared after around 18 seconds (it stayed 8 seconds saying 0 seconds left)
- my M4 256GB on iPadOS 18: 11 seconds (no message)
- my M5 iPad pro 256GB on iPadOS 26: all over the place...
The first time it took 2 minutes and 10 seconds
So I tried again (it asked "replace the file?", I said yes and it took 50 seconds but the message lasted 10 seconds more after it said it was a 0 seconds left).
So I deleted the file and triend a 3rd time, this time it took 28 seconds + another 10 seconds before the message went away.

Definitely the slowest of the bunch...

 

[bytefusion]

Thanks for testing this with the iPad Pro M5, M4, M1 really interesting results.

Would be great if you could try a few more transfers (like iPad Pro ↔ iPad Pro and Macbook ↔ iPad Pro) to see if those speed variations are consistent.

 

[Digitalguy]

Thanks for testing this with the iPad Pro M5, M4, M1 really interesting results.

Would be great if you could try a few more transfers (like iPad Pro ↔ iPad Pro and Macbook ↔ iPad Pro) to see if those speed variations are consistent.

To be honest I don't know how to tranfer files directly via a Thunderbolt cable, I tried to connect the 2 and I have the usual interface but no access to the storage of the iPad, contrary to Android tablets.