Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
This is also something I am fighting on my new iPhone 15 Pro Max, so I did some testing. My setup:

Windows 11
ASUS ROG Strix Z690-G Gaming WiFi
Core i9 12900K
Samsung SSD 980Pro 2TB
BIOS on latest version (ver 2703)

Cable: AINOPE USB C to USB C Cable 10ft, 20 Gbps USB 3.2 Gen 2 (amazon link)

Test steps:
1. Connected the iPhone to my PC's USB C 3.2 gen 2 port
2. Copy a directory of pictures from the phone to my PC's SSD using Windows Explorer
3. Time the transfer & log the time, file count, and bytes transferred
4. Unplug the iPhone & plug in a SanDisk Extreme Portable 500GB SSD
5. Copy the files to the SanDisk SSD
6. Time the transfer & log the time
7. Do the math to figure out Mbps

Timing was done by hand, so isn't perfect.

I ran the test four times. In each case the SanDisk completely destroyed the iPhone. Same PC, same USB-C port, same cable. The ONLY difference was the phone and the SanDisk.

Here are the results:

Test​
Files​
SizeiPhone TimeiPhone SpeedSanDisk TimeSanDisk Speed
1​
172​
2.56GB29.1 secs703 Mbps4.3 secs4,757 Mbps
2​
273​
1.5GB38.24 secs313 Mbps3.53 secs3,396 Mbps
3​
294​
4.46GB47.02 secs759 Mbps7.864539 Mbps
4​
1​
902.56MB7.75 secs931.7 Mbps2.253,209 Mbps

Observations:
1. The iPhone 15 Pro is somewhat faster than USB 2.0 speeds (480 Mbps)
2. The number of files being moved has a big impact on the iPhone's speed. Not so much for the SanDisk

Conclusion: The new iPhone is nowhere near the 10Gbps advertised, at least on Windows. This is a) totally unnecessary and b) not surprising for Apple
Comprehensive! Good work!
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Actually, the "official" method for transferring photos/videos on Windows, directly from Apple's support website, is to use the Windows Photos app (although I've found it to be pretty unreliable):
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...ne-to-pc-2e4e4db4-4c3d-041c-b88f-3ee4358dd95e

Another option: You can also open the photo folders directly on your iphone in Windows explorer and copy/paste them to your PC from there. Doing it this way, I'm getting 1.9gbps transfer speeds, which still aren't great, but better than USB2 speeds.

But the fastest option is to just copy files/photos from your phone to a fast USBC drive, and then copy from there to your PC. That way it avoids whatever overhead Windows is adding to the transfer.


This is only true for photos and videos. iTunes has that window where you transfer any kind of data into sandboxed 3rd party apps. And that’s the only method Apple has for moving data back and forth to those apps from your PC. PDFs, zip folders, etc. really anything you can think of, to whichever appropriate app is equipped to handle it.

There ARE 3rd party programs which possibly handle this better, which I have yet to try (I don’t have a license for iMazing, for example - they advertise here on MacRumors occasionally)
But of course, these apps are very much unofficial and not the “Apple Way” - ie. iTunes - so I do see it as problematic when Apple gives you the tools and the hardware and says it has such and such capability, it does X in Y amount of time, and in reality their perfectly designed and sanctioned hardware/software solution is not capable of what they advertised at all.
 
Last edited:
Sorry I didn't chime in earlier. Was busy and didn't notice the thread.

This is my best guess, but it is a well educated one.

I believe Apple is still tweaking the algorithm to best preserve battery life and manage the heat that can come off a high performance SSD during file transfers.

It's very different managing a smartphone compared to a laptop or desktop computer.

Not everyone or every app needs to write at 10Gbps.

What will will see is tweaks made to get the best trade off between energy, SSD transfer speeds and battery life.

It will need to happen on a use case by use case basis.

iOS will detect or be informed about the app type or usage and then adjust the SSD write/read speeds accordingly.
 
This is only true for photos and videos. iTunes has that window where you transfer any kind of data into sandboxed 3rd party apps. And that’s the only method Apple has for moving data back and forth to those apps from your PC. PDFs, zip folders, etc. really anything you can think of, to whichever appropriate app is equipped to handle it.

There ARE 3rd party programs which possibly handle this better, which I have yet to try (I don’t have a license for iMazing, for example - they advertise here on MacRumors occasionally)
But of course, these apps are very much unofficial and not the “Apple Way” - ie. iTunes - so I do see it as problematic when Apple gives you the tools and the hardware and says it has such and such capability, it does X in Y amount of time, and in reality their perfectly designed and sanctioned hardware/software solution is not capable of what they advertised at all.
I posted this earlier , but there is a new app from Apple for the things you mention above (this is intended to replace iTunes on Windows):

https://apps.microsoft.com/store/detail/apple-devices-preview/9NP83LWLPZ9K
 
  • Like
Reactions: qvintus53
Sorry I didn't chime in earlier. Was busy and didn't notice the thread.

This is my best guess, but it is a well educated one.

I believe Apple is still tweaking the algorithm to best preserve battery life and manage the heat that can come off a high performance SSD during file transfers.

It's very different managing a smartphone compared to a laptop or desktop computer.

Not everyone or every app needs to write at 10Gbps.

What will will see is tweaks made to get the best trade off between energy, SSD transfer speeds and battery life.

It will need to happen on a use case by use case basis.

iOS will detect or be informed about the app type or usage and then adjust the SSD write/read speeds accordingly.
My 200 gig back up still took about an hour. I was hoping it could at least be faster than 400mbps USB 2.0 speeds are
 
My 200 gig back up still took about an hour. I was hoping it could at least be faster than 400mbps USB 2.0 speeds are

That's a long time compared to mine, but it is also easy to explain.

If you look at the iPhone back up folder on your Mac you will see that the backed up data is made up of many small files.

These are your files split into many pieces and encrypted.

That has to take place at the same time during the back up process.

It's not simply a matter of transferring 200GB of data across. There's quite a bit of overhead and work going on.
 
That's a long time compared to mine, but it is also easy to explain.

If you look at the iPhone back up folder on your Mac you will see that the backed up data is made up of many small files.

These are your files split into many pieces and encrypted.

That has to take place at the same time during the back up process.

It's not simply a matter of transferring 200GB of data across. There's quite a bit of overhead and work going on.

But enough overhead (on two very powerful systems, mind you) that performance is dragged down to USB 2.0 480mbps speeds and not a dime faster? On the device that is advertised as being able to move data around at USB 3 10gbps?
Something else is amiss here, and even if not, this was a caveat that should’ve at the very least been mentioned in the fine print. Not “Here’s a $2000 phone that can move your data around at such and such speed… Except, surprise! it’s only some data and not any of the data that makes a difference to you in particular lol enjoy and thanks for the cash!”

This transition to USB C has been handled incredibly poorly by Apple, almost as if out of spite.
 
But enough overhead (on two very powerful systems, mind you) that performance is dragged down to USB 2.0 480mbps speeds and not a dime faster? On the device that is advertised as being able to move data around at USB 3 10gbps?
Something else is amiss here, and even if not, this was a caveat that should’ve at the very least been mentioned in the fine print. Not “Here’s a $2000 phone that can move your data around at such and such speed… Except, surprise! it’s only some data and not any of the data that makes a difference to you in particular lol enjoy and thanks for the cash!”

This transition to USB C has been handled incredibly poorly by Apple, almost as if out of spite.
The sad reality is that on Windows the iPhone drivers (MobileDeviceSupport and others) are written for USB 2 from 15 or so years ago, and have not been updated since. As such, that's why its falling back to USB 2 speeds.

It doesn't help either that there is an incredible amount of overhead when processing files, presumably because of all the legacy code on iTunes and associated drivers.

Also, Apple doesn't have high priority for us Windows users. :( They should though, we paid big bucks for the device!

 
  • Like
Reactions: MrRom92
On the device that is advertised as being able to move data around at USB 3 10gbps?

That is the theoretical maximum speed of USB 3, not the speed you get with every kind of operation.

If you're new to computers it is easy to make that mistake.

Transferring many thousands of files that are a few kilobytes or megabytes each, as in the iPhone back up process, while encrypting them at the same time, won't transfer at 10gbps because the operations have to be queued up.

It's not just a matter of transferring. All this data has to go through the CPUs and memory too. That's where the encryption is taking place before saving to the disk on your computer.
 
That's a long time compared to mine, but it is also easy to explain.

If you look at the iPhone back up folder on your Mac you will see that the backed up data is made up of many small files.

These are your files split into many pieces and encrypted.

That has to take place at the same time during the back up process.

It's not simply a matter of transferring 200GB of data across. There's quite a bit of overhead and work going on.
I see. So thunderbolt wouldn't make that any faster?
 
I see. So thunderbolt wouldn't make that any faster?

For a process like that probably not, and if/when Thunderbolt level transfer speeds do arrive on smartphones then things like heat need to be managed. A smartphone has to be optimised for temperature, energy consumption and battery life. The OS is constantly observing these readings and the algorithms will be adjusting energy, clock speeds and transfer speeds in response.

That SSD in the iPhone is a tiny single chip. It doesn't dissipate heat like a larger SSD with a thermal pad does. We shouldn't expect it to operate like a concurrent external/desktop/laptop SSD. For some things like shooting Apple Log it will be fast and for other things it will be slower to conserve power.

It will take a few OS updates to get it right as it is a new device.
 
Yes, I’m looking forward to the fully functional release, whenever it comes. But this is still in preview, limited in functionality and it seems that it prevents normal usage of iTunes once it’s installed, so no going back.
It works fine for me. And you can uninstall it and reinstall itunes if you wish (I've done it a couple of times)
 
This is only true for photos and videos. iTunes has that window where you transfer any kind of data into sandboxed 3rd party apps. And that’s the only method Apple has for moving data back and forth to those apps from your PC. PDFs, zip folders, etc. really anything you can think of, to whichever appropriate app is equipped to handle it.

There ARE 3rd party programs which possibly handle this better, which I have yet to try (I don’t have a license for iMazing, for example - they advertise here on MacRumors occasionally)
But of course, these apps are very much unofficial and not the “Apple Way” - ie. iTunes - so I do see it as problematic when Apple gives you the tools and the hardware and says it has such and such capability, it does X in Y amount of time, and in reality their perfectly designed and sanctioned hardware/software solution is not capable of what they advertised at all.

For a process like that probably not, and if/when Thunderbolt level transfer speeds do arrive on smartphones then things like heat need to be managed. A smartphone has to be optimised for temperature, energy consumption and battery life. The OS is constantly observing these readings and the algorithms will be adjusting energy, clock speeds and transfer speeds in response.

That SSD in the iPhone is a tiny single chip. It doesn't dissipate heat like a larger SSD with a thermal pad does. We shouldn't expect it to operate like a concurrent external/desktop/laptop SSD. For some things like shooting Apple Log it will be fast and for other things it will be slower to conserve power.

It will take a few OS updates to get it right as it is a new device.

I’m not sure I agree this batt life energy consumption theory though as the iPhone is happy to copy large amounts of data at full speed with an SSD.
 
I restored my 15PM from my MBP M1 Max, and it took about 15 minutes. I had close to 300gb to restore. I didn't use the included USB-C cable though.

I also tried shooting a video Pro Res 4K 60fps video direct to external storage (Sandisk Extreme 2TB) and it worked flawless.
What cable did you use exactly? Tried the same with multiple cables (including the Apple Pro Cable – NOT the included one but the Pro cable) and it took 3 hours for similar backup size.
 
Last edited:
I’m not sure I agree this batt life energy consumption theory though as the iPhone is happy to copy large amounts of data at full speed with an SSD.

Not correct. Several of us on the forum have Sandisk Extreme SSDs that don't play well with the iPhone. These Sandisk SSDs are notorious for having a large power draw and running hot. Some early versions of this SSD were offered a firmware fix recently, but they are still hot drives. At the moment I would not recommend this drive for use with the iPhone. I'm thinking of trading it for a Samsung T7.
 
Not correct. Several of us on the forum have Sandisk Extreme SSDs that don't play well with the iPhone. These Sandisk SSDs are notorious for having a large power draw and running hot. Some early versions of this SSD were offered a firmware fix recently, but they are still hot drives. At the moment I would not recommend this drive for use with the iPhone. I'm thinking of trading it for a Samsung T7.
I have a t7 so I don’t have the issue.

But connecting to a computer should not have any power issues as it has its own power and even charges the phone.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MrRom92
I have a t7 so I don’t have the issue.

But connecting to a computer should not have any power issues as it has its own power and even charges the phone.

It's not "computer" that has issues. It's read/write and power draw of the SSDs on both sides (external and internal).

A computer can handle that well because it has a larger surface area to get rid of heat. A phone doesn't have that luxury.

The issues with the Sandisk SSD was bad. Complaints everywhere online.


It's still hot after the fix and for mine. Hence, the connection to the iPhone is unstable. Samsung owners aren't having connection or heat issues.
 
What cable did you use exactly? Tried the same with multiple cables (including the Apple Pro Cable – NOT the included one but the Pro cable) and it took 3 hours for similar backup size.

It was a short cable that came with a SanDisk Extreme SSD.
 
It's not "computer" that has issues. It's read/write and power draw of the SSDs on both sides (external and internal).

A computer can handle that well because it has a larger surface area to get rid of heat. A phone doesn't have that luxury.

The issues with the Sandisk SSD was bad. Complaints everywhere online.


It's still hot after the fix and for mine. Hence, the connection to the iPhone is unstable. Samsung owners aren't having connection or heat issues.

I don’t think we were expecting 100% 10Gbps speeds while connected to a Mac or PC, just something a lot better than USB 2.0 as the thread title suggests which is why at least I think power draw or heat isn’t at play here.
 
  • Like
Reactions: MrRom92
I don’t think we were expecting 100% 10Gbps speeds while connected to a Mac or PC, just something a lot better than USB 2.0 as the thread title suggests which is why at least I think power draw or heat isn’t at play here.

I just updated to 17.0.3 and tested.

I copied 80GB from the Sandisk Extreme to the 15PM in 1 and a half minutes.

That is about as fast as we can expect and it is very fast. These are large files so they saturated the bandwidth.

An iPhone back up won't write that fast because it is a different process.

This Sandisk Extreme itself seems to have problems with iOS17. It sometimes is detected and sometimes isn't. It runs hot even when it does nothing and isn't mounted in the Files app.
 
  • Like
Reactions: JD2015
I just updated to 17.0.3 and tested.

I copied 80GB from the Sandisk Extreme to the 15PM in 1 and a half minutes.

That is about as fast as we can expect and it is very fast. These are large files so they saturated the bandwidth.

An iPhone back up won't write that fast because it is a different process.

This Sandisk Extreme itself seems to have problems with iOS17. It sometimes is detected and sometimes isn't. It runs hot even when it does nothing and isn't mounted in the Files app.
Yey more testing. Updating now and will test backups and syncs when I get home.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.