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M1 Macbook Air compatible with Samsung T7 1TB SSD?

1

1brajesh

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 18, 2020
84
10
Hi,

The Samsung SSD 1TB external drive on Amazon is something I'd like to buy.
However, an amazon reviewer has commented that this drive does not work with the M1 macbook air.

Anyone has tested this drive with the M1 macbook air?

thank you
 
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Not your exact setup, but I have the 2TB T7 and an M1 Max MBP and it works as expected-- connects at 10 Gbps, no disconnecting issues or anything else.

Just ran AmorphousDiskMark, with decent results. I chalk up the less than optimal numbers to the fact that I've got tons of apps/windows/tabs/documents/etc open right now, the drive is currently a bit toasty, and the volume is formatted as APFS (not sure how much that affects perf vs. ExFAT or whatever). Not the cleanest benchmark, for sure, but I'm not about to format my drive and close all of my active projects (sorry). Still, have a look:
Screen Shot 2022-07-11 at 11.13.44 PM.png
 
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1brajesh said:
Hi,

The Samsung SSD 1TB external drive on Amazon is something I'd like to buy.
However, an amazon reviewer has commented that this drive does not work with the M1 macbook air.

Anyone has tested this drive with the M1 macbook air?

thank you
Click to expand...
Likely it isn't initially formatted to work with macOS. I have yet to see an external drive that isn't Mac compatible.
 
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I have a Samsung T5 2TB SSD drive and it works just fine with my MacBook Air M1. The T5 is a slower SSD than the T7, but there is no reason why the T7 won't work too. It is very important to use the proper USB-C cables and compatible hub/dock with external drives. The weakest link in a chain is the point it will break at. If you use a T7 with a cable not rated for the speed it is capable of, you will have slower speeds. Ditto for the hubs and docks, they need to be spec'd high enough to support the T7's speed, otherwise that speed won't make it to the MacBook Air M1.
 
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Basic75 said:
TRIM is one of two ways how the OS can tell the drive what data is garbage that can be collected. Garbage collection is not an alternative to TRIM, it builds on it.
Click to expand...
Indeed. We had the same conversation in the the other thread The main point is that GC works without TRIM. Which is what the manufacturers say about their USB SSDs without TRIM . Crucial: "All Crucial SSDs are designed and tested assuming that they will be used without Trim". Samsung: "TRIM helps to make Garbage Collection more efficient by preparing invalid data for deletion". Sources in the other thread.

TRIM is a good thing but not essential as millions of satisfied Mac owners of Samsung and Crucial USB SSDs know.
 
Last edited:
I have the T7 on the M1 MBP Max and just tested it on the M1 Air – works just fine. I don't use the weird «security» Software Samsung added to the T7, but the drive itself works as it should.
 
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it's not compatible . beware of explosions when plugging it in

yeah i had one and it does work .however you wont get nice speeds ..far from that of intel's/windows laptops
 
Bought 2 of them today, 1TB models. From what I've read they're amazing for the price and work well with Apple Silicon. :)
 
Mike Boreham said:
Indeed. We had the same conversation in the the other thread The main point is that GC works without TRIM. Which is what the manufacturers say about their USB SSDs without TRIM . Crucial: "All Crucial SSDs are designed and tested assuming that they will be used without Trim". Samsung: "TRIM helps to make Garbage Collection more efficient by preparing invalid data for deletion". Sources in the other thread.

TRIM is a good thing but not essential as millions of satisfied Mac owners of Samsung and Crucial USB SSDs know.
Click to expand...
I know the other thread, I was there, now I was hoping for an update but perhaps it's too early since Ventura hasn't been released yet. I agree that an SSD will work just fine without TRIM. But GC only partially works without TRIM because it only knows about one type of garbage (overwritten blocks) and not the other (freed blocks). So instead of pretending that it doesn't make any difference we should hope that Apple finally starts supporting it on USB drives like Windows and Linux do.
 
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Basic75 said:
I know the other thread, I was there, now I was hoping for an update but perhaps it's too early since Ventura hasn't been released yet. I agree that an SSD will work just fine without TRIM. But GC only partially works without TRIM because it only knows about one type of garbage (overwritten blocks) and not the other (freed blocks). So instead of pretending that it doesn't make any difference we should hope that Apple finally starts supporting it on USB drives like Windows and Linux do.
Click to expand...
Thanks. How does a user notice the effect of GC not knowing about about the freed blocks?
 
Mike Boreham said:
Thanks. How does a user notice the effect of GC not knowing about about the freed blocks?
Click to expand...
When the SSD doesn't know about freed blocks then they are still counted as occupied, so during GC that data will be moved around unnecessarily, wasting time and energy, and superfluously using up some write cycles. The impact will often be barely measurable, but it can also be worse if a large part of your SSD is taken up by such freed blocks that are still considered in use. For optimal performance it is always recommended to keep part of your SSD free, but that doesn't help if the SSD doesn't know what is free. TL;DR It depends.
 
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tjktony said:
Under what conditions would this occur/what would cause this?
Click to expand...
For example when you fill your SSD up with lat summer's holiday videos and photos, then delete them all because you want to use the drive for something else. From a filesystem point of view the SSD is empty, but without TRIM it is still full for the drive controller. When you start filling the drive again then the data in the blocks that are written again is known to be garbage, but all the other data blocks that have only been deleted at the filesystem level will won't and will be saved and copied around during wear levelling even though they are garbage.
 
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