iPad Pro M4 iPad Pro on Thunderbolt

[transmaster]

One question I have not seen asked here. How is your external SSD formatted? All of the external SSDs come formatted in XFat, which works on both Mac and Windows platforms. XFat is saddled with numerous compromises to make it work cross-platform. Apple is APFS. If your external SSD is formatted in APFS, your Mac Mini will mount it as an internal drive. You will not get the full speed if the drive is not set up for USB-4 or Thunderbolt 3 & 4. Check to see if your SSD is formatted in APFS, if not, do so. The Samsung T-9 SSD works with Thunderbolt 4. I am using the T-7, which works with USB 3.2. I had these T-7s in use on my mini PC. They were no longer needed there, so I formatted them to APFS and installed them on the Mac Studio; one of them is my Time Machine. I highly recommend the Samsung "T" series, which uses an NVMe SSD drive.

 

[tony359]

For testing, I am transferring on the internal SSD to rule out issues with the external SSD (which reads 3.8GB/s anyways so should not be an issue)

 

[Digitalguy]

Yes, my goal here is to ascertain if that is "normal" or not 🙂

The speeds I am getting are just above USB 2 - which feels weird.
In any case, my scenario is that I have videos on the iPad and I need to move them on an SSD which is wired to the Mac Mini. Is there a faster way than doing that at year 2000's speeds? 🙂

Yes, but attaching a SSD directly to the iPad

 

[tony359]

so what you're telling me is that the transfers speeds from an iPad Pro to a Mac are about USB 2 and there is nothing I can do about it??

 

[Digitalguy]

so what you're telling me is that the transfers speeds from an iPad Pro to a Mac are about USB 2 and there is nothing I can do about it??

If there is something that can be done, I don't know, but I doubt it... Using an ssd directly with the device is a faster solution

 

[tony359]

A friend with a similar setup (iPad Pro M1 and MBP M1 Max) has also confirmed the same speeds.

I struggle to believe that this is "normal". Not even 1 Gbps!

 

[01cowherd]

I made a large video file on the iPad and I transferred it on the mac mini via "files"

How are you transferring it? Network share?

Files (there would be no point using airdrop to test Thunderbolt speeds)

Airdrop is limited and shouldn't be used

If you connect your iPad to your Mac with a Thunderbolt cable and then AirDrop, it should use the wired connection at full speed. The AirDrop transfer window will say that it's using a wired connection. I'd try that to see if it's also slow for you.

 

[tony359]

How are you transferring it? Network share?

USB. Network would be limited to 1 Gbps.

If you connect your iPad to your Mac with a Thunderbolt cable and then AirDrop, it should use the wired connection at full speed. The AirDrop transfer window will say that it's using a wired connection. I'd try that to see if it's also slow for you.

I tried with WiFi disabled and got the same results.

I've now tried on my PC which is only 10Gbps USB - same speed. I think it's an iPad limitation but it doesn't make any sense whatsoever.