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Question about realistic transfer speeds.

T

Tequilablue_

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 23, 2025
6
4
Hi, just a little confused here - Too many conflicting answers online.

Looking into an external thunderbolt 4 drive, looking at the LaCie rugged Mini SSD but seeing a lot of recommendations on the Samsung T7 which is just USB 3.2 which would be fine for my Mac mini M4.


T9 slightly cheaper, but LaCie offering supposedly slightly higher speeds over thunderbolt 4. How much of a difference would I realistically see between using LaCie over thunderbolt and the T9 over USB 3.2?

Thank you for any help
 
Thunderbolt is certainly a faster interface than USB. In fact, it's far faster than any drive can transfer data. So data transfer over a Thunderbolt interface will be limited to what the SSD can handle. While a USB 3.2 interface might actually limit the speed of data transfer to something less than what the drive can deliver, I doubt you would notice–unless your workflow involves shuffling lots and lots of data between the drive and the Mac. So for example, you might notice if you're using the SSD as a Photoshop scratch disk.
 
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Tequilablue_ said:
Looking into an external thunderbolt 4 drive, looking at the LaCie rugged Mini SSD
Click to expand...
The LaCie rugged mini SSD is not a TB/USB4 drive, it is a USB 3.2 2x2 drive, and no Macs support 2x2, so it will negotiate at 2x1, which is 10Gbps.
www.seagate.com

LaCie Rugged Mini SSD | Seagate US

Discover the LaCie Rugged Mini SSD featuring speeds up to 2000MB/s, dust/water resistance, and up to 4TB of storage. It’s eco-friendly, made with 30% recycled materials. Perfect for Mac, PC, and iPad.
www.seagate.com
 
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IMG_9632.jpeg
 
Do you need "somewhat faster"? If not, you can save a few bucks.

USB4 is very fast for things that generally need fast read/writes. Thunderbolt is modestly faster for even faster read/writes. But this only matters if you have a need for "modestly faster." Else, you may find USB4 is plenty or even USB3.1-3.2 for whatever kinds of data you want to move.

If speed is paramount, go Thunderbolt 4 or 5 RAID where you can use multiple fast SSDs together in RAID0. But unless you have "a (regular) need... for speed!" you might find that USB 3.X is fast enough. If this is about one big data transfer, you can always buy "not fastest possible", start the transfer and go to bed, letting it transfer all night while you sleep.
 
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Anyway OP, what are you needing the drive for? You'll only get USB 3.1 speed out of that, but that's plenty fast for most things. I typically get around 830 MB/s write and 650 MB/s read speeds out of my 10Gbps SSDs. What speeds did you see advertised for that drive?
 
Stick to USB 3.1 SSDs. Thunderbolt SSDs are only very useful if you do very random small reads and writes. In most cases, like transferring 1-20GB files, USB 3.1 SSDs will suffice.
 
USB3.1 gen 2 will give you read speeds around 900MBps.

Go to amazon and enter "Crucial x9" in the search bar.
VERY good prices right now on these.
 
Not just about faster. It’s about reliability. Thunderbolt is the way to go whether it’s 3 4 or 5. Use Thunderbolt and eliminate drive problems forever. Some people may claim oh USB has been good. Yeah until you lose files due to interruptions and disconnects that are due to maybe a cable wiggling or maybe nothing. Since switching to thunderbolt, all my problems have disappeared with data loss and disconnects from the drive. Using Acasis TB4 drive now flawlessly for quite a while.
 
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