Samsung T5/X5 & Equivalents

[F-Train]

I suspected that the reason that @treekram couldn’t come up with an actual example of the 10Gbps device that he’s talking about is that there isn’t much of a market for it.

As should be clear from posts #6, 19 and 22, it’s possible to approach 10Gbps speed with RAID 0. Commercially, only Glyph and SanDisk appear to make RAID 0 products. SanDisk’s pricing (960GB/$480), which shows no effort to compete, suggests that the Extreme Pro 900 is at the end of its commercial life. This leaves Glyph’s Atom RAID 0 (1TB/US$300) with no real competition, which more importantly suggests that other storage players don’t see enough demand for that level of performance to make it worth their while.

As far as I can determine, Angelbird makes the only single SSD drive at a claimed 10Gbps speed. Angelbird is a small company that focuses on the film and photography sectors. Its PKT XT drive, launched in 2016, performs at speeds that are at least as good as, and it appears a bit better than, the Glyph. The problem is that its comparable 1TB drive is $470.

This is not only not competitive on price with the Glyph, it is not competitive with NVMe drives, such as the Samsung X5, that are much faster:

1TB Glyph Atom RAID: $300
1TB Angelbird PKT XT: $470
1TB Samsung X5: $498

Angelbird’s drives are noted for rugged construction, but I think that it is highly likely that the vast majority of consumers, given a choice between the Angelbird and the Samsung, would opt for the latter.

I’m interested in knowing what others think, but my take on this is that there’s demand/a market for Samsung T5 drives and similar, and demand/a market for Samsung X5 drives and similar, but currently very little demand in the middle.

The question is, what, if anything, would create that demand?

 

[Clix Pix]

I think the appeal of T5s and X5s is that they are already packaged, so that the consumer just opens the box and plugs the thing in, maybe reformats if he or she chooses, but there is no futzing around with a DIY project which may or may not actually work as expected. The prices on the T5 have certainly come down significantly since they were first released to the market, and even the price on the X5 is starting to come down now as well. Why should anyone bother with trying to figure out exactly what they need to ensure compatibility with an enclosure and the drive they want to put into it, when all they have to do is to go to a local MicroCenter (if there is one in their area) or go online and order a ready-to-go T5 (or similar, other brands) or X5 in just the capacity desired from Amazon or B&H or other sources?

 

[F-Train]

I think the appeal of T5s and X5s is that they are already packaged, so that the consumer just opens the box and plugs the thing in, maybe reformats if he or she chooses, but there is no futzing around with a DIY project which may or may not actually work as expected. The prices on the T5 have certainly come down significantly since they were first released to the market, and even the price on the X5 is starting to come down now as well. Why should anyone bother with trying to figure out exactly what they need to ensure compatibility with an enclosure and the drive they want to put into it, when all they have to do is to go to a local MicroCenter (if there is one in their area) or go online and order a ready-to-go T5 (or similar, other brands) or X5 in just the capacity desired from Amazon or B&H or other sources?

I agree completely, but I’m asking a different question.

Why is there very little availability of, and presumably interest in, SSD drives that are faster than a T5 but slower than an X5?

The mini ports would certainly support it.

 

[Clix Pix]

Maybe they just are not all that available yet..... SSDs at that level of speed which may already be available as internal SSDs but that are not on the market yet as already packaged in an enclosure, that is.... ?

 

[Sarpanch]

I suspected that the reason that @treekram couldn’t come up with an actual example of the 10GB/s device that he’s talking about is that there isn’t much of a market for it.

As should be clear from posts #6, 19 and 22, it’s possible to approach 10GB/s speed with RAID 0. Commercially, only Glyph and SanDisk appear to make RAID 0 products. SanDisk’s pricing (960GB/$480), which shows no effort to compete, suggests that the Extreme Pro 900 is at the end of its commercial life. This leaves Glyph’s Atom RAID 0 (1TB/US$300) with no real competition, and more importantly suggests that other storage players don’t see enough demand for that level of performance to make it worth their while.

As far as I can determine, Angelbird makes the only single SSD drive at a claimed 10GB/s speed. Angelbird is a small company that focuses on the film and photography sectors. Its PKT XT drive, launched in 2016, performs at speeds that are at least as good as, and it appears a bit better than, the Glyph. The problem is that its comparable 1TB drive is $470.

This is not only not competitive on price with the Glyph, it is not competitive with NVMe drives, such as the Samsung X5, that are much faster:

1TB Glyph Atom RAID: $300
1TB Angelbird PKT XT: $470
1TB Samsung X5: $498

Angelbird’s drives are noted for rugged construction, but I think that’s it is highly likely that the vast majority of consumers would consider a $28 price difference negligible, and opt for the Samsung over the Angelbird.

I’m interested in knowing what others think, but my take on this is that there’s demand/a market for Samsung T5 drives and similar, and demand/a market for Samsung X5 drives and similar, but very little demand in the middle.

Excellent thread and I agree with your analysis. Samsung T5 has fantastic performance in such a small factor. For those who need NVMe level performance, the market hasn’t seen that many enclosures as of now to trigger a price competition.

In between, there are very few options to take advantage of 10 Gbps speed with SATA.

Mediasonic has a USB 3.1 Gen 2 RAID enclosure. However, it is considerably larger than a Samsung T5. It uses an ASMedia chip and seems to have decent reviews.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076XND4NP/

Crucial MX500 500GB is around 60$, so 1TB RAID with the enclosure might be close to 170$ (and possibly saturating the 10Gbps bandwidth)

But again, is the performance gain large enough compared to loss of small form factor of a T5? Hmmm, I don’t think so and would still prefer a T5 for portability.

 

[F-Train]

Maybe they just are not all that available yet..... SSDs at that level of speed which may already be available as internal SSDs but that are not on the market yet as already packaged in an enclosure, that is.... ?

The T5 and X5, and similar from other manufacturers, are already available for the same ports.
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But again, is the performance gain large enough compared to loss of small form factor of a T5? Hmmm, I don’t think so and would still prefer a T5 for portability.

I think that you’ve put your finger on a really important point, which I failed to even mention. You can put a T5, indeed a couple of them, in a shirt pocket.

 

[Stephen.R]

Why is there very little availability of, and presumably interest in, SSD drives that are faster than a T5 but slower than an X5?

There are numerous M.2 NVMe's that have higher than SATA6 speed, but won't drastically be throttled by a USB3.1-Gen2 interface. This is what I have currently, made DIY using an M.2 Orico case and an ADATA M.2. USB is still the bottleneck, but it's not like it's a 3.5GB/sec SSD in a ~1GB/sec case.

However there is probably a somewhat limited market for this type of device - Joe B. Average computer user doesn't care about the extreme speed enough to pay the higher cost, and Joe C. Professional/Enthusiast who will pay for the higher speed, is likely to prefer a TB3 based device that has a much higher bandwidth ceiling.

Combine that with the (in my experience) compatibility issues with USB3.1-Gen2 chipsets, and honestly you'd need to have pretty specific requirements (i.e. require > SATA speed, but no TB3 ports on the host computer) to make this a worthwhile exercise in my opinion.

 

[Stephen.R]

Oh and to clarify why I bought/built something I am saying isn’t worth it - TB3 products aren’t readily available here (Thailand) and this seemed like a reasonable compromise. Given the reliability issues I’m just going to order from OWC and pay the extra shipping cost.

 

[F-Train]

WD is discounting the prices of its competitors to the Samsung T5 drives. I received the 1TB from B&H yesterday. Paid US$180, which is the lowest price that I've seen (Samsung's 1TB is currently $218). The silver half of the drive runs noticeably hotter than the black half, suggesting that it is an aluminium heat sink. I think that the Glyph and G-Technology enclosures are tougher, but those drives are also more expensive.

The drive is more rectangular than my Samsung T5/500GB, but its thickness and overall area are almost identical. The cable is short (16cm/6.25"), which seems to be typical of these drives.

Link to WD page: https://www.wd.com/products/portable-storage/my-passport-ssd.html#WDBKVX0010PSL-WESN

 

[m_LA]

SSD drives that are faster than a T5 but slower than an X5?

I was going to start a thread on budget TB3 externals, for users like me who:

- bought a 128G internal SSD mini to save money (apple wants 200$ more for the same model with an extra 128G ... no thanks).
- dont need ultra-high speed storage like a 4k video pro user, but bottlenecked by a USB3 ssd sometimes when doing a lot of simultaneous file operations.
- prefer TB3 as its more "native" to the system (you get TRIM, SMART etc.) than USB storage.

So i did some research on budget TB3 storage, these were the 2 lowest prices i found:

Patriot EVLVR (mentioned in an earlier post in this thread)
MyDigitalSSD PVX

I went with the PVX, 180$ for the 256, and swapped in a used 1tb 960 pro.
with the 256 i got 700 read / 1300 read
with the 1tb i got 830 write / 2500 read

for my needs its fantastic

 

[Zdigital2015]

Also $299 (1TB) and $199 (512GB) via Amazon...

View attachment 819490

Looking at Amazon today, the Samsung X5 is $229.99 for the 500GB model, $448.99 for the 1TB model and $897.99 for the 2TB model. To me, the difference on the 500GB model is negligible, the 1TB requires a bit more debate.

I currently own two Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD, both 500GB and the interface is USB 3.1 (Gen 2) over USB-C connectors. They are not capable of reaching Gen 2 speeds as the underlying architecture is still SATA-based. SanDisk recently released NVMe version of these drives called the Sandisk Extreme Pro Portable SSD and are purported to saturate a 10Gbps USB 3.1 (Gen 2) interface.

I get ~380MB/s Writes and ~520MB/s Reads with the Sandisk.

For the price I paid for these drives ($125 on the first one and $85 at Costco for the second), my needs are largely covered. I do not think the market for USB 3.1 (Gen 2) enclosures and drives is very vibrant for DIYers at this time. I think there is still a shying away from USB-C on the PC side and Thunderbolt 2/3 is almost non-existent.

Based on the price/performance of what I currently have when looking at what there is out there to build for myself, I just do not see any really meaningful saving versus a pre-built unit.

If my needs require faster transfer rates than what I currently have with the Sandisk units, I think the best bet would be the Samsung X5. From what you have described in other posts, it sound like the Samsung might be the most cost-effective for your particular workflow, if you need that sort of transfer rate.

 

[F-Train]

Looking at Amazon today, the Samsung X5 is $229.99 for the 500GB model, $448.99 for the 1TB model and $897.99 for the 2TB model.

I got this from B&H this morning. Prices for 500GB and 2TB are also the same as Amazon. Samsung itself is showing $449 for the 1TB on its web site. I wonder whether this is a permanent price drop, not just short-term.

[Edit: The launch MSRP for the Samsung X5 1TB was $700.]

 

[F-Train]

Here's the price of Samsung's X5 1TB since its launch at the end of August. It has come down $250, and is just over twice the current price of a Samsung T5 1TB and $20 more than a Samsung T5 2TB. Graph is from CamelCamelCamel:

 

[Clix Pix]

Having had the 1 TB X5 for a little while, I can certainly verify that the thing is fast and well worth the money. Good to see the prices continuing to drop, as over time I will be wanting more of these.

 

[gpspad]

I have a 2015 iMac, no TB3 ports for me. Right now I have a 4TB G-Drive that's driving me crazy, its just too loud for me. I think I have decided a TB2 enclosure for a single SSD drive won't be worth it.

My choice is a....

Wait for a deal on a 2TB t5 SSD to come around or wait on deal on a deal on a Samsung EVO 2TB SSD drive and then get a USB 3 enclosure for it.

The silence will be worth it, but for a desktop I doubt the size of the T5 would be worth the premium. Getting an enclosure and making a SSD drive myself might be worth it.

What do you loose if you throw a SATA drive in a USB3 enclosure if you not going the TB route?

 

[F-Train]

Having had the 1 TB X5 for a little while, I can certainly verify that the thing is fast and well worth the money. Good to see the prices continuing to drop, as over time I will be wanting more of these.

Good to hear.

Is your X5 formatted APFS? If so, is there more than one volume on it?

I'm returning the WD 1TB referred to in post #34, which is either defective or doesn't work properly when formatted APFS with two volumes.

I'm sorely tempted by Samsung's X5 1TB at $450. It's either that or G-Technology's R-Series 1TB for $210, which for me, at least, is unquestionably the more "sensible" choice I still don't see the point, in terms of cost, of drives in the middle when it comes to speed.

 

[Zdigital2015]

I have a 2015 iMac, no TB3 ports for me. Right now I have a 4TB G-Drive that's driving me crazy, its just too loud for me. I think I have decided a TB2 enclosure for a single SSD drive won't be worth it.

My choice is a....

Wait for a deal on a 2TB t5 SSD to come around or wait on deal on a deal on a Samsung EVO 2TB SSD drive and then get a USB 3 enclosure for it.

The silence will be worth it, but for a desktop I doubt the size of the T5 would be worth the premium. Getting an enclosure and making a SSD drive myself might be worth it.

What do you loose if you throw a SATA drive in a USB3 enclosure if you not going the TB route?

Why not buy an Apple TB3<—>TB2 Adapter, plug the TB3 end into a Samsung X5 and then a Thunderbolt 1/2 cable into the adapter and your iMac?

Then when you decide to move to a Thunderbolt 3 capable Mac, you are already ahead of the curve.

 

[treekram]

Why not buy an Apple TB3<—>TB2 Adapter, plug the TB3 end into a Samsung X5 and then a Thunderbolt 1/2 cable into the adapter and your iMac?

Then when you decide to move to a Thunderbolt 3 capable Mac, you are already ahead of the curve.

I don't think this will work - I've read that if you connect a TB3 device to a TB2 computer with the Apple adapter, the TB3 device needs to supply it's own power.

 

[F-Train]

Why not buy an Apple TB3<—>TB2 Adapter, plug the TB3 end into a Samsung X5 and then a Thunderbolt 1/2 cable into the adapter and your iMac?

Then when you decide to move to a Thunderbolt 3 capable Mac, you are already ahead of the curve.

Expensive adapter, but as far as I know Apple makes the only one, and it makes it possible to use my 8TB of Thunderbolt 2 drives with the mini. These drives are on the way out, but for cost reasons it isn't going to happen overnight.

I also have a late 2014 iMac, and it hadn't occurred to me that it might be possible to use this adapter the other way around with, e.g. a Samsung T5.

Subject to @treekram 's reservation above (post #43), an interesting idea. Worth testing, at least.

 

[gpspad]

I don't think this will work - I've read that if you connect a TB3 device to a TB2 computer with the Apple adapter, the TB3 device needs to supply it's own power.

Thats why i assumed I couldn't do that, if I have to buy a TB3 Port, then buy a TB3-TB2 adapter, then the X5, your talking major expense. Im not even sure the TB3 docks work for a 2015 iMac.

My main reason for a SSD is the noise, I'd like a quiet drive. I also like the idea of not having to have something that needs to be powered. I might be wrong but think the T5 doesn't need a power source.

The benefit of a 2TB SSD in a third party enclosure would be I can take it out at some point and use it in a 2012 mac mini if if ever want to or get a TB2 raid and combine two of them.

We are right back to where we started I need to find a deal on a T5 to get this all over with.

 

[F-Train]

I might be wrong but think the T5 doesn't need a power source.

Right, they are bus powered.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Expensive adapter, but as far as I know Apple makes the only one, and it makes it possible to use my 8TB of Thunderbolt 2 drives with the mini.

I also have a late 2014 iMac, and it hadn't occurred to me that this adapter could be used the other way around with, e.g. a Samsung T5.

Subject to @treekram 's reservation above (post #43), an interesting idea. Worth testing, at least.

View attachment 821556

Indeed, the adapter is quite expensive, but it seems to work quite well every time I use it or need it. I am currently using it to migrate 2015 MacBook Pros to 2018 MacBook Pros using an Apple Thunderbolt cable via Target Drive Mode. Slower than I would have thought, but it gets the job done.

On an unrelated topic, went with the Asus XG Station Pro after seeing it in your signature and doing some research. I also found a Sapphire Nitro+ RX580 for $190 back in December. The cost of all RX-Series GPUs is still way too high, it’s nuts.

 

[Clix Pix]

Good to hear.

Is your X5 formatted APFS? If so, is there more than one volume on it?

I'm returning the WD 1TB referred to in post #34, which is either defective or doesn't work properly when formatted APFS with two volumes.

I'm sorely tempted by Samsung's X5 1TB at $450. It's either that or G-Technology's R-Series 1TB for $210, which for me, at least, is unquestionably the more "sensible" choice I still don't see the point, in terms of cost, of drives in the middle when it comes to speed.

Yes, first thing I always do when getting a new external SSD is to reformat it to APFS. I have also reformatted some of my older platter/spinner external HDDs as well as the need has arisen. In answer to the question about more than one volume on the X5 (or for that matter, any of my T5s), the answer is no, at least I have not created any partitions and have just gone with whatever Disk Utility gives me at the time of reformatting. I don't need to partition my drives any further than they automatically are.

I also have a couple of the G-Technology mobile USB-based external SSDs which are very speedy, but have not yet looked into their Thunderbolt 3; I went with Samsung first because I have been using Samsung's T series for several years and have been very happy with them. To me, that made the X5 a no-brainer. The G-Drive USB-based external drives are speedy like the T5s but I do not like the very short cables they provide and have ended up swapping them out. I had purchased a couple of them to use for differentiating the kinds of folders and files that are on them as opposed to what I have on my Samsung T5s. No idea of what length of cable they provide with their Thunderbolt 3 device. The Thunderbolt 3 cable provided with the X5 is a decent length and seems problem-free.

Over the past several years I have been gradually shifting over to using external SSDs for supplementary drives, for backup, etc., and this definitely has spoiled me. I am in the middle of working on an archival project and because this requires external drives with larger capacities, I've been using spinner/platters, and it's driving me nuts, the slower speeds! Even 7200 rpm seems so slow now.....

 

[F-Train]

On an unrelated topic, went with the Asus XG Station Pro after seeing it in your signature and doing some research. I also found a Sapphire Nitro+ RX580 for $190 back in December. The cost of all RX-Series GPUs is still way too high, it’s nuts.

The Asus enclosure, although not the cheapest on the market, is easily the nicest looking, and you got a good price on the RX 580.

Even without the cryptocurrency craze, it's become clear to me that hardcore gamers are prepared to spend serious money on graphics cards. It's a world unto itself, and I don't expect prices to plummet from where they are now, which is pretty much post-mining, least of all for new cards. AMD's new Radeon VII is US$700, and people, or at least that subset of people who are gamers, are apparently prepared to pay that
[doublepost=1550025101][/doublepost]Some owners of the Asus enclosure are having an issue with the TB3 cable, which is great for its length, but doesn't have the firmest connection. If you run into a problem, see post #480 and following here: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/external-gpu-egpu-resources.2154653/page-20
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The G-Drive USB-based external drives are speedy like the T5s but I do not like the very short cables they provide and have ended up swapping them out. I had purchased a couple of them to use for differentiating the kinds of folders and files that are on them as opposed to what I have on my Samsung T5s.
..

Thanks for a post that's really informative generally.

I have a Samsung T5 500GB and the cable is longer than I've seen on products in the same class, including on the WD drive that I'm returning. My understanding is that the G-Technology cable is also quite short. Like you, I have an interest in using drives from different manufacturers to differentiate them visually.

Apple is already making money from me from the purchase of cables for the mini, and I suspect that it is going to make more

 

[Michael Scrip]

Some general advice... don't get caught up in Speed Tests.

Your shiny new MVNe external SSD will benchmark great... but you might not be impressed with actual speeds under certain circumstances.

In daily use it'll be fine. All SSDs benefit from near-instant access time which makes them feel fast. And copying large video files will be super fast. (assuming the other drive is equally as fast)

But if you're copying thousands of tiny files... or even large photos... it'll slow to a maddening crawl.

Suddenly... your 1GB/s SSD feels like an old spinning hard drive!

I use a Samsung T5 for my general external drive... and another Samsung T5 for my Lightroom catalog and RAW photos. They are great.

But while they perform at 500MB/s when I run a Speed Test... I've only ever come close to those speeds when copying large video files. (and it's usually only around 400MB/s)

Even if a run a large Premiere Pro project off the drive... scrubbing through multiple layers of 4K video... I still can't get the disk activity to get above 300MB/s.

So if I've never come close to the 500MB/s benchmark speeds of my T5 in actual tasks... would I ever approach the multi-gigabyte speeds of an MVNe drive?

Don't get me wrong... I love fast drives. But I only see the benefits of fast drives when copying large video files from one fast drive to another fast drive.

My biggest bottleneck is my network. I can only copy files at 100MB/s to my NAS. And that's when I'd want to have the fastest speeds when copying files!