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Samsung T7 Shield speed

thebart

thebart

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 19, 2023
597
616
Hi

I just bought a Samsung T7 Shield 2TB. Erased it with MacOS Extended journaled. Is that APFS? I don't know. The other available options are MacOS Extended case sensitive journaled, FAT, and exFAT.

Ran blackmagic and it's only ~660MB/s both read and write. This seems low? Should be near 1000MB/s, I think. I'm connecting directly to the M1 Mini (non pro) with USB C to USB C cable. No hub. I tried exFAT too but that was slightly lower even.

I have a monitor connected to the other USB C port. I don't know if that makes a difference or not. Do they share bandwidth?

Anyone has one of these with an M1?

thanks
 
I assume you are using an M1 Mini? This is what I get with a 2tb Shield on my 2018 (Intel) Mini, connected with USB-C. I recall old threads about USB SSD's running slow on the the M1 Mini however.

t7_shield_2tb.png


Regading monitors, I had my 32" BenQ QHD Monitor connected to my Mini with a USB-C to displayport adapter for a couple years. Then I wanted to free up a port for another SSD and moved the monitor to HDMI. It had no effect on the SSD speeds, but it made a dramatic difference in boot time which really surprised me. My Mini took a very long time to boot with the screen connected to USB-C - maybe 45 to 60 seconds. With the screen connected to HDMI, it only takes about 15 seconds. I have three 2tb SSD's connected to the Mini with USB-C all the time.

Also, I use APFS for all my external SSD's. This is Apple's new filesystem, designed especially for SSD's. You are using Apple's old format. Not sure that slows things down however. FAT and exFAT are Windows/PC formats.
 
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Yes i have an M1 mini. How did silicon Mac end up with slower port performance?

I don't see an option for APFS in disk utility when i erase. Is there something else i need to do. Running Ventura 13.3.1
 
If you want APFS:

When you use the Disk Utility and choose Erase to reformat the drive you see three fields : Name, Format and Scheme.

You currently have Scheme set to "Master Boot Record" and need to change it to "GUID Partition Map".

Once you have done that the option to format as APFS will appear in the Format field.
 
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That is disappointing, I thought the USB speed issue had been fixed on the M2. Or is it the dock? At least it's better than what th OP is getting on the M1.
 
Greybeard2017 said:
If you want APFS:

When you use the Disk Utility and choose Erase to reformat the drive you see three fields : Name, Format and Scheme.

You currently have Scheme set to "Master Boot Record" and need to change it to "GUID Partition Map".

Once you have done that the option to format as APFS will appear in the Format field.
Click to expand...

thanks, I did figure that one out, belatedly. But I suspect it won't be much different with APFS, and I'd like to keep the interoperability of NTFS as I still have a PC
 
thebart said:
I'd like to keep the interoperability of NTFS as I still have a PC
Click to expand...

You might want to read this discussion. The Windows formats are generally a bad idea unless you need to use the same disk between Macs and Windows. Otherwise, you could use one of the Mac formats (APFS is Apple's new standard) and use filesharing to transfer data to your PC.

eshop.macsales.com

What Is the Best Drive Format? APFS, HFS, NTFS & exFAT Explained.

Have you ever been in the computer aisle and wondered, “What is the best drive format, and what are the different hard drive formats anyway?” We'll explain!
eshop.macsales.com eshop.macsales.com
 
thebart said:
Hi

I just bought a Samsung T7 Shield 2TB. Erased it with MacOS Extended journaled. Is that APFS? I don't know. The other available options are MacOS Extended case sensitive journaled, FAT, and exFAT.

Ran blackmagic and it's only ~660MB/s both read and write. This seems low? Should be near 1000MB/s, I think. I'm connecting directly to the M1 Mini (non pro) with USB C to USB C cable. No hub. I tried exFAT too but that was slightly lower even.

I have a monitor connected to the other USB C port. I don't know if that makes a difference or not. Do they share bandwidth?

Anyone has one of these with an M1?

thanks
Click to expand...
It's not APFS. As a user of similar SSD, but for 1TB, I highly advise you to format it in APFS, in order to have the best possible speeds.
 
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OP:

You DON'T want to be using NTFS on the Shield if it's going to be used with the Mac.

Format it for either APFS or HFS+ (I recommend HFS+).

For Mac-PC transfers, use ANOTHER drive, and format it to exFAT. Mac can read/write to that without problems.
 
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Speed is pretty much same with apfs as paragon NTFS

Why HFS+?
 
"Why HFS+?"

APFS can fragment platter-based hard drives, and cause them to "thrash" as well.
I suppose one could go either way with an SSD, but I still prefer HFS+ for data-only drives.

For a data-based (not bootable or time machine backup) drive, HFS+ is "repairable".
That is, 3rd-party disk maintenance and data recovery apps can "see" it.
Not so with APFS -- the only utility that can see it is Apple's disk utility.
 
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I just purchased a T7 Sheid 4T and reformatted it APFS/GUID partition map and get less than promised speeds:
Graphic (1).jpg



I am using a 2023 Mac Studio on M2 Max.
 
Last edited:
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i never benchmark my disks, but aren't SSDs throttling (hard!) anyway after they have become warm enough?
i think i've read somewhere else where Windows people on full USB speeds were mentioning that even capped @ 200-250MB/s are quite normal when an otherwise fast SSD has become just warm enough.
so maybe it will even take a bit longer on a Mac this way to get that low since those disks are never being taxed as hard 🤓
 
unrigestered said:
i never benchmark my disks, but aren't SSDs throttling (hard!) anyway after they have become warm enough?
i think i've read somewhere else where Windows people on full USB speeds were mentioning that even capped @ 200-250MB/s are quite normal when an otherwise fast SSD has become just warm enough.
so maybe it will even take a bit longer on a Mac this way to get that low since those disks are never being taxed as hard 🤓
Click to expand...
It's not a throttling problem --> See my recent post.
 
i know
just wanted to point out that, apparently, even "truly fast" (external) drives appear to be slow in practice when they've become just warm enough, which in my experience happens quite quickly anyway
actually a lot slower than the half speed cap that can be attributed to Apple's choice in "gimping" the USB performance on their ports for whatever reasons

and the faster they are, the faster they're getting hot as well, so maybe in practice those "throttled" USB speeds won't affect real world performance much anyway, even if you are constantly moving file sizes of >2GB each around, where those higher "uncapped" max speeds could have actually come into play, because they will quickly throttle way below the ~1GB/s limit of USB on Apple devices anyway.
 
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