Samsung X5

[insimbi]

Just ordered the Samsung X5 to offload some files (iTunes library, photos, etc) on my 512GB SSD iMac. For those of you who already have the X5, how do you like it? Are you happy with your decision?

Just curious!

 

[priitv8]

Mine is still en route from amzn.
Will let you know once I have it.

 

[Fishrrman]

My opinion only, but if that's all you intend to use it for (music and pics), you could have bought a t5 and saved considerable $$$ (or gotten a larger drive).

You don't need the X5's speed for that job.

 

[faraway52]

I have two 2TB on an iMac 2017 with 256MB internal SSD only. They are faster and more flexible. The internal is used for an emergency system only. I am a happy camper!

 

[priitv8]

You don't need the X5's speed for that job.

You are right on this one! SSD is not economical for long-time storage of static data. Like iTunes or photo libraries are. Old-school spinner will do well and for 1/10 of cost per byte.

 

[ukp]

I received my X5 today after being totally fed up of the internal 5400rpm drive in my 2019 21inch imac... Being thunderbolt 3 the speeds are comparable to a built in ssd but much easier to add to a system afterwards. I boot from it and use it as my only drive, the internal drive I now use as a time machine backup drive.

Currently on sale for £196 from amazon, very good value for money I think.

 

[mikehalloran]

I received my X5 today after being totally fed up of the internal 5400rpm drive in my 2019 21inch imac... Being thunderbolt 3 the speeds are comparable to a built in ssd but much easier to add to a system afterwards. I boot from it and use it as my only drive, the internal drive I now use as a time machine backup drive.

Currently on sale for £196 from amazon, very good value for money I think.

That’s a good setup.

If you have a 2017–2019 HDD iMac, booting from an X5 turns it into the SSD version. Performance will be identical. Wipe the internal and use it for storage only—do not have an OS installed. Now your iMac can support APFS Snapshots as long as Time Machine is on.

Run sudo trimforce enable in Terminal while booted from the X5 so that it supports TRIM and you’re all set.

 

[priitv8]

Run sudo trimforce enable in Terminal while booted from the X5 so that it supports TRIM and you’re all set.

I have done absolutely nothing, except plugging it in and giving it an APFS format.
TRIM seems to be supported by default:

 

[faraway52]

I observed active TRIM by default on my TB3 attached X5 too.

 

[ukp]

Yeah I noticed trim support too by default on my t3 x5. I still can't believe how much faster my machine is now compared to the stock rpm drive I was using previously.

 

[Fishrrman]

ukp -

You would do better to use a cloning app (either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper), and using the internal drive as a BOOTABLE cloned backup of the x5.

The reason:
If for some reason the x5 ever fails to boot for you, you can immediately boot and run from the internal drive (which will look exactly like the external boot drive).

YOU CAN'T DO THIS if the internal is a TM backup.

If you want to use TM, get a second external drive (platter-based is ok) and use that.

But again, the internal drive should remain bootable for emergencies.

 

[insimbi]

Loving the X5 so far. This things moves!

 

[ukp]

ukp -

You would do better to use a cloning app (either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper), and using the internal drive as a BOOTABLE cloned backup of the x5.

The reason:
If for some reason the x5 ever fails to boot for you, you can immediately boot and run from the internal drive (which will look exactly like the external boot drive).

YOU CAN'T DO THIS if the internal is a TM backup.

If you want to use TM, get a second external drive (platter-based is ok) and use that.

But again, the internal drive should remain bootable for emergencies.

Thats a good point you raise. I will see about getting another external drive and and use the internal drive as a clone. thanks for the good advice.

 

[rxs0]

I just picked up the Samsung Portable SSD X5 500GB for $217.99 on Amazon.

My 2017 13" MacBook Pro immediately recognized the drive right out of the box, with the exFAT file system.

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro14,2
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 3.5 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 2
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 4 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: 184.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.44f1

For the price, you can't beat it, even given the limitations of the drive. Mounts and ejects rapidly, with no delay. Stable. Sleek beautiful design. High quality construction. Runs mildly warm at idle. Love it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GBGG68L/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Disassembly photo from this article - http://www.thessdreview.com/our-rev...ung-x5-thunderbolt-3-portable-ssd-review-1tb/

Disassembly instuctions:
1. Remove small red plastic plate surrounding the thunderbolt port. This is the most difficult part of the disassembly process.
2. Remove (2) small screws flanking the thunderbolt port, underneath the small plastic plate.
3. Partially peal back sticker on the red side of the drive with plastic razorblade. See picture below.
4. Remove small Phillips screw (under label) holding case in place.
5. Separate case.
6. Remove the 4 Phillips screws holding the logic board in place.
7. Remove single Phillips screw holding NVMe drive in place.

Thanks.

 

[priitv8]

I just picked up the Samsung Portable SSD X5 500GB for $217.99 on Amazon.

My 2017 13" MacBook Pro immediately recognized the drive right out of the box, with the exFAT file system.

Interesting, I get slower writes, but faster reads. Might it be because of APFS??
X5 is the exact same, computer is '19 iMac with i9.

 

[mikehalloran]

TRIM seems to be supported by default:

Good to know.

You would do better to use a cloning app (either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper), and using the internal drive as a BOOTABLE cloned backup of the x5.

Really? The cloning fanboys want you to do more work and take unnecessary steps. That can be safely ignored. There is no reason for cloning software here. None.

Instead:

Plug the X5 into your iMac. Use Disk Utility to format it APFS (it won't see your iMac unless you do).

Download the complete OS installer from the Apple Store. When it opens, select the X5 as your install destination. It will now install the OS correctly including the Repair Partition.

When done, it will automatically boot from the X5 and run Migration Assistant. Do that. You may have to authenticate—do it. Pull everything over.

You're done.

 

[Fishrrman]

rxs0 wrote:
"My 2017 13" MacBook Pro immediately recognized the drive right out of the box, with the exFAT file system."

Ahem.
The FIRST THING you want to do, is to REFORMAT the drive to a Mac format.
Could be APFS, could be HFS+.

The point to remember is that if you're going to use the drive with a Mac, things will go best if you have the drive in MAC format.

I WOULD NOT leave it in exFAT for use with the Mac.

 

[rxs0]

rxs0 wrote:
"My 2017 13" MacBook Pro immediately recognized the drive right out of the box, with the exFAT file system."

Ahem.
The FIRST THING you want to do, is to REFORMAT the drive to a Mac format.
Could be APFS, could be HFS+.

The point to remember is that if you're going to use the drive with a Mac, things will go best if you have the drive in MAC format.

I WOULD NOT leave it in exFAT for use with the Mac.

Hi Fishrrman,
I intend to buy another X5 drive. I will use one of the drives as a go between PCs and Macs. The other drive will be a Mac only drive which I will reformat to APFS.
Thanks

 

[mikehalloran]

Hi Fishrrman,
I intend to buy another X5 drive. I will use one of the drives as a go between PCs and Macs. The other drive will be a Mac only drive which I will reformat to APFS.
Thanks

You may run into privilege and file permission issues leaving it ExFAT. Some file types never give grief while, if using Office, you stand a really good chance of running into it. If so, there's an easy, if time consuming workaround: zip files before uploading from the PC. Unzipping them when connected to the Mac automatically grants the necessary privileges.

If you don't have a problem with it, that's great.

 

[rxs0]

Just for comparison purposes, I ran some benchmarks on my Sabrent USB 3.1 (not thunderbolt) NVMe enclosure using the Samsung 970 PRO 1TB NVMe drive below. Obviously, the USB 3.1 interface is the bottleneck in regards to speed.

Unlike the X5 which could only be used on a USB-C thunderbolt ports, the Sabrent USB 3.1 drive can hook up to both USB-C and USB A 3.1 ports.

This can make for a cost effective relatively fast small bus-powered 2TB external drive when used with the 2TB Intel 660p NVMe drive ($199.99) in the Sabrent enclosure ($49.99). The 2TB Intel 660p benchmarks in the Sabrent enclosure are very similar to the benchmarks below. I will post these soon.

The 2TB Intel 660p drive ($199.99) can also be used as a 2TB 2.5" SATA drive when installed within the M.2 NGFF SATA SSD to 2.5" SATA Enclosure ($13.99). This compares to the $299.99 price tag of the Samsung SSD 860 EVO 2TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD.

I will eventually upgrade my X5 drive with this 1TB 970 PRO NVMe drive or another Samsung 2TB EVO 970 drive. The X5 is truly a great drive.

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Alum...+3.1&qid=1555094958&s=gateway&sr=8-3-fkmrnull

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-PCI-...g+970+evo+pro&qid=1558982115&s=gateway&sr=8-4

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P8KZK2B/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch...g+evo+860+2tb&qid=1558984553&s=gateway&sr=8-1

 

[nambuccaheadsau]

It amazes me.

Anyone who dares disagree with halloran is labeled a 'fan boy'.

 

[Fishrrman]

rxs0 --
re your post 20 above.

Thanks for putting up these speed tests.
This confirms my supposition that putting together a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure + nvme drive offers "an excellent compromise" between a "regular" USB3.1 (gen1) drive and a thunderbolt drive.

I'd like to add the comment that if the user does not intend to eventually "upgrade the enclosure" at some point to thunderbolt3, then one could save considerable money by buying a "lesser-grade" nvme drive, which should still yield read speeds in the 900mbps range when used in a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure.

One other thing:
Could you check the Sabrent enclosure, as to whether TRIM can be enabled?
I realize that it can't be with (older) USB3. But I'm wondering if that could have changed with USB3.1 gen2 ???

 

[chrfr]

Could you check the Sabrent enclosure, as to whether TRIM can be enabled?
I realize that it can't be with (older) USB3. But I'm wondering if that could have changed with USB3.1 gen2 ???

The USB limitation on TRIM does not go away with Gen 2.

 

[rxs0]

rxs0 --
re your post 20 above.

Thanks for putting up these speed tests.
This confirms my supposition that putting together a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure + nvme drive offers "an excellent compromise" between a "regular" USB3.1 (gen1) drive and a thunderbolt drive.

I'd like to add the comment that if the user does not intend to eventually "upgrade the enclosure" at some point to thunderbolt3, then one could save considerable money by buying a "lesser-grade" nvme drive, which should still yield read speeds in the 900mbps range when used in a USB3.1 gen2 enclosure.

One other thing:
Could you check the Sabrent enclosure, as to whether TRIM can be enabled?
I realize that it can't be with (older) USB3. But I'm wondering if that could have changed with USB3.1 gen2 ???

Hi Fishrrman,
I "enabled" TRIM on the external drive via the "Trim Enabler 4" app. The app said it was successful, but I have no way of confirming it based on the Apple Hardware system report. Everything is working well. The terminal "sudo trimforce enable" command has already been executed.

Here are the benchmarks for the 2TB Intel 660p NVMe SSD drive in the USB 3.1 Sabrent enclosure. These numbers are pretty good for the inexpensive 660p NVMe drive. The total price for this 2TB external drive is $249.98.

Of course this drive will drive even higher numbers in the thunderbolt X5 enclosure or in a dedicated M.2 NVME logic board connector. I intend to test this drive in the X5 in the coming weeks.

This setup would be priced at $217.99 (Samsung X5 500GB drive) + $199.99 (Intel 2TB 660p NVMe) for a total of $417.98. This compares to the $897.99 price tag of the Samsung 2TB X5 drive. Of course the Samsung 2TB will be faster, but not $480 faster.

By the way, the Sabrent enclosure is very high quality with machined-like smooth sleek aluminum enclosure. I have attached a picture of the enclosure with the cover removed, showing the installed 660p drive. The Sabrent enclosure has excellent reviews on Amazon as well. I am very happy with this device, in fact, I bought two .
Thanks

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Alum...958&s=gateway&sr=8-3-fkmrnull#customerReviews

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GCLLKDC/ref=twister_B07LHHZRG4?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

https://cindori.org/trimenabler/

 

[rxs0]

TEKQ Thunderbolt 3 NVMe drive Benchmarks

Update: The two Thunderbolt 3 ports on the right side of my MacBook Pro 13" 2017 (with touch bar) are significantly slower than the two left sided ports, as mentioned in the article below. I originally tested this drive on the slower right sided ports. I have retested this drive with the faster left-sided Thunderbolt 3 ports with benchmarks as below.

"The two right-hand ports deliver Thunderbolt 3 functionality, but have reduced PCI Express bandwidth."
Apple

Thanks.

https://www.macrumors.com/2016/10/28/macbook-pro-tb3-reduced-pci-express-bandwidth/

--------------------

Here are my benchmarks for the Thunderbolt 3 TEKQ Portable External SSD drive, with stock NVMe drives. [Note these earlier tests were performed using the slower Thunderbolt 3 ports on the right side of my laptop. Please see the updated benchmarks using the faster left-sided Thunderbolt 3 ports.]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C9C9D5T/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

The Samsung X5 still beats out the TEKQ drive on benchmarks when using stock NVMe drives. I will retest the TEKQ system with an upgraded 1TB Samsung EVO 970 PRO in the coming weeks.

Similar Thunderbolt 3 drive enclosures:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07N67P39W/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QY9V2K...olid=26MTT0QRP2N2R&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GVHDK4...olid=26MTT0QRP2N2R&psc=0&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it