Resolved Still no way to access SMART information of external NVMe drive in an USB enclosure? Update: There is a way.

[yellowhelicopter]

Subj. From the DriveDx FAQ:
External NVMe (M.2) SSDs support
Currently, there is no NVMe SMART over USB drivers for macOS. macOS does not support this and there are no third-party drivers (kernel extensions). Moreover, currently, there is no official specification for NVMe SMART over USB from NVM Express Workgroup. Currently only vendor-specific workarounds available like JMicron and AMedia but there is no common standard.

Windows' CrystalDiskInfo works just fine for this my SSD in the enclosure and shows SMART data without problems (not under Parallels though), no luck on macOS. I'm wondering why it's so hard to implement on macOS, and accordingly why no one still hasn't written an appropriate driver...

 

[yellowhelicopter]

OK, answering to myself - there is a way. Namely Crystal Disk Info under Parallels' Win 11. Actually it works fine, you only need to mount the drive in the Parallel's or Win 11 USB settings (forgot where exactly) and CDI will be able to see it and show its SMART data.

It's ridiculous though that one needs to use Windows under macOS to read SMART of an USB connected M2 SSD drive.

 

[Basic75]

macOS support of external SSDs is quite abysmal, just look at all the discussions on TRIM and how hard it has become to discover whether it and UASP is supported and enabled.

 

[thebart]

macOS support of external SSDs is quite abysmal, just look at all the discussions on TRIM and how hard it has become to discover whether it and UASP is supported and enabled.

If you run windows 11 in parallels, is it possible to manually issue a trim command to an external SSD?

 

[Basic75]

If you run windows 11 in parallels, is it possible to manually issue a trim command to an external SSD?

I don't know and I can't try at the moment, hopefully somebody else can. Of course it can only work if the SSD uses a filesystem that Windows understands.

 

[countryman69]

OK, answering to myself - there is a way. Namely Crystal Disk Info under Parallels' Win 11. Actually it works fine, you only need to mount the drive in the Parallel's or Win 11 USB settings (forgot where exactly) and CDI will be able to see it and show its SMART data.

It's ridiculous though that one needs to use Windows under macOS to read SMART of an USB connected M2 SSD drive.

Doi you recall where the information is on how to mount external drives in Parallel's ? TIA

 

[bogdanw]

SMART status in System Information for USB-C connected Samsung 980 NVMe M.2 SSD, no third-party kext installed.

Previously posted here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/is-drivedx-kaput.2380163/post-32101543

 

[countryman69]

I'm not sure if this in in response to my post but if it is, that doesn't go down as deep as DriveDX does. I want to see an SSD Lifetime Left Indicator and the Advanced SMART status

 

[bogdanw]

Parallels:
How do I connect an external device directly to my virtual machine?
https://kb.parallels.com/122993
How to Connect External Physical Disks to a Virtual Machine
https://www.parallels.com/blogs/connect-physical-disks/

What I see for Samsung 980

 

[countryman69]

Many thanks for this. 👍