Samsung SSD T3. Big troubles. Help and review.

I have a new beautiful MacBook Pro with touch bar, 13 inch, 3.3 GHz Intel Core i7, and I've been doing the laborious task of transferring all my studio from my old beast to the new. 

I decided to buy a Samsung 500GB T3 SSD, to solely house my Spitfire libraries for Kontakt. The T3 is going directly into one of  the usb-c ports via an official Apple adapter. It's not sharing a hub or anything. 

So, straight to the point. It is incredibly, ridiculously, impossibly slow. Like swearing-inducing slow. If I have two instances of Kontakt, with a some strings and woodwinds, the CPU is almost maxed out and I'll get glitches. No exaggeration. And the load time for a library, seriously, is around four or five minutes. 

Today, after a infuriating night of writing last night, I decided to experiment and see what it was like having the libraries on a different drive. So I transferred some of the libraries to a 2TB Seagate external harddrive. Now everything loads 4x as fast and things seem normal again. Hilariously, the seagate IS going through a hub shared with some midi controllers and another drive. 

I can't seem to figure out the problem with the T3. Is there anything that one must do, inside Logic (or anywhere else)  to 'enable' an ssd, or have I just got a dud model? Or is there something I'm missing? 

Take this as a warning, for what seems like an excellent ssd, lovely size, reasonable price, supposedly USB 3, it is a disaster. Does anyone have experience with it? 

Thanks everyone, happy holidays.

If no one has any particular insight on this, does anyone know of at least a good piece of software that can diagnose, or clock the speed of the external drive? If its faulty I want to return it. But I don't want to bring my studio in to prove it to them. 

Thanks all.

A

Here is a speed test tool. Try it :

Blackmagic Disk Speed Test

BlackMagic

Apparently, something to to do with the new c-port ...

And Google the issue, maybe other reports on the net .

Thanks Tribal man. Yeah, after I posted here, I did some digging, and it looks like it's the port, not the drive. Although I will test out your tool as well. Thanks.

Here is an individual with the exact same problem.  https://discussions.apple.com/message/31091549#31091549

Again, for the record, I am using a Samsung T3 SSD 500gb, into the near, right side port of my 13 inch MacBook Pro. I am connecting the T3 with Apples own USB->USB-C adapter. No hub, just straight in.

As it stands right now, this is a highly embarrassing situation for Apple, and an infuriating one for the consumer. I'll wait, and give them their moment to explain themselves,  but the simple fact of the matter is: fast, highly rated SSD, plugged into Apple's new super laptop, through Apple's own adapter. And it is performing like it is from 2003. I have reread every piece of packaging that come with the 3 products, and nowhere is there any mention of decreased performance due to adapters. I will pop into an Apple Store next week and see what they say. But I suspect this is going to give apple a bruise or two. I hope they own up to it.

*quick edit. I used the tool you recommend and the Samsung disk does have a blisteringly fast read and write time. So this only helps confirm, that it is something either with the port or the adapter. I've switched adapters, and still no speed improvements. 

Buyers beware.

Not good to hear, always concerned me with the amount of mac-specific adapters needed as an Apple user within the last year or so.  But now, it's getting pathetic really, i understand tech has to move forward, but the thought that you could probably plug this into an older mac book with USB 3 ports and not have issues really is a kick in the teeth.

It's the time spent diagnosing problems that really annoys me the most in these scenarios.

I hope this doesn't seem like a stupid question but have you tried moving the Samsung drive to one of the USB C ports on the other side of the machine? I seem to recall reading something somewhere about the ports on the right side of the new 13" MBP not being as fast, or something along those lines.....

Also, are you using a separate (purchased separately) Apple USB-C adapter or are you using the USB-C cable that came with the Macbook Pro? If it is the latter, that cable, as I hear it, is only capable of USB 2. Freaking stupid move by Apple, include a USB-C cable that is only USB 2 speed...

hey noise net, thanks for the reply. 

No adapters come with the MBP 13 touchbar, but I did buy the Apple made adapters at an Apple store. 

I'm away from my studio for a few days. Will check your suggestions when I get home. thanks. I think I read that too somewhere, about the different sides. But that can't be for real can it? Apple isn't crafty like that?

thanks man,

A

thanks for the tip, patellinger. Will check out. I formatted my T3, and this seemed to help. I know it was a rookie mistake not to try that immediately, but I didn't suspect it would make such a difference. But I am still having other problems with the usb-c ports. Straying away from the topic a little, I also think it's still early, and that not all the hubs are of high quality. I recently bought one that has usb-c through charging, an HDMI, and a old school usb, and with all three plugged in, the screen external monitor suffers, and the external drive drops unexpectedly. 

I am optimistic that we will see in a few months, a range of quality additions to make these laptops a clean, fully functional powerhouse. (I hope). 

If anyone has recommendations on good hubs, please shoot them my way. I have a hell of a lot of external usb connections to make. 

Thanks everyone  

I really like the powered USB 3.0 Anker hubs that you find on amazon etc.  They have additional dual purpose power/charging sockets so you get a good amount of power on standalone devices etc too as a bonus.  One i have is the flat rectangular version with the ports facing upwards - and it's brilliant,

I went through about 3-4 different hubs and quite honestly, these were by far the best for me, i never have to plug/unplug devices to get them working if i sleep the machine - Other hubs were always inconsistent in that manner, whereby my mouse and keyboard wouldn't work after sleep etc.  Or times where i presumed time machine was happily running away, but my usb drive had actually not been connected all day since i slept the machine etc.

Not only that but i have a single USB 3.0 drive used for the time machine backups, and it runs as quick as it would when connected directly into the mac.

Personally, Highly recommended, one of the few items i could describe as flawless.

thanks so much for the recommendation skijump, yes, unplugging and replugging when I put the computer to sleep is one of my current gripes. Mind you, I have some low quality generic adapters. 

I will definitely take a look at your recommendation. And most likely grab one. Cheers!!

Alex

Hey @aleos, did you ever find a solution to this problem? I have almost the exact same setup, (Samsung T3 SSD running through a belkin usb c cable into my macbook pro with touchbar) and it similarly incredibly slow. Kontakt is almost unusable at this point.

Thanks,

Jeremy

I reformatted the T3, that seemed to fix things. Although, I must say, there is some strangeness still happening. 

Try the reformat. I have my T3 running directly into its own dedicated port, via an Apple adapter.

Let me know what happens. Good luck.

Oh, for some reason I wasn't alerted when you replied 2 months ago.

Yes, the reformat fixed it for me!

It seems these samsung t3 drives come formatted ExFat instead of Mac Os Extended. Reformatting to Mac OS Extended Journaled fixed everything for me. Kontakt libraries that use to take 10+ minutes to load now appear to load almost instantly.