danyg Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 I've got a Mac Book pro M1 with an external 4TB Scandisk SSD and I'll probably buy a new M2 Studio this year. It seems that there's no way to use SSD's at maximum speed. They're limited to +-900 mB/S by Apple. Half the speed of what they could actually do. Who is working with SSD's for recording and/or sample libraries? Any tricks or hardware? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 If you are connected via USB 3.1 Gen 2 (the typical USB-C port on recent machines), then that's capable of 10Gbps (maximum), although that speed is shared by all the devices on that port. If you're connected with regular old USB3, then you'll get half that speed. If you are using a Sandisk Extreme Pro, which Sandisk claim can do 2000 MB/s, you won't ever get that over USB-C on a Macbook as USB 3.1 Gen2 tops out at 10Gbps (ie about half that claimed speed, around 1000MB/s - I get around 900MB/s in practice with my Samsung T7's). To say this is "limited by Apple" is a bit of a stretch I think - it's limited by the USB3 spec/implementation as far as I know. So it may well be that internally the Extreme Pro supports that speed, doesn't mean you'll get it in practice. Perhaps you'll need USB4 to use that extra speed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyg Posted June 27, 2023 Author Share Posted June 27, 2023 Thank you. I‘m not a tech expert. On DUC people who have PT on Win quote that they get near to 2000Mb/s. And those who are on Mac don‘t. I use Logic and PT 50/50 for production and mix and I‘m looking for a „good“ 5 year solution… & Atmos mixing. Are you satisfied with 900Mb/s using Kontakt, Instruments, Recording etc… ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyg Posted June 27, 2023 Author Share Posted June 27, 2023 PS: on my old cheesegrater I only have 500 Gb SSD for OSX and everything else on good old Hd‘s. Never had a problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 9 minutes ago, danyg said: On DUC people who have PT on Win quote that they get near to 2000Mb/s. Using what connection? 9 minutes ago, danyg said: Are you satisfied with 900Mb/s using Kontakt, Instruments, Recording etc… ? Sure. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavros Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 If you want to have the full speed of the MBP port you have to buy a SSD with Thunderbold 3 connection e.g. a Samsung X5. Unfortunately it has maximum 2 TB. If you need more a OWC Thunderblade would be an option but that os more expensive. I wish I bought my MBP M1Max with an 8TB SSD instead of a 4 TB as it is already pretty full and I have to connect an X5 with the libraries I use less. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enossified Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 Actually 10Gbits/sec = 1250 Mbytes/sec because a byte is 8 bits. I have a Sandisk Extreme V2 and it tests at just under 900Mbytes/sec connected to my M1 MacBook Air, which is 72% of the theoretical maximum. If I check About this Mac -> System report, it shows the disk connects to a USB 3.1 bus whether using either the SanDisk provided USB cable or a third party Thunderbolt 4 cable. 10Gb/s is the max speed for USB 3.1. My Extreme V2 is spec'd as USB 3.2 gen 1, which is also 10Gb/s. The Extreme Pro is spec'd as USB3.2 gen 2 which is 20Gb/s. The vanilla M1/M2 Macs do not support this. An M1/M2 Max or Pro with USB 4 is required to support USB 3.2 gen 2. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 (edited) 23 minutes ago, enossified said: My Extreme V2 is spec'd as USB 3.2 gen 1, which is also 10Gb/s. The Extreme Pro is spec'd as USB3.2 gen 2 which is 20Gb/s. The vanilla M1/M2 Macs do not support this. An M1/M2 Max or Pro with USB 4 is required to support USB 3.2 gen 2. Sheesh... the whole USB3 thing is a confusing mess, and that's before you even get to the connectors and the various protocols a cable/port may or may not support (USB, displayport, HDMI, Thunderbolt etc)... So to clarify for myself, according to WIKI: - USB 3.1 Gen 1 is 5Gb/s - USB 3.1 Gen 2 is 10Gb/s - USB 3.2 Gen 1 is 5Gb/s - USB 3.2 Gen 1x2 is 10Gb/s - USB 3.2 Gen 2 is 10Gb/s - USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is 20Gb/s That's a whole load of new USB3 flavours I didn't previously know existed. And I guess it looks like the current MBP's don't have ports that support USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. (My MBP supports 3.1 Gen 2). Wiki also mentions the different protocols have different encoding which affects their theoretical top speed due to overheads of the protocol, which is why a given device will always use less that then theoretical maximum data rate of the port. The "x2" means that protocol uses two "lanes" for double the speed. So that should answer the OP's question. Edited June 27, 2023 by des99 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JakobP Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 16 minutes ago, des99 said: That's a whole load of new USB3 flavours I didn't previously know existed. And I guess it looks like the current MBP's don't have ports that support USB 3.2 Gen 2x2. (My MBP supports 3.1 Gen 2). It seems not all are new flavors, only new names. According to this link, your MBP supports 3.2 gen 2x1, and my old macs are suddenly equipped with usb3.2 gen 1x1 ports... 😄 https://www.kingston.com/en/usb-flash-drives/usb-30 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 (edited) 13 minutes ago, JakobP said: According to this link, your MBP supports 3.2 gen 2x1, Thanks!Edit: "3.2 Gen 2x1" was previously known as "3.1 Gen 2" - so we're both right! Whatever it is, it does 10Gbps, as I bought a USB hub specifically for that purpose to plug in my SSDs... Edited June 27, 2023 by des99 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enossified Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 Oops, you are 100% correct Des! Apologies to all for posting incorrect information. The bottom line is the Sandisk Extreme Pro V2 will not achieve max performance on M1/M2 Macs, that's why I bought the Extreme V2 instead. Everything I've found online says that Mac OS does not support the dual lane USB 3.2 gen 2x2 at all. Faster than 10Gb/s speeds requires a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 drive. While that is 40Gb/s theoretical maximum, looking at various Tbolt 3 SSDs on the market, none of them comes close to that rate. The OWC Envoy Pro FX for example is rated at 2800 Mbytes/s, so only 22.4 Gb/s. BTW the SSD in my M1 MacBook Air speed tests at 2800 Mbytes/sec. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 (edited) No worries - it's helpful for all of us to figure this out! I've learnt some new stuff too! This is also helpful: "Therefore, USB 3.0 is the same thing as USB 3.1 Gen 1." Roll on USB4... Edited June 27, 2023 by des99 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enossified Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 Just to add more confusion, neither Thunderbolt or USB4 are required to support USB 3.2 gen 2x2. So essentially USB4 has orphaned USB 3.2 gen 2x2. Even though USB 4 is built on Tbolt 3 it's not the same as Tbolt 3. Note the attached chart. USB4 only has to deliver 20Gb/s and 7.5W of accessory power. As an engineer who designed processors for Intel and AMD even I find the USB3 ecosystem ridiculously confusing, especially when you add in the cable incompatibilities (I only buy Thunderbolt 4 cables now). OK, I'm done... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onewave Posted June 27, 2023 Share Posted June 27, 2023 https://www.trebleet.com/product-page/trebleet-thunderbolt-3-to-nvme-m-2-2280-hard-drive-case-ssd-enclosure I've used these enclosures now for a couple years now... they have great performance for the money spent! I still wish there was a way to run external OS with M1/2 like on Intel machines because then you can have entirely different setups sharing the same computer, but looks like that option is gone for good. Anyways, these drives work great depending on what nvme drive you decide to use, the WD blue line work fine for me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danyg Posted June 28, 2023 Author Share Posted June 28, 2023 Does anyone have an external enclosure in use for 2-4 external drives? PS: this is the post I was talking about... Quote If you care about performance a lot yes you will get less than half the performance of the internal Mac Studio drives using the best M.2 NVMe over PCIe drives in an external enclosure, because they are all limited by Thunderbolt 3/4 anemic speeds (max data rate of 4 lane x PCIe 3, while all interesting M.2 cards are actually 4 lane x PCIe 4, you can use them but they are significantly throttled by that PCIe 3 speed). You can within reason add multiple external drives in individual enclosures, but things quickly become a cabling mess. You can use Thunderbolt external chassis with M.2 drives on PCIe adapter cards and that provides the best flexibility but at some cost. Several smaller options for multiple M.2 drives in enclosures have significant limitations caused by not internally having PCIe switches, I've discussed those many times on DUC. And if you purchase an external M.2 drive you have hassles like how are you going to check/upgrade it's firmware since most vendors are not supporting doing this on Apple silicon macs. If you want fast performance and especially if you are not more deeply technical/don't want to have to mess with stuff then holding your nose and paying for the Apple internal SSDs might not be a bad decision. If performance is not so important you have options like the USB-C/USB 3.2 Gen 2 Samsung T7 drive which is NVMe over USB. Which will still be many times faster than any clunky old HDD. Dear God still using HDD... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mavros Posted June 28, 2023 Share Posted June 28, 2023 If you want to connect more than 1 SSD to a Max not to forget that the number of external Thunderbold/USB C connections do not necessarily mean you also have that number of ports. Some Macs have 4 outside but only two ports inside connected to them. So if you have two external SSDs you have to connect them outside to the first and third thuderbold entry or a variant (2 and 4, 1 and 4 etc.) to get full speed. There is a video on Youtube with someone experimenting with connecting two 2, 8 GB Thunderblades to an iMac. My external Samsung X5 2TB has Blackmagic test speeds R/W 2633/2348 Mb/s my internal 4TB SSD drive 5544/7300 Mb/s. Both are pretty full. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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