Hi, somewhere I read that at least for the M1 Mini 2020, external SSD connected directly to the TB4 port at the back do not performance as well as if they were connected via a TB4 hub or dock. Is this really true? What is the reason? Does this apply only for the M1 Mini or all Arm based Mac?
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Can Thunderbolt 4 hub or dock increase external SSD performance of M1 Mac?
- Thread starter hajime
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I don't have an absolute answer for you but - I bought a rather nice external ssd that is capable of both TB4/USB4 and USB 3.1 Gen 2. I tested both cables attached directly to the Mini then the same through a CalDigital Elements hub. Running Black Magic Speed Test, the direct connect was just a small bit faster than through the hub. In fact, I would say it is so minimal one wouldn't notice in real-world conditions. This is why that SSD via TB4 is connected to the hub presently and has not been a problem.
Mac Mini m1 16/512
Directly connected - Benq PD2700U monitor via TB4 to miniDP
Directly connected - Peachtree M24 speakers via USB
Directly connected - CalDigital Elements hub
Connected to Elements Hub -
Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q 2TB via Thunderbolt
Samsung T5 1TB
various other types of drives both SSD and electro-mechanical
Mac Mini m1 16/512
Directly connected - Benq PD2700U monitor via TB4 to miniDP
Directly connected - Peachtree M24 speakers via USB
Directly connected - CalDigital Elements hub
Connected to Elements Hub -
Sabrent Rocket XTRM-Q 2TB via Thunderbolt
Samsung T5 1TB
various other types of drives both SSD and electro-mechanical
I don't know either but it is possible theoretically if there's some sort of compatibility issue.
Suppose the SSD was older and the controler didn't work with the latest protocols but the hub did so maybe the SSD worked better with the hub and the hub worked better with the Mac. That could make it faster.
You are always limited by the slowest link in the chain.
This thing tends to happen more as devices get older and it was very clear that with SD cards using a bang up to date card reader was much faster than trying to read off same SD in an old camera directly.
If someone has experienced that with a hub it's faster,then it's pretty sure that sometimes it will be faster but I'll bet, as has been said, generally it won't be.
Suppose the SSD was older and the controler didn't work with the latest protocols but the hub did so maybe the SSD worked better with the hub and the hub worked better with the Mac. That could make it faster.
You are always limited by the slowest link in the chain.
This thing tends to happen more as devices get older and it was very clear that with SD cards using a bang up to date card reader was much faster than trying to read off same SD in an old camera directly.
If someone has experienced that with a hub it's faster,then it's pretty sure that sometimes it will be faster but I'll bet, as has been said, generally it won't be.
I am talking about this:
In previous two generations of MBP, many users highly rated the CalDigital TS3+. For M1 Mac, is the CalDigital Elements hub better than the OWC one?
Somewhere I also read that although the Samsung 980 Pro has better benchmarks than the WD SN750, the WD SN750 performs better than the 980 Pro when used with M1 Mac. Why?
In previous two generations of MBP, many users highly rated the CalDigital TS3+. For M1 Mac, is the CalDigital Elements hub better than the OWC one?
Somewhere I also read that although the Samsung 980 Pro has better benchmarks than the WD SN750, the WD SN750 performs better than the 980 Pro when used with M1 Mac. Why?
The problem is with USB devices. Not Thunderbolt devices.
Read this thread : https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ally-10gb-s-also-definitely-not-usb4.2269777/
I am a bit confused about Thunderbolt enclosures for NVMe PCI4 SSD. They advertise 40GB/s as max data transfer speed and put Thunderbolt 3 and USB4 as part of the product name. So, they are not really those fast Thunderbolt 4 on M1 Mac but Thunderbolt 3 enclosures that can perform at 40GB/s which is max speed of Thunderbolt 4? Are there Thunderbolt 4 enclosure for NVMe PCI4 SSD that performs even better?
There are no TB4 external enclosures, AFAIK. Both TB3 and TB4 max out at 40Gbps, bit real-world performance for external drives is more like 22Gbps (~2500MB/s) due to overhead.
Also, PCIe Gen 4 SSDs will over no speed improvements over Gen 3, when you're using a Thunderbolt interface. Gen 3 maxes out the available bandwidth of either TB3/TB4.
Yes. The GIGADRIVE is not real (probably).
Also no USB4 external enclosures. The ACASIS is not USB4 - it's Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1 gen 2.
You can transmit 34.56 Gbps of DisplayPort data (or 38.9 Gbps for the Apple Pro Display XDR). But not PCIe data which is what external drives use. Some benchmarks have shown 24 Gbps (≈3000 MB/s) or slightly more than that so the limit can be 24 Gbps or 25 Gbps for PCIe data.
I haven't seen if the limit can be greater than that by connecting two Thunderbolt devices in a chain or to a Thunderbolt 4 dock to a host that uses integrated Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 controller (Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, Apple Silicon). Hosts with discrete Thunderbolt controllers (Alpine Ridge, Titan Ridge) do not gain anything significant by using two Thunderbolt devices unless the two Thunderbolt devices are connected to different Thunderbolt buses.
Or something. It's not really explained anywhere. The USB4 spec says there's a trade-off between latency and performance but I don't think it shows how to calculate those explicitly.
Some PCIe gen 3 SSDs behave poorly in a Thunderbolt enclosure (unexpected low write speeds below 1000 MB/s for example).
PCIe gen 4 SSDs usually do not have that problem. I can get 2800 MB/s read/write to a Mac mini 2018 from a Mushkin gen4x4 4TB drive.
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The Caldigit Elements hub and the OWC and Anger hubs are nearly identical (some speculate that they are the same unit inside different cases). the main advantage the Caldigit has is 3 more USB-A ports. The other 2 have only 1. Otherwise the specs are the same for each.
Caldigit has a larger wattage charger. What advantages does that bring?
I think no TB4 dock or hub can charge a M1 Max MacBook Pro 16" 2021. I recall that even with i9 MacBook Pro 2019, some forum members had a hard time to find a TB3 that did a good job.
I recall the OWC does share similar components with some other maker models. As for CalDigit, it wouldn't surprise me if some of the guts were using the same or similar parts as the tasks are the same.
As for the power bricks - it doesn't take much to figure out what the max load for these hubs are. My guess is the power bricks are a combo of sufficient power and the best pricing and not much more to it.
For my purposes, the Element does well and if I needed what OWC has in terms of number and types of port, I probably would have been just as happy. In general, most people would be happy with USB-C 3.2 gen 2 type of connectivity plus DP or HDMI if they need video (in my estimates).
Yes, you many need to just use the MagSafe for the 16"
I am trying to decide if I should return my problematic M1 Mini and give another Mini a chance or just get a MacBook Pro 2021. Has the SSD swap issue been completely fixed? If I get a Mini, I will buy the 256 SSD configuration along with a 1TB NVM3 SSD, a Caldigit Dock and an external enclosure. If I buy a MacBook Pro, I just get a 1TB configuration which is less expensive than getting an external high performance SSD, dock and enclosure. If the SSD swap issue has not been fixed or will not be fixed, regardless of which Mac model I buy, I hesitate to pay the Apple tax to upgrade from 256GB to 1TB especially the internal SSD is not user replicable.
Currently I only use a 4K 60Hz TV with HDMI. I may add another 4K or 5K display later but not sure. If I buy a MacBook Pro 2021 with 1TB SSD which should be faster than the fastest external SSD, I will not need the Caldigit Element?
Currently I only use a 4K 60Hz TV with HDMI. I may add another 4K or 5K display later but not sure. If I buy a MacBook Pro 2021 with 1TB SSD which should be faster than the fastest external SSD, I will not need the Caldigit Element?
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Opinion: chasing theoretical maxes is fruitless. You won't get close to TM on advertised wifi speeds, 5G speeds, etc either. An XXTB hard drive won't give you XXTB of usable space either.
In general, any SSDs are going to be much faster than HDD. And as you get up into the fastest ones, it's unlikely you'll be able to tell any difference using the computer without running speed tests head to head. In other words, the subjective experience of disk reading & writing probably won't seem any different at a wide variety of SSD speeds.
In all of these posts, OP doesn't explain WHY maximizing this speed is so important. There is not a big number of usage situations where SSD speeds (not maxed) will prove to be a hinderance to getting something done. If OP has an exception, perhaps think about a RAID setup or maybe think Mac PRO with every RAM slot loaded to the MAX (RAM storage will be much faster than SSD R/W).
I'm all for someone trying to maximize speeds but up into those kinds of numbers, regular usage isn't going to seem different. If you don't have some kind of special usage where disk read/write really matters, this hunt may not do much for you, no matter which way you go.
In general, any SSDs are going to be much faster than HDD. And as you get up into the fastest ones, it's unlikely you'll be able to tell any difference using the computer without running speed tests head to head. In other words, the subjective experience of disk reading & writing probably won't seem any different at a wide variety of SSD speeds.
In all of these posts, OP doesn't explain WHY maximizing this speed is so important. There is not a big number of usage situations where SSD speeds (not maxed) will prove to be a hinderance to getting something done. If OP has an exception, perhaps think about a RAID setup or maybe think Mac PRO with every RAM slot loaded to the MAX (RAM storage will be much faster than SSD R/W).
I'm all for someone trying to maximize speeds but up into those kinds of numbers, regular usage isn't going to seem different. If you don't have some kind of special usage where disk read/write really matters, this hunt may not do much for you, no matter which way you go.
I try to get as high speed as possible on the external SSD as I intend to use it as the boot drive. Try to have the experience as if the external drive were internal one. The Mini is just a temporary machine to use until Apple releases better MacBook Air or Macbook Pro next year. By then, I just trade in the Mini. Probably lose less money trade in a 256GB configuration over 1TB configuration.
If the SSD swap issue has not been fixed and the notch will stay for a few years, I may just use the Mini to run Mac application and forget about buying from Apple for the next few years. I will look for Windows laptop that I can upgrade the RAM, SSD and battery myself.
Given the bad experience with the Mini I got, I may have to change my plan.
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HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
Again, maybe you use your Macs differently but these days, one boots once and then maybe just "sleeps" it for upwards of weeks before it needs to be re-booted. I POUND my Macs with some serious work but could easily have a boot drive that is some ancient, slowest revolutions-per-second platter and not feel any effect. I might re-boot once a month if that. Then it's just "sleep" when done and is thus "instant on" when resuming work.
If boot is most of your thinking, just use the internal, as-fast-as-you'll get "storage" and then "clone" or "migrate" to the next one when you upgrade. It's easy to reset the existing Mini to "factory default" to sell to someone else and your new Mac then picks up where it left off.
Again, you may have your reasons here, so take my input as just my own opinion. I can add though that even an "old fashioned" HDD as boot drive seems plenty fast. I occasionally boot up Snow Leopard on an external HDD when I need to step back in time and it seems as fast as when Snow Leopard was "inside." Any old SSD as boot drive will probably seem very fast.
Now if you are editing heavy video or something, every little bit of speed can matter. But I even do that kind of thin on some HDD drives and it seems very fast.
If boot is most of your thinking, just use the internal, as-fast-as-you'll get "storage" and then "clone" or "migrate" to the next one when you upgrade. It's easy to reset the existing Mini to "factory default" to sell to someone else and your new Mac then picks up where it left off.
Again, you may have your reasons here, so take my input as just my own opinion. I can add though that even an "old fashioned" HDD as boot drive seems plenty fast. I occasionally boot up Snow Leopard on an external HDD when I need to step back in time and it seems as fast as when Snow Leopard was "inside." Any old SSD as boot drive will probably seem very fast.
Now if you are editing heavy video or something, every little bit of speed can matter. But I even do that kind of thin on some HDD drives and it seems very fast.
I just ordered a MBP 16" with 1TB SSD. Given the use case posted in #16, is there a reason I should get the Caldigit Element? How likely will some company make a TB4 dock that can charge the 16" M1 Max/M1 Pro MacBook Pro 2021 using only one TB4 cable?
The Element should work perfectly. If your use case requires having more TB4 downstream connectors, that's the best one they offer. According to their compatibility chart, all their docks with USB-C will charge laptops. It may not 'fast charge' like the MagSafe connector but it will charge reasonably fast. The Element has its own big power brick, so if you're mobile and don't want to carry two power adapters, you could use the Element's instead.
As others have said, at these transfer rates you're not likely going to see any huge speed boost for reboots between TB3 and TB4. Thunderbolt is an extension of the PCIe bus, and very few drives can truly saturate a PCIe connection unless you're doing multiple streams of 8K video... rebooting from the internal SSD will likely always be a little faster. If they decide to build a super-fast SSD into the M1 SOC then you'll see a bigger jump, but that's probably not going to happen for ease of manufacturing reasons.
FWIW I have the older Caldigit TS3+ hub which can power a laptop via USB-C and has one TB3 (via USB-C) downstream port, and it breaks out several USB-A ports, a USB-C 3.1 port, audio i/o, optical, and a full-size DisplayPort connector.