M1 Base Model MBA (8/256) Poor External Drive Performance

[Buadhai]

I put together an external drive for my M1 MBA base model (8GB RAM, 256GB Internal Drive).

The external drive is a Samsung 1TB 970 EVO Plus M.2 NVMe SSD.

The enclosure is an ORICO USB4.0 M2 NVMe SSD Enclosure 40Gbps PCIe3.0x4

The cable is an ORICO PD Cable for Thunderbolt 4 Video 8K 60Hz 40Gbps Data Transfer 100W 5A

The performance of the drive is disappointing:

Especially compared to the internal SSD which I expected to be much slower:

Performance on a 2019 Intel iMac is about the same.

What have I done wrong here, or is that the best I can expect?

 

[Shirasaki]

So many factors can contribute to apparently low write speed of your external drive. Is the NAND flash in good quality? Is the controller good? How does base model MacBook Air allocate resources for external drive? Can cable really sustain high r/w speed? It’s hard to tell really.

 

[Buadhai]

So many factors can contribute to apparently low write speed of your external drive. Is the NAND flash in good quality? Is the controller good? How does base model MacBook Air allocate resources for external drive? Can cable really sustain high r/w speed? It’s hard to tell really.

How would I know the answers to any of those questions?

 

[Bigwaff]

Trial and error with different enclosures, cables, etc. Or research the performance of specific drives in specific enclosures with MBA as host system on the web.

 

[Shirasaki]

How would I know the answers to any of those questions?

Like Bigwaff says, trial and error, also check similar config online and see if anything similar appear and if so what’s the result.
Truth is, slow transfer speed can be manifested in so many different ways it is difficult for others to tell straightaway the potential cause, unless someone has the same setup as yours.

 

[Buadhai]

I've tried three different Thunderbolt cables with the same result. That particular Samsung drive and Orico enclosure were recommended as an external boot drive for a M2 Mac mini to improve performance. In that environment BlackMagic read and write speeds were both about 2700 MB/s.

Perhaps it's an M1 Problem. And, yes, there are reports of slow read/write speeds with external drives on M1 based Macs.

Video here:

 

[jdb8167]

I've tried three different Thunderbolt cables with the same result. That particular Samsung drive and Orico enclosure were recommended as an external boot drive for a M2 Mac mini to improve performance. In that environment BlackMagic read and write speeds were both about 2700 MB/s.

Perhaps it's an M1 Problem. And, yes, there are reports of slow read/write speeds with external drives on M1 based Macs.

Video here:

Interesting video. I think it shows some of the reasoning for Apple using its own internal SSD controller in the SoC instead of supporting SSDs using an M.2 NVME connection. There is clearly some magic happening in the SoC when hitting a lot of swap usage. If Apple had to rely on the controller on an M.2 SSD performance could suffer.

 

[MBAir2010]

My MacBook air M1 can't read several great SSD external drives that the mac mini can.

HUH?
then i realized the suppliers usb c chord was not efficient enough.

and MacBooks where known never to have reliable usb ports, well during the 2000's.

the solution is to

GET
A
MAC
MINI
m sereis

or an external hub that outputs more uumph!

 

[Buadhai]

or an external hub that outputs more uumph!

I tried it with an OWC powered external hub. Made no difference.

 

[MBAir2010]

I tried it with an OWC powered external hub. Made no difference.

I was just wondering now of other drives non NMVe work better with faster reads?

 

[Buadhai]

Interesting video. I think it shows some of the reasoning for Apple using its own internal SSD controller in the SoC instead of supporting SSDs using an M.2 NVME connection. There is clearly some magic happening in the SoC when hitting a lot of swap usage. If Apple had to rely on the controller on an M.2 SSD performance could suffer.

I like that guy's approach. Just matter-of-fact explanations without the dramatic sensationalism that you so often see out of YouTube presenters.

However, it still doesn't explain why my write speed suffers so when using the exact same drive, enclosure and hub that he has.

I've ordered a 15" M2 MBA which should arrive next week. I'll test again on the M2.

I did a real-world test to see if the external drive improved the speed of exporting a large iMovie video. It did not:

The video is a two and a half hour 720p AVC/AAC video exported to an MP4 container:

Boot from internal, IO internal: 29 minutes

Boot from internal, IO external San Disk Extreme : 32 minutes

Boot from internal, IO external Samsung 970 EVO: 29 minutes

Boot from external Samsung, IO external Samsung: 29 minutes

 

[Bigwaff]

Awesome read

Choosing a Compatible NVMe SSD for your macOS Boot Drive

Introduction to NVMe Choices If you have any previous hackintosh experience, you'll know that a limited number of hardware components have native support in macOS. You can't buy just any graphics card and expect it to work. Only certain Broadcom models of Wifi/BT cards have native support etc...

www.tonymacx86.com

 

[MBAir2010]

Awesome read

Choosing a Compatible NVMe SSD for your macOS Boot Drive

Introduction to NVMe Choices If you have any previous hackintosh experience, you'll know that a limited number of hardware components have native support in macOS. You can't buy just any graphics card and expect it to work. Only certain Broadcom models of Wifi/BT cards have native support etc...

www.tonymacx86.com

Sorry, you have been blocked…….​

they want my email address to proceed to the article.

 

[Bigwaff]

Sorry, you have been blocked…….​

they want my email address to proceed to the article.

I was never asked to provide my email address. I don't have an account on that site nor am I logged into that site. It's a straight up, no funny-business URL, bro.

 

[Buadhai]

Awesome read

Choosing a Compatible NVMe SSD for your macOS Boot Drive

Introduction to NVMe Choices If you have any previous hackintosh experience, you'll know that a limited number of hardware components have native support in macOS. You can't buy just any graphics card and expect it to work. Only certain Broadcom models of Wifi/BT cards have native support etc...

www.tonymacx86.com

All very interesting and very confusing. In this ARS article they find that the newer version of the 970 EVO Plus is slower than the older version:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/202...swapping-components-in-its-970-evo-plus-ssds/

"We tested the 970 Evo Plus (alongside the 980, and the older 970 Pro) in March, clocking it at write speeds of 1,600+ MiB/sec on 1MiB workloads. Our benchmarking was done with he old version, part number MZVLB1T0HBLR. The newer version—part number MZVL21T0HBLU—is considerably slower. According to 潮玩客's test results, the newer version only manages 830MiB/sec—half the performance of the original."

I have the older version: MZVLB1T0HBLR. But it performs poorly with my M1 MBA. But it also performed poorly with an Intel iMac; so it's apparently not chip incompatibility.

I'm now completely baffled.

 

[Buadhai]

Another thing that confuses me:

The part number on my drive is the old version (MZVLB1T0HBLR), but the manufacture date of 2023.05 is quite some time after Samsung supposedly changed the part number to MZVL21T0HBLU.

 

[Apple_Robert]

Why not get a Samsung T7 SSD? That will do fine. You are wasting money and time trying to put together a SSD that you can already buy without problems.

SAMSUNG SSD T7 Portable External Solid State Drive 1TB, Up to USB 3.2 Gen 2, Reliable Storage for Gaming, Students, Professionals, MU-PC1T0T/AM, Gray

The Samsung Portable SSD T7 is the next standard in external storage. With transfer rates up to 9.5x faster than traditional external hard drives and read/ write speeds up to 1050 MB/s1, you can move massive files around with unparalleled ease and fluidity. Its sleek, shock-resistant design is un...

www.amazon.com

 

[Buadhai]

Why not get a Samsung T7 SSD? That will do fine. You are wasting money and time trying to put together a SSD that you can already buy without problems.

Because I'm an old retired guy with no friends and nothing to do. This little project has been interesting, time consuming and educational.

Anyway, I already have a T7, the performance of which is rather dismal at 130 MB/s write and 880 MB/s read; much worse than the drive I put together.

 

[MBAir2010]

Another thing that confuses me:

The part number on my drive is the old version (MZVLB1T0HBLR), but the manufacture date of 2023.05 is quite some time after Samsung supposedly changed the part number to MZVL21T0HBLU.

thanks for this post and the previous one
the 2 NVMe blades are used only for Time Machine on both M1 Macs that share an enclosure.
this system works perfect now
when I used these as read write for data exchange,
sometime these blades would not read or eject them selves from the MBAm1
so im wondering why and now not really caring.