Samsung T5 woes with Mini M1 / Big Sur

[rstreber]

I have a number of T5 drives that are having serious problems when connected to the Mini (just updated to 11.2.2.) The drives mount, but files are often unreadable or randomly don't appear in finder with their parent folders appearing empty. Programs show files in question as "offline" even though they're there. I can't format the drives on the Mini and just get error messages. I often get -36 or -50 errors when trying to copy files from the T5s to the internal drive. If I run first aid on the drives, I get an error that just tells me to back up the data. Etc.

I've tried updating the T5 software via Samsung's app to the latest version, and that seems to have done nothing. I'm not using their encryption features, and the drives aren't password protected. What am I missing?

 

[BobHinden]

I have a T5 connected to my M1 MacMini. Seems to be working fine, I use it for TimeMachine backups.

However, I just went to open TimeMachine for the first time. It took a long time for TimeMachine to come up. Seems to be fine, then after closing it (cancel), the M1 rebooted. That is the first time that has happened. I opened it again, it came up quicker, but took a long time to cancel. No idea if this is related to the drive or not.

 

[rstreber]

Have you tried actually opening or copying any files from the T5? Did you format it with the Mini or a different computer?

 

[BobHinden]

I did format it on the M1 Mini when I first got it. When I open up the drive, I see all of the backups. When time machine came up, it showed the history, it all looked fine. I have not tried restoring anything.

 

[rstreber]

Mine seemed to be working fine for a while and only recently seems to have freaked out. Nothing changed, and I only updated from 11.1 to 11.2.2 this morning in an attempt to see if that would help anything. Really stumped.

 

[chabig]

I have two T5s that work and one that doesn't. I think it's a Samsung firmware issue that they haven't fixed. If you have a T5 that works, don't update the firmware!

 

[rstreber]

Well, I have three that apparently worked and then kind of "degraded" to the point where they now effectively don't. I only tried upgrading firmware when this started happening and that didn't make any difference. All of them seem to work fine with Macs running High Sierra and Mojave.

BTW, is there a different source for T5 firmware updates besides the Samsung SSD software page? They have a link that purports to be an update for Big Sur (1.6.8), but I've tried a couple of times now to update to that and it keeps showing after that the current version of that software is 1.6.7 and is up to date. And I don't use that software at all anyway, but I have no idea if it also updates firmware or not.

 

[BobHinden]

I ran DiskUtility and it is showing that the drive is failing. Not happy.

 

[rstreber]

Yeah, that's what I was getting to when I tried to run disk utility / repair. I'm guessing that the drive is not in fact failing but that there's just an issue with it and the M1 Mini / Big Sur. It's very stressful nonetheless, and so far I've found nothing that seems to fix the issue. The only consolation is that I'm able to mount my T5s to older Macs with no problems. But I'm worried that messing with them so much on the mini and having so many failed repair and reformat attempts can't be a great thing either!

 

[Memet]

Same here: Samsung T5 (2GB), works with no problems at MBP 16, can't read / write on M1. Tried with two different M1's, M1 mounts the disk but gives funny errors when files are copied to disk, also I receive an error when trying to copy big files (8GB) from the disk. Might be low USB bus power. But I did not try after upgrading to Big Sur 11.2.2, maybe they also fixed this?

 

[rstreber]

Nope, I upgraded to 11.2.2 this morning. Made no difference.

 

[dmccloud]

I have not run into any issues with my T5 (using it as my Time Machine drive). I do wonder if anyone has tried the newer T7 version of the drive. There may be some sort of firmware/driver update that resolves the issue.

 

[BobHinden]

After doing some searching, I think I found out that you can't run DiskUtility FirstAid on a mounted Time Machine drive. It will always fail.

I opened up Time Machine, went back a few days, and was able to open a backed up file. I am less sure there is a problem with the drive.

Can anyone confirm my suspicion about First Aid and time machine volumes?

 

[rstreber]

I'm not sure about Time Machine, but I can say that I wasn't using TM and couldn't perform First Aid. So at least in my case there seemed to be no connection.

 

[HevyKev]

I have not run into any issues with my T5 (using it as my Time Machine drive). I do wonder if anyone has tried the newer T7 version of the drive. There may be some sort of firmware/driver update that resolves the issue.

I have been using a T7. The fingerprint scanner doesn’t work, and it doesn’t eject properly. Otherwise, no problems.

 

[jsamuels]

I have not run into any issues with my T5 (using it as my Time Machine drive). I do wonder if anyone has tried the newer T7 version of the drive. There may be some sort of firmware/driver update that resolves the issue.

No issues with a T7 here.

 

[CMMChris]

Guys, check the SMART stats of the drive. They might got killed by the high TBW issue some Macs are suffering from. This issue is not only affecting the internal drive.

 

[Clix Pix]

No problems here with either a T5 or a T7 -- I have both and have used each of them in my 13" M1 MBP without any issues