Samsung T5

[Camarillo Brillo]

Hello,

I was about to buy a Samsung T5, when I came across a review saying it’s not compatible with Catalina.

After more reading I can’t be sure whether this issue has been addressed.

If I buy a Samsung T5 will it work with my 16” MacBook Pro on Catalina 10.5.3?

 

[Hastings101]

I'm assuming you just mean the external USB drive? There is no reason that wouldn't work with Catalina. I have a smaller T3 version of that and the drive works just fine with it.

Googling around I see there is some kind of Samsung solution for password protecting/encrypting the drive that seems to not work, but you can do that through macOS anyway. No reason to bother with Samsung's proprietary software/drivers/whatever.

 

[gwang73]

I have 3 T5's and they all work fine with Catalina. I reformatted all of them in ExFat so they can be used on Windows and Linux.
I didn't bother with Samsung's software.

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Thanks!
Regarding formatting - is that what I should do? I’m really mainly using this drive to hold and run my Logic Pro sessions. Does the formatting of the disk matter in that case? Will one of the Apple formatting options perform better or something in my case? It would be cool to be able to use it on a windows computer if needed but it really probably will not be needed.

 

[gwang73]

Thanks!
Regarding formatting - is that what I should do? I’m really mainly using this drive to hold and run my Logic Pro sessions. Does the formatting of the disk matter in that case? Will one of the Apple formatting options perform better or something in my case? It would be cool to be able to use it on a windows computer if needed but it really probably will not be needed.

If you're just using it for Mac, then I would choose HFS. You won't be able to read it natively on Windows or Linux without 3rd party software. I need to read my drives on multiple OS's so ExFat is the best choice for that.

 

[sugargliderdude]

BTW, the Samsung T7 SSD is out now, its faster

 

[Fishrrman]

"Regarding formatting - is that what I should do? I’m really mainly using this drive to hold and run my Logic Pro sessions. Does the formatting of the disk matter in that case?"

Use Disk Utility to erase the external drives to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format" (this is commonly known as HFS+).
If you're going to connect external drives to a Mac and use them for Mac software, then you want them in Mac FORMAT, as well.

 

[Daverich4]

"Regarding formatting - is that what I should do? I’m really mainly using this drive to hold and run my Logic Pro sessions. Does the formatting of the disk matter in that case?"

Use Disk Utility to erase the external drives to "Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format" (this is commonly known as HFS+).
If you're going to connect external drives to a Mac and use them for Mac software, then you want them in Mac FORMAT, as well.

Is there some reason to not format that as APFS? I’ve been doing that with my external SSD’s as I understood that to be Apple’s newer, more efficient formatting. At any rate, Apple seems to be moving towards it.

 

[NoBoMac]

Is there some reason to not format that as APFS? I’ve been doing that with my external SSD’s as I understood that to be Apple’s newer, more efficient formatting. At any rate, Apple seems to be moving towards it.

No reason not too, unless you have some older Mac(s) that don't talk APFS.

I'm running my T5 as APFS. And on Catalina. No problems.

 

[chscag]

I'm running my T5 as APFS. And on Catalina. No problems.

I agree. I run both of my T5s for backup (using CCC) in Catalina and have them formatted to APFS. APFS format is also faster than HFS+.

 

[Daverich4]

No reason not too, unless you have some older Mac(s) that don't talk APFS.

I'm running my T5 as APFS. And on Catalina. No problems.

Thanks, I have one running Mojave and one running Catalina, no older systems involved. I am under the impression that Time Machine doesn’t work with APFS formatting so I don’t use that for my backup drives.

 

[Peadogie]

...I am under the impression that Time Machine doesn’t work with APFS formatting so I don’t use that for my backup drives.

True. Is there some technical why Apple hasn't switched TM to APFS?

 

[mmomega]

Hello,

I was about to buy a Samsung T5, when I came across a review saying it’s not compatible with Catalina.

After more reading I can’t be sure whether this issue has been addressed.

If I buy a Samsung T5 will it work with my 16” MacBook Pro on Catalina 10.5.3?

yes, it is compatible.

source? I have 5 of them and they are used at minimum 3 days a week on several Catalina machines.

 

[DookSucks]

I have T5's serving as external storage on two Catalina machines. No problem.

I have another Catalina machine with a T5 for TimeMachine, and it works great.

I have another Catalina machine with a T5 as an external boot, and it works fine.

 

[gilby101]

Is there some technical why Apple hasn't switched TM to APFS?

It is not straight forward because Time Machine uses hard linked directories and APFS does not support hard linked directories. So it requires a major change as to how TM stores the backup.

 

[iMacDragon]

The samsung encryption software didn't work at release on Catalina, I presume fixed by now, but the drive itself never had any problem.

 

[Super Spartan]

Hello,

I was about to buy a Samsung T5, when I came across a review saying it’s not compatible with Catalina.

After more reading I can’t be sure whether this issue has been addressed.

If I buy a Samsung T5 will it work with my 16” MacBook Pro on Catalina 10.5.3?

I have a Samsung T5 2TB and that's the only drive I use as an external drive on Catalina on my MBP 16! I also used it on my previous MBP 15 so basically it worked flawlessly on Catalina 10.15.XX (all versions) with no additional drivers or software required and it's super duper fast! Best purchase you'll ever make as it's a big time saver especially when you format your laptop and have to copy a TB worth of Videos or Data

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Thanks all

I bought a 1tb yesterday. Works great! I will be running my Logic Pro project files off this drive. Didn’t plan on using Samsung’s encryption anyway.

it only gave me Mac OS journaled as an option, no APFS, when I first formatted it in disk utility. Is that normal?

 

[NoBoMac]

I've seen some odd behavior with Disk Utility last couple of OSes. Anytime that happens, I'll format to one thing, then format to what I want. That usually clears out whatever hiccup happened.

 

[Peadogie]

Formatted mine APFS without issue the day I got it (Disk Utility, Mojave).

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Hmm you guys think I should try to reformat it to APFS? Will it perform better?

 

[Super Spartan]

it only gave me Mac OS journaled as an option, no APFS, when I first formatted it in disk utility. Is that normal?

My 2TB does give me the option to format it as AFPS but I formatted it as exFAT so it would be compatible with Windows machines as well.

 

[gilby101]

Hmm you guys think I should try to reformat it to APFS? Will it perform better?

Yes you should. Perform better? What do you include as performance. Raw speed - not much if any difference. Some file operations will be much faster - in particular duplicating or copying a file. It will perform better in the sense that it will be more resilient to errors or sudden disconnection.

If you do want to change make sure you are 'erasing' at the device level. Devices are not shown by default in Disk Utility - you need to enable Menu > View > Show all devices.

 

[Camarillo Brillo]

Thanks

I did some reading and im thinking that’s why I couldn’t reformat as APFS also - I need to click show all.