Slow USB-C NVMe ssd performance on M1

[nizce]

Hi,

I just purchesed a intel 665p 1Tb m.2 NVMe disk and a USB 3.1 gen 2 compatible enclosure that I use with my MacBook Pro M1.
The enclosure is a Icy Box IB-1817M-C31 and is said to be using chipset JMS583.

I did a Blackmagic disk speed test v.3.3 and the results says that i get max approx. 580MB/s read/write using APFS non-encrypted but I'd expect to get closer to 900MB/s.



If i format the disk to APFS encrypted, it drops down to approx. 100MB/s write and 80MB/s read, but I'd expect to not perhaps get the same throughput as non-encrypted filesystem, but I'd expect somewhere around 500+ MB/s.



Since the Intel 665p disk should handle at least 1500MB/s and the enclosure up to 1000MB/s I would expect to see at least 800+ MB/s.

Looking in system report i see that it says its connected with 10Gbit/s which is what to expect, but the performance i get is roughly halt of that.



Anyone else experiencing this with slow transfer speed on the M1 with USB 3.1 Gen 2 compatible disks(eq 500MB instead of close to 1000MB/s)?

Also anyone else seeing a huge performance drops with APFS Encrypted volumes?

 

[Aler]

Well, that's a huge difference. I have currently no direct experience, but I'll receive an NVME external SSD the next wednsday and I'm planning to encrypt it so I'll check this out.
I've read that APFS is an advanced filesystem with some unique features, nonetheless.. do you know if it's possible to use other encrypted filesystems?

 

[nizce]

Well, that's a huge difference. I have currently no direct experience, but I'll receive an NVME external SSD the next wednsday and I'm planning to encrypt it so I'll check this out.
I've read that APFS is an advanced filesystem with some unique features, nonetheless.. do you know if it's possible to use other encrypted filesystems?

I don't think you can use other filesystems as standard. But perhaps with a bit of hacking and no support.
APFS is the way to go I believe, but I'm worried that perhaps there's some problem with M1 and USB-C drives(at least 3.1 Gen 2 at 10Gbit/s), but might just be the controller that's in my enclosure.

I just transfered 80GB of data from the drive to my girlfriends Intel MacBook Pro 2018. Looked lite she got speeds around 800MB/s during the transfer from the non-encrypted Volume.
I'll try to do a benchmark from her Intel Macbook later today to get some more reliable figures and report back.

 

[Johnny907]

This bottleneck is a known issue. Not sure if it is software or a hardware limitation. Search these forums and you'll find more than a few threads discussing what you're seeing here.

 

[nizce]

This bottleneck is a known issue. Not sure if it is software or a hardware limitation. Search these forums and you'll find more than a few threads discussing what you're seeing here.

Thanks!
I found some posts related to this.
Couldn't find anything about if it was APFS non-encrypted or encrypted Volumes in those posts.

I'm thinking since the Encrypted shows perhaps 1/8 of the performance expected it's hopefully not related specifically USB hardware related, since the USB controller should have nothing to do with encryption.

 

[MGLXP]

Hi,

I just purchesed a intel 665p 1Tb m.2 NVMe disk and a USB 3.1 gen 2 compatible enclosure that I use with my MacBook Pro M1.
The enclosure is a Icy Box IB-1817M-C31 and is said to be using chipset JMS583.

I did a Blackmagic disk speed test v.3.3 and the results says that i get max approx. 580MB/s read/write using APFS non-encrypted but I'd expect to get closer to 900MB/s.
View attachment 1702297


If i format the disk to APFS encrypted, it drops down to approx. 100MB/s write and 80MB/s read, but I'd expect to not perhaps get the same throughput as non-encrypted filesystem, but I'd expect somewhere around 500+ MB/s.
View attachment 1702298


Since the Intel 665p disk should handle at least 1500MB/s and the enclosure up to 1000MB/s I would expect to see at least 800+ MB/s.

Looking in system report i see that it says its connected with 10Gbit/s which is what to expect, but the performance i get is roughly halt of that.
View attachment 1702296


Anyone else experiencing this with slow transfer speed on the M1 with USB 3.1 Gen 2 compatible disks(eq 500MB instead of close to 1000MB/s)?

Also anyone else seeing a huge performance drops with APFS Encrypted volumes?

It's the JMicron NVMe controller. My SSD enclosure has a RTL9210 controller and I get 900MB/s+ transfer as expected from a USB3.2 Gen 2 enclosure. I used to have a JMicron NVMe controller based enclosure, but have had nothing but problems. Unfortunately, the JMicron controller is the most popular controller.

This is with a Samsung 960 Evo, formatted with APFS running on a MacBook Air M1.

 

[nizce]

It's the JMicron NVMe controller. My SSD enclosure has a RTL9210 controller and I get 900MB/s+ transfer as expected from a USB3.2 Gen 2 enclosure. I used to have a JMicron NVMe controller based enclosure, but have had nothing but problems. Unfortunately, the JMicron controller is the most popular controller.

This is with a Samsung 960 Evo, formatted with APFS.

Thanks!
I think I need to try a RTL9210 based one!
What enclosure do you use, and just do double check you're on a M1 as well I guess?
Also have you tried benchmarking a APFS encrypted volume?

 

[MGLXP]

I just ran with APFS encrypted and I get around 800MB/s write and about 730MB/s read.

 

[MGLXP]

Thanks!
I think I need to try a RTL9210 based one!
What enclosure do you use, and just do double check you're on a M1 as well I guess?
Also have you tried benchmarking a APFS encrypted volume?

It's this one: https://www.amazon.ca/JMT-Enclosure...hild=1&keywords=RTL9210&qid=1609182115&sr=8-6

Yes I'm on a M1 MacBook Air.

Just a side note, the JMicron chipset has big time conflicts with some Windows PC (which is why I got another enclosure with another chipset), especially ones with AMD X570 motherboards.

 

[Aler]

Just to give my two cents as promised, this are the results for an external 1Tb SanDisk SSD Extreme gen. 2.
The SSD is directly connected to the M1 Air, and the filesystem is APFS - encrypted.

 

[ADGrant]

I think that is a well known issue with the M1 Macs. There have been many reports of this issue on YouTube and other places.

 

[turbineseaplane]

So they key here is - buck up for an Thunderbolt 3 enclosure/fast drive it sounds like?

That's confirmed that TB3 is working correctly and fast as it should be, yes?

 

[ADGrant]

So they key here is - buck up for an Thunderbolt 3 enclosure/fast drive it sounds like?

That's confirmed that TB3 is working correctly and fast as it should be, yes?

Is it? Can you point to some testing people have done?

 

[nizce]

I've just ordered a RTL9210 based enclosure and will try that out also and see if it works better.
Will report back when I've received it in a week or so.

 

[Chancha]

Is it? Can you point to some testing people have done?

I have a WD750 inside a WAVLINK UTE-01 enclosure, and another ADATA SX8200 pro inside a JEYI enclosure, both behave exactly the same via my M1 MBA vs on my other Intel Macs with TB3.

Plain old USB-A 3.0 single HDDs, and RAID-0 HDD array via TB3 also behave the same, for the record. It seems the "issues" are exclusive to USB-C 3.x gen2 onwards (or whatever the fck they are called now)

 

[nizce]

I've now received my Orico M2Pv-C3 (RTL9210 based) enclusore and can gladly report back that it seems to have solved the problem, for me at least.
I now get 700+MB/sek both read and write on a APFS ENCRYPTED volume on initial benchmarks, which previously with the JMicron Chipset was approx 100MB/sek.

So seems to be some incompatibility issues in regards to the chipsets used in NVME ext. enclosures.

 

[Mac_e]

I have the same enclosure as the original post and have the same issue on my MacBook Pro M1, however I don't have the issue on my PC where the disk is running around 800 mb/s, maybe a compatibility issue on the M1

 

[hcorlbi]

I've now received my Orico M2Pv-C3 (RTL9210 based) enclusore and can gladly report back that it seems to have solved the problem, for me at least.
I now get 700+MB/sek both read and write on a APFS ENCRYPTED volume on initial benchmarks, which previously with the JMicron Chipset was approx 100MB/sek.

View attachment 1713404

So seems to be some incompatibility issues in regards to the chipsets used in NVME ext. enclosures.

Oh.. I should've seen this before I bought it. I'm having the same problem. Now that I know what the cause is, I should buy an enclosure that contains a realtek chipset. Thanks for your post.

 

[gogogo2]

JMS583 is not good, buy a thunderbolt 3 case,

 

[hcorlbi]

JMS583 is not good, buy a thunderbolt 3 case,

Yup, thunderbolt 3 is the best but you know, it's quite expensive. My budget can't handle it. 😂

 

[Mac... nificent]

Is it? Can you point to some testing people have done?

All one needs to do is to read the threads in this Apple Silicon forum to see that Thunderbolt 3 has little (if any) issues with external drives, and all other drives have the most reported issues. I'm sure Apple will get this all sorted in time but right now TB3 is the way to go for external.

 

[ca$hman]

All one needs to do is to read the threads in this Apple Silicon forum to see that Thunderbolt 3 has little (if any) issues with external drives, and all other drives have the most reported issues. I'm sure Apple will get this all sorted in time but right now TB3 is the way to go for external.

I can back that up, my Nekteck enclosure with a WD SN750 does a whopping 2319MB/s write and 2541 MB/s read performance with my MBP M1. Now using this an external boot disk. Works just fine!

 

[notgonna]

> Nekteck enclosure with a WD SN750 does a whopping 2319MB/s write and 2541 MB/s read performance with my MBP M1

This is great performance. Which model of Nekteck enclosure? Where purchased? Price? Thanks.

 

[ca$hman]

> Nekteck enclosure with a WD SN750 does a whopping 2319MB/s write and 2541 MB/s read performance with my MBP M1

This is great performance. Which model of Nekteck enclosure? Where purchased? Price? Thanks.

[Certified] Nekteck 480GB Thunderbolt 3 SSD NVME Hard Drive | eBay replaced the 480GB SSD with the 1TB WD Black.

 

[notgonna]

Thank you. Via Amazon, it looks like this is the same Thunderbolt: https://www.amazon.com/Certified-Ne...+WD+SN750&qid=1615052255&s=electronics&sr=1-7

eBay US: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Certified-...245524?hash=item2aa0040954:g:cL8AAOSwKM1agyQ6

I'm searching for what controller chipset this Thunderbolt enclosure uses. Running System Report, does any info show in Thunderbolt/USB4 Bus 0: