USB on M1 Macs isn't actually 10Gb/s? (Also definitely not USB4)

[theorist9]

Unencrypted APFS. Default test settings.

Interesting. Comparing the T7 results you showed, not everything is slower with the M1. With a direct USB-C attachment, RND4K QD1 reads are 70% faster with the M1 (29.6) than the i5-7600 iMac (17.5)

Any thoughts on why the random writes are so slow on your M1's internal? I would think they should both be ~400 MB/s. Did you have all other programs off while you were doing the testing?

 

[theorist9]

Are 'unencrypted APFS' and 'FileVault turned on' mutually exclusive things? Or is it possible for the volume to be unencrypted but yet also for macOS to make use of FileVault? Thanks!

Yes, they are mutually exclusive, since 'Encrypted APFS' and 'FileVault ON' are effectively the same thing*. Turning FileVault ON is how you encrypt the disk:

[*The exception would be if you are formatting as HFS, in which case File Vault ON = Encrypted HFS.]

 

[EugW]

Interesting. Comparing the T7 results you showed, not everything is slower with the M1. With a direct USB-C attachment, RND4K QD1 reads are 70% faster with the M1 (29.6) than the i5-7600 iMac (17.5)

Any thoughts on why the random writes are so slow on your M1's internal? I would think they should both be ~400 MB/s. Did you have all other programs off while you were doing the testing?

I find the test results vary. I only ran the test once per config.

 

[white7561]

Here is mine, I'm using the MacBook Pro 2021 with M1 Pro, with my Asus ROG Strix Arion NVMe Enclosure (ASM2362 Chipset) .

 

[Kimcha]

Another data point:710 write and 770 mb/s read. That's about 6gbp/s

• M1 Macbook Air
• SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD v2

The result was very similar on both an APFS encrypted volume as well as the default ExFAT volume.

 

[doboy]

Another data point:710 write and 770 mb/s read. That's about 6gbp/s

• M1 Macbook Air
• SanDisk Extreme Portable SSD v2

The result was very similar on both an APFS encrypted volume as well as the default ExFAT volume.

Seems about right for non-Pro M1. On my Pro M1 machine, I used to get over 900 for write using APFS then it dropped to 800-850 with encrypted APFS with the 2 TB SanDisk drive.

 

[sauria]

Have you tried a thunderbolt drive with a good thunderbolt cable?

 

[Mike Boreham]

Have you tried a thunderbolt drive with a good thunderbolt cable?

Thunderbolt is up to 40Gbps so a whole different subject from the 10Gbps USB of this thread.
I have not seen any threads (at least long ones!) complaining about Thunderbolt performance on Silicon Macs.

 

[itslynch]

Hi, I originally planned to buy the acasis enclosure with a Samsung 980 Pro.

I was wondering how useful may be using this enclosure for editing on DaVinci Resolve 4k 60fps footage and put all sort of libraries/cache/media files there. Because I saw a couple messages out there that basically says you will never see any difference between this enclosure or a classic Samsung T7/ T7 Shield cause of the program litimation and because your needs are satisfied with a 500/600mbs ssd. I'd like to have an honest opinion if it's worth buying it because i will see some improvements on my workflow or if i can save up some money and buy a T7 and keep there all sort of files to edit on a external SSD. Also keep in my that i would use the enclosure/the T7 for multiple hours attached to the Mac and if they both give me the same performance on DaVinci then i prefer to go for the coolest option

P.S.A. Note that I have a Macbook Air M1 256GB storage and 16GB of ram

Thank you!

 

[whodiini]

can someone point me to the posting on how to bypass the M1 mac USB controller with certain types of TB3 hubs? I understand that the M1 mac mini suffers from slow USB3.1R2 (10Gbps) speeds due to hte controller, so would like to bypass that with a TB3 hub and use the hubs better USB3.1R2 controller.

 

[joevt]

can someone point me to the posting on how to bypass the M1 mac USB controller with certain types of TB3 hubs? I understand that the M1 mac mini suffers from slow USB3.1R2 (10Gbps) speeds due to hte controller, so would like to bypass that with a TB3 hub and use the hubs better USB3.1R2 controller.

Any Thunderbolt 3 device should allow you to bypass the Apple Silicon Mac's USB controller.

If you have a Thunderbolt 4 hub/dock, you can use its USB controller if there is a Thunderbolt 3 dock between the Apple Silicon Mac and the Thunderbolt 4 device.

The fastest 10 Gbps port on a Thunderbolt 3 dock will be the downstream Thunderbolt 3 port. Old Thunderbolt 3 docks that use Alpine Ridge (supports DisplayPort 1.2) like the CalDigit TS3+ may use an ASM1142 for a second 10 Gbps USB port but that one will only work at 8 Gbps. Newer Thunderbolt 3 docks that use Titan Ridge (supports DisplayPort 1.4) like the HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 may use an internal USB 10 Gbps hub to support more USB 10 Gpbs ports. A Thunderbolt 4 hub has an internal USB 10 Gbps hub for all its downstream Thunderbolt 4 ports. A Thunderbolt 4 dock or the CalDigit Element Hub may have a second internal USB 10 Gbps hub attached to the first internal USB hub to provide more USB 10 Gbps ports.

Each USB Hub in the path drops the performance slightly but not as much as an ASM1142 or the Apple Silicon Mac's USB controller. Each Thunderbolt device in the path drops the performance slightly than a USB hub does and increases latency slightly.

I don't know how many USB hubs or Thunderbolt devices in the path it would take to reduce max bandwidth to less than the max bandwidth of the Apple Silicon Mac's USB controller.

 

[whodiini]

Thank you. I tried replacing a OWC TB4 hub with a TB3 Titan Ridge hub and it made no difference. It ended up being some strange incompatibility between the Intel 670p NVMe and the RTL9210 controller in the enclosure that made the transfer rate around 650MBps. A different NVMe (PNY CS3020) ran at 1GBps. Or putting the 670p in a TB3 enclosure worked well as well. USB3.1R2 10Gbps devices and cables are a mess in terms of compatibility. Hopefully USB4 will be better. Even so, TB4 seems better than USB4 due to the tighter specs and certification.

 

[joevt]

Thank you. I tried replacing a OWC TB4 hub with a TB3 Titan Ridge hub and it made no difference. It ended up being some strange incompatibility between the Intel 670p NVMe and the RTL9210 controller in the enclosure that made the transfer rate around 650MBps. A different NVMe (PNY CS3020) ran at 1GBps. Or putting the 670p in a TB3 enclosure worked well as well. USB3.1R2 10Gbps devices and cables are a mess in terms of compatibility. Hopefully USB4 will be better. Even so, TB4 seems better than USB4 due to the tighter specs and certification.

Did the different NVMe PNY CS3020 run better from TB3 Titan Ridge hub compared to M1 Mac mini?

Maybe the 670p would work better with a JMS583. I have a 660p that works well in an ORICO enclosure like this one: https://www.orico.shop/en/nvme-m2-ssd-housing.html

 

[whodiini]

good idea. What I was going to do was first update the firmware on the RTL9210 to the latest Oct 22 version and see if that made a difference. If not, I was then going to move it to a SSK JMS583 that was firmware updated from the version that had stability issues.

I did not compare the speed of the CS3020 plugged straight into the M1 mac mini since I read about the problems with USB on M1 macs

 

[whodiini]

well I first updated the firmware on my sabrent EC-SNVE enclosure. System info on my mac (USB) did not correctly report the firmware version. One enclosure that I just bought this week had firmware 1.29.11 dated 1/6/2022 and the other enclosure that I bought a while ago had firmware 1.23.5 dated 9/3/2020. Updated them both to 1.31.17 dated 10/20/2022. Got the firmware from one site and the cfg file from Sabrent. After that, ran Blackmagic again and the speed went down by ~ 10%. That is pretty pathetic, to have striped RAID 0 perform worse than a single drive!

Edit: I thought about this and realized that while I powered down the M1 mac mini, I did not power down the OWC hub these enclosures were attached to. So I powered everything down, and restarted everything back up. After doing this, running blackmagic, the speeds were back to previously. Not more, not less, the same.

Next up is to move it to a JM583 and see how that works...

I took my old JMS583 (not revised version) and updated the firmware and then tested it on some known NVMe. The speed was only around 700Mbps. Thats not much different, so I would not expect the 670p to improve in the JMS583 enclosure. I may look for a sale on the OWC envoy express, since that works at about 1500Mbps. No sense getting a faster enclosure since speed is limited to ~ 3000 of TB3.

 

[white7561]

well I first updated the firmware on my sabrent EC-SNVE enclosure. System info on my mac (USB) did not correctly report the firmware version. One enclosure that I just bought this week had firmware 1.29.11 dated 1/6/2022 and the other enclosure that I bought a while ago had firmware 1.23.5 dated 9/3/2020. Updated them both to 1.31.17 dated 10/20/2022. Got the firmware from one site and the cfg file from Sabrent. After that, ran Blackmagic again and the speed went down by ~ 10%. That is pretty pathetic, to have striped RAID 0 perform worse than a single drive!

Edit: I thought about this and realized that while I powered down the M1 mac mini, I did not power down the OWC hub these enclosures were attached to. So I powered everything down, and restarted everything back up. After doing this, running blackmagic, the speeds were back to previously. Not more, not less, the same.

Next up is to move it to a JM583 and see how that works...

I took my old JMS583 (not revised version) and updated the firmware and then tested it on some known NVMe. The speed was only around 700Mbps. Thats not much different, so I would not expect the 670p to improve in the JMS583 enclosure. I may look for a sale on the OWC envoy express, since that works at about 1500Mbps. No sense getting a faster enclosure since speed is limited to ~ 3000 of TB3.

Interesting. I'm using a 2021 16 inch M1 pro MBP. my other enclosure with RTL9210B chip. Latest firmware too. Works great. Faster than my ASM2362 chip with the latest firmware. On APFS the write can go to 1050MBps (forgot the exact number)

 

[whodiini]

Interesting. I'm using a 2021 16 inch M1 pro MBP. my other enclosure with RTL9210B chip. Latest firmware too. Works great. Faster than my ASM2362 chip with the latest firmware. On APFS the write can go to 1050MBps (forgot the exact number)

It is NVMe dependent. The lower speeds are using a 2 TB intel 670p. Other NVMe give the same speeds as you get, Are you using an intel 670p?

 

[white7561]

It is NVMe dependent. The lower speeds are using a 2 TB intel 670p. Other NVMe give the same speeds as you get, Are you using an intel 670p?

Nope. But yeah it might be the RTL9210 compatibility with Intel 670p. Have you tried secure erasing the SSD? Maybe it has untrimmed space that's slowing the drive down?

 

[whodiini]

Nope. But yeah it might be the RTL9210 compatibility with Intel 670p. Have you tried secure erasing the SSD? Maybe it has untrimmed space that's slowing the drive down?

Brand new, formatted and tested. Updated NVMe firmware and tested. Updated enclosure firmware and tested. no change

 

[white7561]

Brand new, formatted and tested. Updated NVMe firmware and tested. Updated enclosure firmware and tested. no change

Oh yeah that's probably the drive or the compatibility between them. Personally I'm using NVMe with Phison E12S chip

 

[joeriggs]

I'm getting 725 MB/s with a USB 3.2 Gen2 drive on a M2 MBP vs. 980 MB/s with the same drive on an Intel MPB.
Updating to OS 13.4 didn't help improve speeds on the M2.

Are those of us on Apple Silicon just stuck with the reduced speeds? Anyone get better speeds after updating to 13.4?

 

[sublunar]

I'm getting 725 MB/s with a USB 3.2 Gen2 drive on a M2 MBP vs. 980 MB/s with the same drive on an Intel MPB.
Updating to OS 13.4 didn't help improve speeds on the M2.

Are those of us on Apple Silicon just stuck with the reduced speeds? Anyone get better speeds after updating to 13.4?

I believe t's a hardware limitation unfortunately. Might be controller related as I believe people on certain Thunderbolt docks get the full speed on ports that have their own dedicated USB controller.

 

[doboy]

I'm getting 725 MB/s with a USB 3.2 Gen2 drive on a M2 MBP vs. 980 MB/s with the same drive on an Intel MPB.
Updating to OS 13.4 didn't help improve speeds on the M2.

Are those of us on Apple Silicon just stuck with the reduced speeds? Anyone get better speeds after updating to 13.4?

From my experience and what I've seen, the Pro/Max Apple Silicon machines are bit faster than the "regular" Apple Silicon machines like the Air. I get around 850-900 MB/s on my 14" M1 Pro with SanDisk Extreme v2 and T7 Shield.

 

[dblissmn]

From my experience and what I've seen, the Pro/Max Apple Silicon machines are bit faster than the "regular" Apple Silicon machines like the Air. I get around 850-900 MB/s on my 14" M1 Pro with SanDisk Extreme v2 and T7 Shield.

It certainly seems to dispatch Time Machine faster than I'm used to and that's on the relatively slow Samsung T5 drives.

 

[platinumaqua]

I wonder if the M2 macs are affected too