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

[DEMinSoCAL]

You guys need to stop messing around with those crappy Samsung T5/T7 drives and move to NVME enclosures if you want speed.

On my M1 Mac mini:

View attachment 1682640

Uh...which ORICO enclosure is that? To get those Blackmagic speeds, it'd need to be a Thunderbolt enclosure.

And does that ORICO support PCIe Gen 4? If not, your numbers do not add up.

EDIT: I see that it IS a Thunderbolt enclosure. Here it is. Double the performance for about double the price of a USB 3.2 Gen2 enclosure.

 

[Ethosik]

I dont have a crappy T5 or T7, mine is a 860 evo in an enclosure.

I will hopefully find out tomorrow which enclosure is best, orico aswell.

That is a SATA SSD and you would only get 500 MB/s maximum. Maybe its doing intelligent bus speed? SATA SSD would only need 6Gbps max, 5Gbps realistically.

 

[aUniqueName]

I dont have a crappy T5 or T7, mine is a 860 evo in an enclosure.

I will hopefully find out tomorrow which enclosure is best, orico aswell.

If my memory serves, 860 evo is a 2.5 inch SSD.. Those will always be limited to like 500 read/500 write no matter how you plug them in. Even plugged directly into a SATA port inside a windows machine those have limited bandwidth. If you want more speed than that you have to get a PCIe NVME drive and put it in an enclosure to get 2,000+ speeds

 

[aUniqueName]

Uh...which ORICO enclosure is that? To get those Blackmagic speeds, it'd need to be a Thunderbolt enclosure.

And does that ORICO support PCIe Gen 4? If not, your numbers do not add up.

the Orico enclosure does not support PCIe Gen 4. I already had the PCIe Gen 4 NVME drive so I put it in there (PCIe Gen 4 is backward compatible). So my drive is maxing out the Orico enclosure's bandwidth.

 

[adonis3k]

If my memory serves, 860 evo is a 2.5 inch SSD.. Those will always be limited to like 500 read/500 write no matter how you plug them in. Even plugged directly into a SATA port inside a windows machine those have limited bandwidth. If you want more speed than that you have to get a PCIe NVME drive and put it in an enclosure to get 2,000+ speeds

as my other post, i also have a 1TB Sabrent NVME in This and still only connects at 5Gbps, maybe its down to the controllers in the enclosures.

Will be trying these out, guess the Orico will be the one which works at "10gbps

 

[Ethosik]

as my other post, i also have a 1TB Sabrent NVME in This and still only connects at 5Gbps, maybe its down to the controllers in the enclosures.

Will be trying these out, guess the Orico will be the one which works at "10gbps

View attachment 1682658

There are some comments on the product you have that it is not as fast as advertised. Even on Windows machines.

 

[toxotis700]

What is the fastest combination? Nvme + enclosure?

 

[aUniqueName]

What is the fastest combination? Nvme + enclosure?

Yes but it needs to be a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure, not just a USB-C enclosure or you will get limited speeds. Nobody makes a USB 4 anything yet so you would be getting a USB-c enclosure that is USB 3.x which is 10GB/s whereas Thunderbolt 3 and USB4 are 40GB/s

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

as my other post, i also have a 1TB Sabrent NVME in This and still only connects at 5Gbps, maybe its down to the controllers in the enclosures.

Will be trying these out, guess the Orico will be the one which works at "10gbps

The Orico you listed works at 40Gbps on Thunderbolt. I have the FIDECO (red) enclosure you listed and it does run at 10Gbps.

 

[deeddawg]

Have t read everything but as a FWIW...

With a Sandisk 1T Extreme Portable SSD new generation (up to 1050MBps) I get the following results:

Early 2020 i5 MBA side port, Catalina:

M1 MBP side port:

M1 MBP, Caldigit TS3+ front 5Gbps port:

M1 MBP, Caldigit TS3+ rear 10Gbps port:

 

[Sarpanch]

I have one of these cool devices (pun intended) with a SK Hynix NVMe SSD installed and my M1 Mini does see it at 10Gb/s connection and Blackmagic shows about >900 read and >800 writes.

They are on sale right now for Cyber Monday if anyone is interested. I'm returning my first two and ordered two more at the lower price.

Thanks for sharing. The controller chip in that enclosure is a Realtek RTL9210B and it appears to be saturating the 10Gb/s link speed.

Based on what others have posted in this thread, there seem to be 2 issues going on:

1) Some USB 3.1 Gen 2 devices that connect at 10Gbps on Intel are connecting at 5Gbps on the M1 Macs
2) Some USB-C devices are connecting at 10Gbps on M1 Macs but are running slower when compared to Intel Macs.

It is possible that Apple’s drivers on the M1 Macs are treating these USB Chipsets differently. There is a long running thread at Anandtech which has info on the 3 commonly used chipsets (Realtek, ASMedia, JMicron). Would be nice if we can see any pattern on what chipsets work at full speed.

I submitted a bug report to Apple and had a 1+ hour remote troubleshooting session with their tech team. Will post if I hear back from them.

 

[wyk126]

So on Apple’s website technical specifications it says

Charging and Expansion​

Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports with support for:

• Charging
• DisplayPort
• Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s)
• USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)
• Headphone

I wonder if Apple use USB 4 not USB4 on purpose, because it’s based on thunderbolt 3?

 

[adonis3k]

Finally at 10Gbps!

They were all tested with the same Sabrent 1TB SB-ROCKET-1TB NVME M.2 Drive (Non-Q)

Started off by testing from the USB port first and the the Thunderbolt..

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 TCM2T3-G40-BK-BP 40Gbps, only tried with TB and it connected at 40 giving the best results although most expensive at £99.99!

FIDECO M209CPS with the mini (annoying) fan, lol RGB...ewww £30
Connected at 10Gbps...

USB 3 speeds....and TB Speeds

FIDECO M204CP-NBL 10Gbps £27

USB v TB

SSK SHE-C325 £20

USB v TB

The one I had been using which would only connect at 5Gbps finally connected at 10 with another cable:
Fideco M203CP USB 3.1, Gen 2 Adapter £18

After all that I have decided to keep the FIDECO M204CP-NBL £27 which gave the best write speed after the £99 Orico....which I can't justify the price of!

All these connected at 10Gbps with the TB cables provided, although with the enclosure I had issues with turned out to be the cable! Must of been a crappy one or the USB adapter which was in the box.

 

[Sarpanch]

After all that I have decided to keep the FIDECO M204CP-NBL £27 which gave the best write speed after the £99 Orico....which I can't justify the price of!

All these connected at 10Gbps with the TB cables provided, although with the enclosure I had issues with turned out to be the cable! Must of been a crappy one or the USB adapter which was in the box.

This is really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing this! My only suggestion will be to use the enclosure for some time and let the computer go through a few sleep/wake cycles and see if you encounter any “Disk Ejected” type of errors.

I have ordered a Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD V2 and will share how that one goes.

 

[unixhound]

[...]

It is possible that Apple’s drivers on the M1 Macs are treating these USB Chipsets differently. There is a long running thread at Anandtech which has info on the 3 commonly used chipsets (Realtek, ASMedia, JMicron). Would be nice if we can see any pattern on what chipsets work at full speed.

I submitted a bug report to Apple and had a 1+ hour remote troubleshooting session with their tech team. Will post if I hear back from them.

For what it's worth, I've got an external 2-bay RAID with a striped pair of 6Gbps SSDs in it, with a ASMedia ASM1352R-Fast USB controller. On my 2018 Mac mini, it burbled along happily at 850-900 MB/s. It gets just under half that on the new M1, because it's running at 5Gbps instead of 10. Just to make sure I wasn't hallucinating (always a possibility!) I connected the same enclosure to the 16" MBP I use for work. It performs as expected, same as it did on my Intel Mini.

I've posted to Apple's forums, but I think I may just go and file a bug report as well. You have to admit, it seems counter-intuitive that a device running fine on a 2019 Mac would suddenly not run fine on the next generation. (Oh, I know. I've been through all of Apple's transitions, so I should not be surprised at a few teething issues, but still... I thought we were done with voodoo like black SCSI terminators and mystical incantations.)

 

[joevt]

Finally at 10Gbps!

They were all tested with the same Sabrent 1TB SB-ROCKET-1TB NVME M.2 Drive (Non-Q)

Started off by testing from the USB port first and the the Thunderbolt..

ORICO Thunderbolt 3 TCM2T3-G40-BK-BP 40Gbps, only tried with TB and it connected at 40 giving the best results although most expensive at £99.99!

FIDECO M209CPS with the mini (annoying) fan, lol RGB...ewww £30
Connected at 10Gbps...

USB 3 speeds....and TB Speeds

FIDECO M204CP-NBL 10Gbps £27

USB v TB

SSK SHE-C325 £20

USB v TB

The one I had been using which would only connect at 5Gbps finally connected at 10 with another cable:
Fideco M203CP USB 3.1, Gen 2 Adapter £18

After all that I have decided to keep the FIDECO M204CP-NBL £27 which gave the best write speed after the £99 Orico....which I can't justify the price of!

All these connected at 10Gbps with the TB cables provided, although with the enclosure I had issues with turned out to be the cable! Must of been a crappy one or the USB adapter which was in the box.

All the numbers > 500 MB/s show that the M1 Mac can connect at USB 3.1 gen 2 (10 Gbps) speed. But your numbers never reach 900 MB/s.

My Mac mini 2018 can do between 950 and 990 MB/s to the USB 3.1 gen 2 to NVMe enclosures that I have. Numbers in Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test might be 50 MB/s lower than AJA System Test Lite.

It seems to me that the USB gen 2 controller integrated in the M1 chip might not be as performant as the USB gen 2 controller integrated in the Titan Ridge Thunderbolt controller.

 

[adonis3k]

All the numbers > 500 MB/s show that the M1 Mac can connect at USB 3.1 gen 2 (10 Gbps) speed. But your numbers never reach 900 MB/s.

My Mac mini 2018 can do between 950 and 990 MB/s to the USB 3.1 gen 2 to NVMe enclosures that I have. Numbers in Blackmagicdesign Disk Speed Test might be 50 MB/s lower than AJA System Test Lite.

It seems to me that the USB gen 2 controller integrated in the M1 chip might not be as performant as the USB gen 2 controller integrated in the Titan Ridge Thunderbolt controller.

is that connected to usb or the thunderbolt?

 

[joevt]

is that connected to usb or the thunderbolt?

Thunderbolt. Mac mini 2018 has only 5 Gbps USB type A port like the M1 Mac mini.
The Thunderbolt port support Thunderbolt or USB 3.1 gen 2.
The USB Type A ports support USB 3.0.

 

[nill1234]

You can get the ORICO case cheaper from aliexpress.

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

FIDECO M209CPS with the mini (annoying) fan, lol RGB...ewww £30
Connected at 10Gbps...

FWIW, the fan on my FIDECO's are practically silent. And, personally, I like the RGB lighting effect. Apart from the clear ORICO TB enclosure, the others are, well...boring. I find, too, that the enclosure goes to sleep after a period of time, so the fan noise (if any) is a non-issue most of the time.

 

[Sarpanch]

I did some testing with Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD V2 that is a 10Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 device. It has a custom WD SN550 SSD coupled with an ASM2362 chip inside.

2018 Intel Mac Mini

2020 M1 Mac Mini

Even though the SSD shows 10Gb/s link speed in System Report on both the Macs, there is ~20% speed loss on the M1 Mac Mini.

There is something going on with either the USB Drivers on the M1 Macs, or the USB implementation is sub-par compared to Intel Macs.

 

[joevt]

I did some testing with Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD V2 that is a 10Gb/s USB 3.2 Gen 2 device. It has a custom WD SN550 SSD coupled with an ASM2362 chip inside.

2018 Intel Mac Mini
965 MB/s

2020 M1 Mac Mini
766 MB/s

Even though the SSD shows 10Gb/s link speed in System Report on both the Macs, there is ~20% speed loss on the M1 Mac Mini.

There is something going on with either the USB Drivers on the M1 Macs, or the USB implementation is sub-par compared to Intel Macs.

Ok we can say the M1 built in USB controller is bad. At least 766 MB/s is still greater than 5 Gb/s. These are like crappy ASMedia ASM1142 type numbers (which were limited by PCIe 2.0 x2 connection: 8 Gbps).

I think you can get around this problem with an external USB controller, such as in a Thunderbolt 3 dock. Or maybe the OWC Thunderbolt Hub - it could be subpar too if it has USB4 USB Up and Down Adapters which would depend on the USB Down Adapter of the M1 Mac which is connected to the M1 USB Controller.

Bandwidth will be greater to/from a Thunderbolt 3 dock but maybe latency will be greater too?

 

[jdb8167]

Ok we can say the M1 built in USB controller is bad. At least 766 MB/s is still greater than 5 Gb/s. These are like crappy ASMedia ASM1142 type numbers (which were limited by PCIe 2.0 x2 connection: 8 Gbps).

I think you can get around this problem with an external USB controller, such as in a Thunderbolt 3 dock. Or maybe the OWC Thunderbolt Hub - it could be subpar too if it has USB4 USB Up and Down Adapters which would depend on the USB Down Adapter of the M1 Mac which is connected to the M1 USB Controller.

Bandwidth will be greater to/from a Thunderbolt 3 dock but maybe latency will be greater too?

Or it could be a driver problem. It doesn't have to be the controller.

 

[Slowbutsteady]

Uh...which ORICO enclosure is that? To get those Blackmagic speeds, it'd need to be a Thunderbolt enclosure.

And does that ORICO support PCIe Gen 4? If not, your numbers do not add up.

EDIT: I see that it IS a Thunderbolt enclosure. Here it is. Double the performance for about double the price of a USB 3.2 Gen2 enclosure.

I've seen it cheaper on Alibaba

 

[Sarpanch]

I decided to try Big Sur on my 2018 Intel Mac Mini (external SSD) and check if this 5Gb/s issue is caused by OS.

Drive: Crucial MX500 in a UGreen USB 3.1 Gen 2 enclosure

Result: Drives connect at 10Gb/s

Some screenshots of speed test and system report

So it appears that the issue of devices connecting at 5Gb/s is specific to M1 Macs. Possibly caused by the USB implementation or USB Drivers. I have not heard back from Apple Tech so far and they are still following up with their engineering team.