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

[Peepo]

Hope they resolve this because I just ordered a SanDisk 2TB Extreme. At least it gets faster than 500MB/sec as per posts in this thread - up to around 760MB/sec reported, but would be nice to get full rated speeds.

I have a T5 500GB and confirm it connects only at 5Gb on my MBA M1 where it connects at 10Gb to my HP 850 G7 work laptop.

 

[joevt]

Has anyone received any update from Apple on these issues? Yesterday, I was transferred from Apple Support to Apple Care team who are supposedly working closely with Hardware Engineering team. They collected System Diagnostic and some additional information once again from the M1 Mac. Although, I am not sure what’s keeping them from testing an Intel Mac and M1 Mac with a Samsung T5 as the problem is quite easy to replicate with that setup ?

They collect the information to make you feel good, then throw it away because, like you said, it's super easy to reproduce, they already know about it, and can't do anything about it until M2 Mac (I'm guessing).

 

[Steffinuss]

Did anyone of you try on a APFS encrypted volume via Thunderbolt 3/USB on the new M1 Mac?
I have a MacBook Air M1 and noticed that on an JMS583 controller case (Fideco M203CP) I got dramatically slower read and write speeds, when the drive is encrypted.
With that case I got around 660 MB/s unencrypted and around 130 MB/s encrypted.
now I got another case with an ASM2362 controller (ASHATA639mtwvf8b-02) and with that case I get 850 MB/s unencrypted and 770 MB/s encrypted, which is totally satisfying for me.
Unfortunately the new case seems to have problems with waking up from sleep when it was not used for a longer time. It just doesn’t react anymore and the Finder sometimes stops responding.
The only thing that helps is just force-unplugging it and replugging again.
I don’t know if this behaviour has to do with encryption or not. It would be really helpful to hear some testing or experience from you.
Just to complete all necessary information: I have a crucial P1 drive with 2 TB installed in the cases.

 

[anticipate]

Did anyone of you try on a APFS encrypted volume via Thunderbolt 3/USB on the new M1 Mac?
I have a MacBook Air M1 and noticed that on and JMS583 controller case (Fideco M203CP) I got dramatically slower read and write speeds, when the drive is encrypted.
With that case I got around 660 MB/s unencrypted and around 130 MB/s encrypted.
now I got another case with an ASM2362 controller (ASHATA639mtwvf8b-02) and with that case I get 850 MB/s unencrypted and 770 MB/s encrypted, which is totally satisfying for me.
Unfortunately the new case seems to have problems with waking up from sleep when it was not used for a longer time. It just doesn’t react anymore and the Finder sometimes stops responding.
The only thing that helps is just force-unplugging it and replugging again.
I don’t know if this behaviour has to do with encryption or not. It would be really helpful to hear some testing or experience from you.
Just to complete all necessary information: I have a crucial P1 drive with 2 TB installed in the cases.

Encrypted APFS on a thunderbolt drive (an SSD enclosure with an NVMe drive) works fine for me on my M1 MBP. It runs at full speed... over 2.1GB/sec.

However another USB 3.1 Gen 2 drive I have (two of them) run extremely slowly... 100-200MB/sec, but over 700MB on my intel iMac Pro. They are encrypted. I will try not encrypted, but clearly Apple has to fix this bug with USB 3 on these Macs.

 

[Sarpanch]

Encrypted APFS on a thunderbolt drive (an SSD enclosure with an NVMe drive) works fine for me on my M1 MBP. It runs at full speed... over 2.1GB/sec.

However another USB 3.1 Gen 2 drive I have (two of them) run extremely slowly... 100-200MB/sec, but over 700MB on my intel iMac Pro. They are encrypted. I will try not encrypted, but clearly Apple has to fix this bug with USB 3 on these Macs.

I tested this with a V2 Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD. Surprisingly, I get 20-30 MB/s higher speeds with APFS encryption compared to unencrypted APFS volume.

With my USB 3.1 Gen 2 enclosures for SATA SSDs, it doesn’t affect much as they are limited by the 5Gb/s connection link bug.

They collect the information to make you feel good, then throw it away because, like you said, it's super easy to reproduce, they already know about it, and can't do anything about it until M2 Mac (I'm guessing).

I am still hopeful that Apple can fix it with a firmware/software update. My uneducated guess is that Apple’s drivers are blindly treating ALL USB to SATA controllers as 5GB/s despite many of them being USB 3.1 Gen 2. Perhaps, that’s why most NVME USB enclosures are connecting at 10Gb/s link speed.

 

[eknova]

Same issue with my OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini. System Info show a 5Gb/s connection despite the enclosure supporting 10Gb/s 3.1 Gen 2. I believe the SSD and SATA only support 6Gb/s so it may not be a large issue for this specific setup.

Still disappointed that a brand new M1 Mac Mini fails to support it's published specification. I also have a NVME enclosure by SSK that does show the 10Gb/s connection.

 

[joevt]

Same issue with my OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini. System Info show a 5Gb/s connection despite the enclosure supporting 10Gb/s 3.1 Gen 2. I believe the SSD and SATA only support 6Gb/s so it may not be a large issue for this specific setup.

Still disappointed that a brand new M1 Mac Mini fails to support it's published specification. I also have a NVME enclosure by SSK that does show the 10Gb/s connection.

The OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini product page says it supports USB 3.1 gen 1 which is 5 Gbps

Mercury Elite Pro mini

Delivers up to 600MB/s data transfer speeds for demanding data storage and backup needs—all within an impact-resistant, quiet aluminum enclosure.

www.owcdigital.com

I guess you mean the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini USB-C version.

OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini with USB-C

Now equipped with USB-C and delivers up to 600 MB/s transfer speeds. Choose between a 2.5-inch hard drive or an SSD, and gain up to 8TB of storage.

www.owcdigital.com

SATA is 6 Gbps, but with USB 5 Gbps, you could be loosing 100 MB/s of performance. At least it's not 50% of the performance.

 

[eknova]

The OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini product page says it supports USB 3.1 gen 1 which is 5 Gbps

Mercury Elite Pro mini

Delivers up to 600MB/s data transfer speeds for demanding data storage and backup needs—all within an impact-resistant, quiet aluminum enclosure.

www.owcdigital.com

I guess you mean the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini USB-C version.

OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini with USB-C

Now equipped with USB-C and delivers up to 600 MB/s transfer speeds. Choose between a 2.5-inch hard drive or an SSD, and gain up to 8TB of storage.

www.owcdigital.com

SATA is 6 Gbps, but with USB 5 Gbps, you could be loosing 100 MB/s of performance. At least it's not 50% of the performance.

Yes the pro mini USB-C version. The support for 3.1 Gen 2 was the reason I spent more on this than a cheaper enclosure.

 

[gerome42]

I just got my crucial P5 SSD drive, which is rated up to 3400 MB/s, and put it in an enclosure I got on amazon - SSK m.2 NVME SSD, USB 3.1 Gen 2, rated for 10Gbps. However, as expected, I'm only getting half what I should. The drive shows up as 10 Gbps on Mac hardware report, but I only get this:

Trying to decide if I should return to amazon in hopes of getting something that works better, or just wait for a fix from Apple.

​

 

[redfirebird08]

I just got an OWC Envoy Express with their recommend M.2NVME 1TB SSD. I don't get their specified 1553 speed, but on both my M1 MBA & my 2020 27" iMac I get this:

View attachment 1692811

I'm well please with it!

If that's hooked up to Thunderbolt, seems like it should be closer to 2,000 megs per second for both Read & Write. Below is a screenshot of what I'm getting. My computer is a 2017 iMac and the drive is a 1 terabyte VisionTek NVME drive hooked up via Thunderbolt. I consistently get 1,800 megs for Write speed and over 2,000 megs for Read speed. Owned the drive since June 2020.

 

[Deccr]

These are the speeds I get with my 1TB Sabrent Rocket NVMe drive, inside a Wavlink thunderbolt 3 enclosure connected directly to my M1 Mac mini:

 

[tdar]

.

Still disappointed that a brand new M1 Mac Mini fails to support it's published specification. I also have a NVME enclosure by SSK that does show the 10Gb/s connection.

I am confused. You have one drive that shows the correct speed and one that doesn’t. Yet you think that it’s the macs fault?

 

[joevt]

If that's hooked up to Thunderbolt, seems like it should be closer to 2,000 megs per second for both Read & Write. Below is a screenshot of what I'm getting. My computer is a 2017 iMac and the drive is a 1 terabyte VisionTek NVME drive hooked up via Thunderbolt. I consistently get 1,800 megs for Write speed and over 2,000 megs for Read speed. Owned the drive since June 2020.

This was addressed in the next posts after the one you linked at #93
- the OWC Envoy Express is limited by PCIe 3.0 x2 inside the enclosure.

I am confused. You have one drive that shows the correct speed and one that doesn’t. Yet you think that it’s the macs fault?

If it connects at the correct speed to everything other PC and Mac, then it's probably the Mac's fault.

 

[joevt]

I just got my crucial P5 SSD drive, which is rated up to 3400 MB/s, and put it in an enclosure I got on amazon - SSK m.2 NVME SSD, USB 3.1 Gen 2, rated for 10Gbps. However, as expected, I'm only getting half what I should. The drive shows up as 10 Gbps on Mac hardware report, but I only get this:

Trying to decide if I should return to amazon in hopes of getting something that works better, or just wait for a fix from Apple.

Return the drive or the M1 Mac? Or use a Thunderbolt dock so you never have to return a USB device because of the broken USB controller of the M1 Mac.

 

[Brad Smith]

I've been doing some tests with an Elgato Cam Link 4K. It's able to capture 4K video (24p or 30p) just fine on an older Intel MacBook Pro, but on a new MacBook Pro M1 with 16GB of RAM, it's dropping frames (between 1-4 per second). I'm wondering if this issue is related to the USB issues in this thread, too, or potentially something different?

 

[Peepo]

I tested this with a V2 Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD. Surprisingly, I get 20-30 MB/s higher speeds with APFS encryption compared to unencrypted APFS volume.

I have also found the same performance increase on my 2TB Extreme SSD with APFS encrypted volume vs. regular APFS.

 

[jollygama]

Using a Sabrent Rocket Nano 2TB I get ~980 - 1000 MB/s on a 2018 15 inch MacBook Pro with i7-8850H
M1 MacBook Air gives me ~510 MB/s using both USB-C and TB3 cable to the same drive. Something is definitely amiss. Device shows up as initialized with 10 Gb/s in System Report USB Device Tree

 

[orpheus1120]

Sabrent Rocket

Which rocket nvme did u get?

 

[Deccr]

Which rocket nvme did u get?

1TB PCIe Gen3 x 4

Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-1TB)

Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-1TB)

www.amazon.co.uk

 

[HatMine]

Just chiming in to say that I tried to connect my T5 500 GB SSD using the included USB-C to USB-C cable to my M1 MBA, and yeah, I got 5 Gbit/s listed as the top speed. Apparently, you can get the 10 Gbit/s by using a Thunderbolt 3 hub between your T5 SSD and Mac, because then the hub's USB-controller is used instead. But they obviously need to fix this issue.

 

[abhi182]

After quite a bit of testing, I have concluded that the USB bus on at least my Mac mini M1 does not actually support "USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)" as listed on the Tech Specs page.

I have a Samsung T5 USB-C SSD. It supports "USB 3.1 Gen 2 10Gb/s" (Gawd, I hate USB 3.1+ naming conventions...†)



When I connect it to my new M1 mini, on the other hand.... If I go through my Thunderbolt 3 Dock, it connects at the full 10 Gb/s:

For me, a Samsung T7 is connecting at 10gbps on the USB C/ TB port of a M1 MBA (screenshot below)
What is unusual though is that the benchmark speed on a windows laptop with TB (LG Gram) for Sequential read is about 1000 MB/s (i.e. almost full saturation on the 3.2 bus) vs about 750 MB/s on the MBA m1

 

[starmax]

I ended up buying an OWC TB3 dock to improve speeds on my external 4TB SSD (SanDisk Ultra - SATA) since it stores all my media files. Here's my test results for my M1 Mac Mini:

SSD in OWC MiniStack (5Gbps), directly attached to USB-A port:

SSD in OWC Elite Pro mini (10Gbps), directly attached to USB-C port:

SSD in OWC Elite Pro mini (10Gbps), attached to OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock:

SSD in OWC Duo Dock (10Gbps), attached to USB-C port on my 2010 Mac Pro (PCIe card):

 

[Bob418]

I bought this Plugable enclosure and use Samsung 970 EVO Plus 1TB in it. I can get stable write speed at 860MB/s and read at 840MB/s. The enclosure uses RTL9210. It does get very hot if I put it in extensive use.

 

[macca24]

A bit of a waste putting an EVO+ in that caddy, it should at least be in a thunderbolt 3 caddy for the full benefit.

 

[Fomalhaut]

I ended up buying an OWC TB3 dock to improve speeds on my external 4TB SSD (SanDisk Ultra - SATA) since it stores all my media files. Here's my test results for my M1 Mac Mini:

SSD in OWC MiniStack (5Gbps), directly attached to USB-A port:
View attachment 1715315
SSD in OWC Elite Pro mini (10Gbps), directly attached to USB-C port:
View attachment 1715313

SSD in OWC Elite Pro mini (10Gbps), attached to OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock:
View attachment 1715314

SSD in OWC Duo Dock (10Gbps), attached to USB-C port on my 2010 Mac Pro (PCIe card):
View attachment 1715316

That seems to be pretty definitive.

Does the second configuration (SSD in OWC Elite Pro mini (10Gbps)) actually connect to the M1 Mac at 10Gpbs according to the USB hub connections in the System Report, or only 5Gbps? My 10Gbps USB enclosure connects at the full-speed on my MBP16 but at only 5Gbps on my M1 Mini. Speed differences are similar to yours when connected by USB:

MBP16:

M1 Mini:

The enclosure is an AS Media ASM105x.

I'm hoping that could be fixed via a software update, but if not then I might be tempted to just upgrade to a full TB-3 enclosure with NVMe SSD.