What's the verdict on M1 USB speeds?

[MrCheeto]

Sandisk Extreme Pro portable SSD.

 

[Digitalguy]

Sandisk Extreme Pro portable SSD.

That drive will never run at full speed on any Macs (or most PCs for that matters) for the reasons I mentioned. It will run at exactly the same speed as the non pro version.

 

[doboy]

Sandisk directly to Mac= 780MB/s Write x 760MB/s Read
Sandisk to the "10Gb/s" Anker hub to the Mac= 230MB/s Write x 250MB/s Read

The Sandisk is supposed to be USB3.2 Gen 2x2.

Add to that the SD card speed is only about 50-60MB/s, and I know my card is capable of much faster speeds.

Anker hub is either faulty or just sucks and non-pro M1/M2 USB speed is little slow compared to Intel and M1 Pro USB is almost on par with Intel Macs but not quite. I have both M1 mini and M1 Pro 14" MBP and SD Extreme v2 drive so I know what I'm talking about.

 

[w5jck]

I’m not impressed with the MacBook Air M1 USB-C support either, and finding the cables and hubs/dongles that work best is hit and miss as far as I can tell. Here are the results I got when I tested a Samsung T5 on both my old MacBook Pro 2014 with i7 with old USB A ports and my new MacBook Air M1 with USB-C ports.

MacBook Pro 2014 with i7 with Samsung T5 2TB USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 External SSD Drive (APFS format)

• READ = 357 MB/s, WRITE = 357 MB/s (copy/paste of 1 GB .mov file)
• READ = 448 MB/s, WRITE = 435 MB/s (ATTO Disk Benchmark)

MacBook Air M1 with Samsung T5 2TB USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 External SSD Drive (APFS format)

• READ = 357 MB/s, WRITE = 357 MB/s (copy/paste of 1 GB .mov file)
• READ = 339 MB/s, WRITE = 359 MB/s (BlackMagic T5 SSD)

The MacBook Pro is capable of a maximum speed of up to 5 Gbp/s (625 MB/s) with USB 3.1 Gen 1, and the MacBook Air M1 is capable of a maximum speed of up to 10 Gbps (1250 MB/s) with USB 3.1 Gen 2. The T5 is capable of about 495 MB/s according to Samsung. The old MacBook Pro with i7 is faster than the MacBook Air M1 according to BlackMagic, but both were about the same with a simple copy and paste test of a video.

I’ve had trouble with cables for some hubs/dongles with the MacBook Air M1 as well as some ports on same. Restarting the MacBook Air M1 means the devices/hubs plugged into the two USB-C ports might or might not regain communication with the MacBook Air M1, often requiring unplugging them and replugging them in.

 

[MrCheeto]

Anker hub is either faulty or just sucks and non-pro M1/M2 USB speed is little slow compared to Intel and M1 Pro USB is almost on par with Intel Macs but not quite. I have both M1 mini and M1 Pro 14" MBP and SD Extreme v2 drive so I know what I'm talking about.

Well ok I tested on my M1 Max 16” MBP.

Read and write were 40MB/s faster than the MBA. The hub did slow it down but surprisingly only by about 30MB/s. So speed through the hub on the MBP was equal to directly attaching to the MBA.

SD performance is still circa 2000.

More confusion.

 

[Digitalguy]

I’m not impressed with the MacBook Air M1 USB-C support either, and finding the cables and hubs/dongles that work best is hit and miss as far as I can tell. Here are the results I got when I tested a Samsung T5 on both my old MacBook Pro 2014 with i7 with old USB A ports and my new MacBook Air M1 with USB-C ports.

MacBook Pro 2014 with i7 with Samsung T5 2TB USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 External SSD Drive (APFS format)

• READ = 357 MB/s, WRITE = 357 MB/s (copy/paste of 1 GB .mov file)
• READ = 448 MB/s, WRITE = 435 MB/s (ATTO Disk Benchmark)

MacBook Air M1 with Samsung T5 2TB USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 External SSD Drive (APFS format)

• READ = 357 MB/s, WRITE = 357 MB/s (copy/paste of 1 GB .mov file)
• READ = 339 MB/s, WRITE = 359 MB/s (BlackMagic T5 SSD)

The MacBook Pro is capable of a maximum speed of up to 5 Gbp/s (625 MB/s) with USB 3.1 Gen 1, and the MacBook Air M1 is capable of a maximum speed of up to 10 Gbps (1250 MB/s) with USB 3.1 Gen 2. The T5 is capable of about 495 MB/s according to Samsung. The old MacBook Pro with i7 is faster than the MacBook Air M1 according to BlackMagic, but both were about the same with a simple copy and paste test of a video.

I’ve had trouble with cables for some hubs/dongles with the MacBook Air M1 as well as some ports on same. Restarting the MacBook Air M1 means the devices/hubs plugged into the two USB-C ports might or might not regain communication with the MacBook Air M1, often requiring unplugging them and replugging them in.

Actual speed is lower than the max on any platfom. Gen 1 speed is under 500, and gen 2 speed is under 1000. The T5 is a gen 1 drive, not gen 2-
M1 reduces these max speeds by another 20-25%