a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

I bought it for my upcoming 4 month period away from home (AKA Orlando area). I copied a bit under 600 GB of existing photos to take with me and the rest is for camera backup, preliminary culling and editing and to keep my 1TB internal SSD uncrowded.

I have a 2018 MacBook Pro with the I9 processor. I ignored the setup programs on the drive and simply hooked it up and ran it. Although it's formatted in some version of FAT, it worked just fine. It came with setup programs for Mac, Windows and Android but I think those are mostly for encryption, etc. At least on my Mac, the included program was not needed. I left it in its default format so that my wife's Windows computer might be able to use it.

I tested it with BlackMagic and the read and write speeds were around 500 MB/s using the USB-C to USB-C cable and the native USB-C connector port on the computer. The actual copy speeds were probably slower because I'm copying from a USB HDD to the USB-C SSD. The BlackMagic numbers are just for that SSD on that computer, ignoring the other (spinning) drives.

There are competitors but I've always had good luck with Samsung SSD's and its form factor is exactly what I wanted, including the C to C native connector. I got a good price on Amazon. The price was the same at B&H and B&H is my preferred vendor but I had a temporary 5% discount for using Amazon. The product is widely available.

As you will discover if you shop for it, there are both smaller and larger sizes available.

FYIO

Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast

Excellent report.

I also got a T5 , the 2TB model, last week and have been moving stuff to it. It's connected via USB 3.0 and I transferred multiple GB of files and photos to it. I have it connected on my Windows box, but I also connected with my Android tablet and with my Note 8 smartphone to do some backups for those devices also.

I have several Samsung SSDs and this is my newest, smallest and highest capacity model.

It's formatted in exFAT, as you suspected.

ecobin Loc: Paoli, PA

Thanks for the information.

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

Just to put it in perspective,

The speed on the internal SDD on the same computer is around 2500 MB/s and the speed on the USB 3.0 HDD's is around 120-140 MB/s. These are not advertised but actual tests on this computer.

500 MB/s = about 30 GB per minute.

My cameras produce 20 or 25 MB files so the load time for a viewer or editor will be about 25/120=.21 seconds for a 25 MB file. The perception of speed in the app will, then, likely depend more on the CPU and GPU and the app itself than on the storage device.

I like SSD's for a lot of reasons, but beyond USB 3.0, the perceptible speed gains for one-file editing are negligible. If I double the performance of the storage I can gain one-tenth of a second.

I just experimented by copying a 947 MB file from one USB HDD to the other. It took approximately 8 seconds. 947/8= 118 MB/s. I have found that copying between an internal SSD and an external HDD is faster. However, the BlackMagic numbers are supported.

As many of you already know, a single large file will be somewhat faster than the same volume comprised of a large number of smaller files. This will be especially true of a spinning disk due to "seek time" and other stuff.

These are just some thoughts about storage device speed. Free to use!

PeterBergh

I have several of the 1TB Samsung T5s and am very pleased. Yes, they are formatted in exFAT so that they are usable both on Windows machines and on MACs. Since I only use Windows, I immediately reformatted them as NTFS. Warning: when I tried a Quick Format, the formatting hung. If you want to reformat them under Windows, use full format, not quick format.

Pegasus Loc: Texas Gulf Coast

That probably took some time.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Just to clarify, you have an internal (M2 / NVMe?) SSD, an external USB3 connected conventional HD and the new USB3 connected T5 SSD? If that’s all correct, then 118 MB/sec from the USB connected spinning (SATA?) HD is exactly what I’d expect. Is that all correct?

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

● My internal SSD is whatever Apple built into my 2018 MacBook Pro (October 2018) with the I9 processor. Your words are probably correct.
● The T-5 is connected directly to the computer on USB-C to USB-C using the supplied cable.
● The two spinning drives are LaCie USB 3.0 via a Plugable (powered) USB 3.0 hub and the necessary A to C adapter (the computer has only USB-C ports and the hub is USB-A).
● I don't think the spinning drives are SATA. As I understand it, SATA and USB 3.0 are not the same thing. When I've built computers, there would be SATA 3 and SATA 6 connectors on the motherboard but that's not quite the same as USB 3.0. I haven't seen too many SATA connections for external drives and since this is a Mac, WYSIWYG. Apple says all 4 ports are Thunderbolt 3 enabled using the USB-C form connector and backwards compatible to USB 3.1 and (unstated) USB 3.0. The USB drives are left over from my MacMini 2012.
● And yes, it's all about what would be expected. I was just supplying real world data.

I hope this clears it up.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Thanks - I appreciate the detailed and thoughtful reply. Btw, when I mentioned SATA, I was referring to the actual drive type contained in the LaCie enclosure - I understand that the interface from the LaCie is USB. Looks like your data is spot on in all respects - exactly what I would expect in terms of performance from the different drives you tested and it’s useful information and always good to benchmark a system - thanks for posting this detailed data. Your next performance upgrade will be to go all SSD so that all your data I/O is running at least 500MB/sec. - maybe too expensive now, but the cost per TB of SSD are dropping constantly and the available sizes are increasing every year. I would expect to see SSD in the $100/TB range in the not too distant future.

Again, thanks for the useful post - it gives others some real-world data on what to expect from the various storage modalities available.

Cheers

AzGriz Loc: Sedona, Arizona

Have you tried going straight from the camera to the T5? Loren

Steve Perry Loc: Sylvania, Ohio

Agree 100%

I now have four of the T5 drives, two 1 TB, two 2 TB and they are fantastic. Adding files is far faster than with a spinning drive, they don't stop working if I drop them (so far) and they fit easily in a pocket. Whenever I travel, I like to keep a copy of my data on my person and these make it easy.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Yep, gave them to my sons as Christmas presents last year.