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Performance of SSD disks on Mac Mini M1 per USB 3.2 gen 2

After weeks of trying to find a solution to my performance problem with my Samsung SSD disks (T5 and T7 Touch), it seems that the explanation is the following:


There are two different USB 3.2 gen 2 standard, one is "1x2" the other "2x1".

The Samsung devices require "2x1" which means that they need 2 USB lanes to reach full perfomance.


But the Mac Mini, esp. when the disks are connected to a Thunderbold Dock, only gives ONE lane instead.

This results in the maximum of about 500 MB/s for such disks!


If this is a bug in Big Sur, I strongly urge Apple to fix this and give 2 USB lanes to such SSD drives, or in general USB-C devices!


If this is NOT a bug in Bug Sur, but a hardware problem of the M1, we have a serious problem!


Apple should be more open in explaining the standard used and supported!

The constant habit of just trying to support only their own stuff is annoying!

This will never ever happen, better learn to support standard and work together with other companies!




So, can I get the answer to my above question in this very forum?


Can macOS be fixed to support USB 3.2 gen 1x2 and not only 2x1?

Or is this a hardware problem?


Many thanks


Mac mini, macOS 11.5

Posted on Aug 27, 2021 9:39 AM

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Posted on Aug 30, 2021 12:49 PM

FWIW, the USB consortium turned USB into a nebulous mess with USB3 and vendors often leave the fine details of the spec out on their specific products. Just USB 3.2 has 4 different flavors. Here is a score card to keep things straight:


They could have specified one 5 Gbps configuration and on 10e Gbps configuration. But nooooo.

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Performance of SSD disks on Mac Mini M1 per USB 3.2 gen 2

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