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I have 2 identical SSDs (Samsung T5 500GB). Using the Disk Utility, one displays as Solid State Yes while the other shows as No. Is there any performance impact related to this setting? If so, how can I change it?
- Pie Lover
Mac mini 2018 or later
i'm not sure why you're seeing that discrepancy between the two drives. as far as any performance impact, i would first use blackmagic disk speed test to see if there is a performance difference in read / write speeds.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test 4+ - Mac App Store
if there is a difference in speed, i would contact samsung. but since the one drive is saying it's not an SSD, you may want to contact them anyways.
i'm not sure why you're seeing that discrepancy between the two drives. as far as any performance impact, i would first use blackmagic disk speed test to see if there is a performance difference in read / write speeds.
Blackmagic Disk Speed Test 4+ - Mac App Store
if there is a difference in speed, i would contact samsung. but since the one drive is saying it's not an SSD, you may want to contact them anyways.
At this time it is known that Monterey has issues with a lot of different USB3 drives. One user has a Samsung drive from 2019 that works perfectly fine, while another identical Samsung drive from 2020 does not work. There are multiple threads on these forums about USB3 drive compatibility issues with Monterey. If the two drives use different USB3 controller chips, then this might explain the issue.
FYI, Just because the model number on the drives may be the same does not mean the drives are identical (even if purchased at the same time from the same vendor). Manufacturers may sometimes use different components from different vendors to assemble the drive. This is more likely to happen if the drives were purchased a year apart, but you never know.
It is also possible the USB port, data cable, or drive is bad or there was a bad connection. If you have a Mac with USB-C ports, then perhaps the USB-C port on the Mac is half bad. If you connected the USB-C cable 180 degrees upside down from the previous attempt, or used a different USB-C port, then this might explain the difference as well.
Thank you for the detailed response. You raise many relevant points which could possibly explain my observations.
I ran a small test where I swapped the 2 drives but retained the original cabling and ports. To my surprise, both drives showed up as Solid State. When I swapped them back they still both indicated Solid State. I suspect, then, that the issue is somehow related to Monterey itself rather than the SSD or Mac mini (2018) hardware.
One another detail, which seems not to be a factor based on my experiment, is that one drive is connected directly to a Mac mini USB-C port while the other is connected via a USB 3.0 USB hub. I realize that the latter is not a recommended configuration, however, it still works well. In passing, I should perhaps also mention that, according to System Report, the SSD with the direct connection shows has a maximum speed of 10 Gbps while the one connected to the USB 3.0 hub indicates 5 Gbps. This is to be expected since the 10 Gbps theoretical maximum specification applies only USB 3.1 (Gen 2).
All-in-all, the Samsung T5 series seems to work very well in my configuration (for 3 years now). No serious issues with Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, or Monterey.
- Pie Lover
I think there have been at least a few discrepancy in the disk info. I think one had to do with FileVault, but not certain.
I don’t believe that “report” has any bearing on actual function. It is just misreporting the information.
If you are having an issue, and some related setting there seems wrong, that might give some insight into the source of the problem.
There are several reporting issue bugs in Disk Utility as well as System Information.
Example:
I have 2 Samsung T7 SSDs. Both are reported as "Solid State no". Even nuttier, both are listed as not removable. As a matter of fact, the other SSD, which is a SATA format SSD in a USB3 enclosure reports the same thing.
It is possible that Disk Utility is listing info from SMART data, which is only available to internal drives or some Thunderbolt drives and macOS does not support SMART data on USB drives.
Basically, it is like the drive info report is a generic checklist. If data is available for a feature it gets filled in. If it doesn't, then anything could be recorded.
Bottomline, there is nothing to worry about as long as your drives are functioning as they should.
I'm at a loss to explain this but when I checked again in the Disk Utility both SDDs indicated Solid State: Yes.
- Pie Lover
thanks for the update. :)
Thank you. I was more curious than concerned especially as the "non Solid State" SSD is mostly used for Time Machine backups.
- Pie Lover
Impact of Solid State disk attribute?
