What Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) cables are you all using for external SSD drives?

What Thunderbolt 4 cables are you all using with Sandisk extreme drives? I have 2 2TB Sandisk SSD drives and I used some generic Walmart USB-C cables and was only getting 50MB/S read/writes. When I used the short cables that came with the Sandisk SSD drives, performance went up to 850MB/S. My problem is I need slightly longer cables with similar performance. If you had success with a certain brand of cable, I would like to hear about those cables. I am editing video off of the Sandisk SSD drives with FCP, Adobe Premiere, and DaVinci Resolve Studio and I have a few plugins too. So, let me know what cables you all have had success with good results.

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 13.2

Posted on Feb 25, 2023 5:25 PM

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Feb 26, 2023 8:14 AM in response to Roderick_Horton

The difference between USB-C 3.1 (SuperSpeed+) and USB-C 3.2 (SuperSpeed++) is NOT different cables.

USB-C 3.2 implements in software that all USB 3.1 lanes can momentarily be used for a burst of all inbound or all outbound data transfer, momentarily doubling the speed.


USB 3.2, released in September 2017, replaces the USB 3.1 standard. It preserves existing USB 3.1 SuperSpeed and SuperSpeed+ data modes and introduces two new SuperSpeed+ transfer modes over the USB-C connector using two-lane operation, with data rates of 10 and 20 Gbit/s (~1.2 and 2.5 GB/s).

Ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C


Cables

USB 3.1 [SuperSpeed+] cables are considered full-featured USB-C cables. They are electronically marked cables that contain a chip with an ID function based on the configuration channel and vendor-defined messages (VDM) from the USB Power Delivery 2.0 specification.


Cable length should be ≤2 m for Gen 1 or ≤1 m for Gen 2.[9] 

Ref: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C


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Other information from similar sources suggests that USB-C cables used at top speeds for DISPLAYS should be limited to under 0.8 meters for Apple brand top-quality USB-C cables, or 0.5 meters for other brands. Or use certified Thunderbolt cables of those lengths when connection to displays, or to Docks that will support displays.


There are some longer much longer (up to 4 meters) USB-C and ThunderBolt cables that seem to be FAR too expensive for what they offer (over US$125) These cables typically contain signal Re-Drivers, used to extend the acceptable length of cables and still provide top performance.

Feb 26, 2023 7:44 AM in response to Roderick_Horton

Some context on USB connectors and nomenclature. I believe the source may be Wikipedia, but I have lost the links to it:




Apple (and other vendors) CHARGE cables require some [pitiful] USB data, but generally provide only USB-2 data speeds.


The Walmart cable you have is likely a Charge cable that supports USB-2 480 M bits/sec, At about 10 bits per Byte including overhead, that falls right on your 48-to-50 M Bytes/sec number.

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What Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) cables are you all using for external SSD drives?

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