Samsung Magician 8.0 for Mac

I recently purchased an external Samsung 990 Pro 4 TB that I have attached to my MacBook Pro 14” (2023) via the Zike external enclosure. My MacBook is running the latest version of Sonoma.


I found that Samsung Magician finally supports Mac, and I downloaded Magician 8.0 from the Samsung website and installed it. I went through the process of adding the extension to the Privacy settings and allowing Samsung Magician access (so this should not be the cause of any issues I am seeing).

However, under Drive Health, all I get is N/A. I can’t see the Drive Health, Temperature, Active Time or Performance (which are all marked N/A). I am able to see Drive Details, which shows the Firmware for my 990 Pro 4 TB as 0B2QJXG7. Magician does not show any updates for this FW, but, given the various N/As seen throughout Magician, I’m not sure it would even recognize a new FW version, much less install it.


Does anyone have any actual experience using Magician for Mac? Given that it’s relatively new, I’m not finding much at all regarding these issues on the web.


Thanks in advance for any insights into these issues.

MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 2023)

Posted on Oct 22, 2023 9:09 AM

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Posted on Oct 23, 2023 7:49 PM

Unfortunately you did not read the fine print which states features can vary by platform which in the case for macOS the Magician software only has a few working features (I posted a screenshot at the end of this post).

https://semiconductor.samsung.com/us/consumer-storage/magician


See the Samsung Magician product page.....scroll down near the bottom just before the FAQ section.... you will need to click on "macOS" under the section "Supported Features by Operating System". Supported features on macOS are:


  • Performance Optimization
  • Over Provisioning
  • LED Setting
  • Data Migration
  • Encrypted Drive


All worthless except for the hardware encrypted drive feature, although that option is risky since if you forget the password, then you won't have any way to reset the SSD to factory defaults since the PSID Reset feature is not available in the macOS version of the Magician software. I'm guessing part of the reason so many of the features are not available is due to the fact that macOS does not have the necessary driver available to allow the necessary communication to access those features.


Even the third party app DriveDx which can access a drive's health information requires a special USB driver before DriveDx can access an external drive's health information, so the same would be true for the Samsung Magician software. You can try using the DriveDx USB driver (link contains instructions for installing & uninstalling....you do not need DriveDx app) to see if it allows some of those other features to work assuming they are actually coded into the macOS version of the Magician software.


It seems beginning with macOS 11.x Big Sur the behavior of macOS has changed how this USB driver gets loaded, so make sure to review this FAQ on how to allow an external drive to be accessed using this special USB driver:

https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx/kb#external-drive-support-macos-11


Samsung Magician Product Page -- Supported Page:

https://semiconductor.samsung.com/us/consumer-storage/magician



Edit: Also, it appears the macOS Magician software only supports the external T7 series of SSDs.

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4 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Oct 23, 2023 7:49 PM in response to trclac

Unfortunately you did not read the fine print which states features can vary by platform which in the case for macOS the Magician software only has a few working features (I posted a screenshot at the end of this post).

https://semiconductor.samsung.com/us/consumer-storage/magician


See the Samsung Magician product page.....scroll down near the bottom just before the FAQ section.... you will need to click on "macOS" under the section "Supported Features by Operating System". Supported features on macOS are:


  • Performance Optimization
  • Over Provisioning
  • LED Setting
  • Data Migration
  • Encrypted Drive


All worthless except for the hardware encrypted drive feature, although that option is risky since if you forget the password, then you won't have any way to reset the SSD to factory defaults since the PSID Reset feature is not available in the macOS version of the Magician software. I'm guessing part of the reason so many of the features are not available is due to the fact that macOS does not have the necessary driver available to allow the necessary communication to access those features.


Even the third party app DriveDx which can access a drive's health information requires a special USB driver before DriveDx can access an external drive's health information, so the same would be true for the Samsung Magician software. You can try using the DriveDx USB driver (link contains instructions for installing & uninstalling....you do not need DriveDx app) to see if it allows some of those other features to work assuming they are actually coded into the macOS version of the Magician software.


It seems beginning with macOS 11.x Big Sur the behavior of macOS has changed how this USB driver gets loaded, so make sure to review this FAQ on how to allow an external drive to be accessed using this special USB driver:

https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx/kb#external-drive-support-macos-11


Samsung Magician Product Page -- Supported Page:

https://semiconductor.samsung.com/us/consumer-storage/magician



Edit: Also, it appears the macOS Magician software only supports the external T7 series of SSDs.

Oct 22, 2023 9:15 AM in response to trclac

You don't need this. Utilities that ship with drives generally provide little to no added value, and often conflict with the smooth operation of the macOS and potentially Disk Utility. It is usually advised that one does not install these utilities. Any "features" it may have can be found in other, often free, apps that run properly in the macOS.


I'd uninstall it and never look back.

Oct 22, 2023 9:51 AM in response to trclac

I'll go out on a limb and say firmware updates on drives are less than critical. If a drive works as is today, then it'll likely work until the day it dies.


In my experience of four decades of working with many commuters and OSs, drive firmware has never once been an issue or consideration. But third party drive utilities incompatibilities on Macs have raised their ugly heads several times.


That's my $0.02.

Samsung Magician 8.0 for Mac

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