Why would my Crucial 2.5” MX500 (2.0TB) SATA SSD test at less than half of the SSD’s Spec’d SATA 6.0 speeds?

Question

Level 1

4 points

Why would my Crucial 2.5” MX500 (2.0TB) SATA SSD test at less than half of the SSD’s Spec’d SATA 6.0 speeds?

Note: I have not been able to find a way to ask this question of Crucial.

Why would my Crucial 2.5” MX500 (2.0TB) SATA SSD test at less than half of the Crucial 2.5” MX500 SSD’s Spec’d SATA 6.0 speeds?

The Crucial 2.5” MX500 SSD,

which is Spec’d at - Sequential Write 510 MB/s and Sequential Read 560 MB/s,

only tests at Write 213 MB/s and Read 247.8 MB/s (BlackMagic Disk Speed Test).

The Crucial 2.5” MX500 SSD is mounted in an ORICO Enclosure connected to a Thunderbolt 4 (TB4) port using a USB-C to USB-C cable. The TB4 port is on a Mac mini M2 Pro, running Ventura 13.6.1.

The ORICO Enclosure is Spec’d as USB 3.1 Gen 2, with transfer speeds "up to 10 Gb/s (or 1250 MB/s)".

The Mac's "System Information Report" indicates that the TB4 port's connection speed is registering at “Up to 10 Gb/s”.

I understand that the SSD is using SATA 6.0 Gb/s (or up to 600 MB/s), therefore the SSD would not test near the 1250 MB/s speed of the USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface.

But why would the Crucial 2.5” MX500 SSD not even test near Crucial’s published Write / Read SATA speeds?

Thanks, in advance, for your time and assistance.

Mac mini, macOS 13.6

Posted on Nov 12, 2023 10:45 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 13, 2023 4:59 AM in response to FrankPerry

FWIW, DIY enclosure/drive combinations can be a bit quirky when it comes to speeds, regardless of the manufacturer specs. It is not uncommon for a given drive to work well in one enclosure and not so well in another enclosure. Occasionally even the computer it is connected to can make a difference in speeds.

Even with a given enclosure, different brand SSDs can perform differently.

It generally comes down to how an SSD works with the particular chipset that is in the enclosure, of which there are several.

BTW, the issue is even more prevalent with the NVME SSDs and enclosures.

So, with that said, it is possible that the Crucial drive simply does not play as well with your Orico enclosure as a different vendors drive might.

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

68,606 points

Mar 18, 2024 12:49 PM in response to Apollo-Mac

Apollo-Mac wrote:

Hi Frank, I have the same problem and have connected three external Crucial SSDs (PCIe 4.0 NVMe) to TB4 on my Mac Mini Pro M2 2023 (Sonoma 14.4), each with the ACASIS housing with a build-in cooling fan. Only one case is recognized as TB4 and the other 2 cases are recognized as USB 3.1 bus in the system information. The cases and the SSD's are all of the same type. I can't explain why the system doesn't recognize it correctly for a TB4 interface. If you already have further experience with your case, I would be happy to hear from you.

Please provide links to the products you actually have so we don't have to guess which of several models it is.

Disconnect all external devices except of course for the display, keyboard, and mouse. Connect one drive and make sure it is properly recognized as Thunderbolt 4. Disconnect that drive and connect the next one. Again for the third. Make sure to keep each TB4 cable paired with the Acasis enclosure so you are testing both paired cable & enclosure/SSD.

Also make sure to test one drive in all four of the TB4 ports to make sure they all register properly.

My guess is when you are connecting two of these Acasis SSDs to the Thunderbolt ports sharing the same bus, that it is causing a problem. The four TB4 ports are paired...so the two left most ports are sharing a single Thunderbolt bus, while the two TB4 ports on the right are sharing a second Thunderbolt bus.

I was assisting another user on this forum recently who was using the Acasis405 Pro IIRC. The drives seemed to work fine except this user had one as an external boot drive which was not recognized when both Acasis units were connected. Both were showing as being on the same Thunderbolt bus, but never heard back from user if separating them on different buses helped. Either that, or the Acasis or M-series Mac Mini has a problem with Thunderbolt devices (or at least ones where the external device supports Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4/3/2 with a single USB-C port). Anything that auto detects things is always suspect since it may be misreading something.

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Answer 3

Nov 13, 2023 9:50 AM in response to FrankPerry

I get 530-560 MB/s to/from sequential speed with SAMSUNG 860 EVO 1 TB SSD connected to OWC Dual Drive Dock USB-C and StarTech USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Adapter Cable for SATA Drives USB-C or USB-A model with Intel Mac mini 2018.

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Answer 4

FrankPerry Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 12, 2023 6:54 PM in response to den.thed

Its is formatted as: APFS Volume • APFS (Encrypted)

It is used for Photos, Music, Documents - PDF, Pages, Numbers, etc

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Answer 5

den.thed

Level 10

90,904 points

Nov 12, 2023 11:20 AM in response to FrankPerry

Hmm... both my 2.5" 1T Crucial SSDs in Sabrent 3.0 Tool Free Enclosures, give me the advertised 500 + MB/s write/read speeds. The same speed goes for several 2.5" PNY SSDs in the Sabrent Tool Free Enclosures, as well as in my Sabrent 3.0 Dual Drive Dock.

What year model is your Mac mini?

Is the ORICO enclosure connected directly to your Mac mini?

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Answer 6

VikingOSX

Level 10

123,218 points

Nov 12, 2023 2:31 PM in response to FrankPerry

Here are the SATA revisions:

It does not matter that you have a USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Mbps) rated enclosure, the bottleneck is using a 500 MB/s SSD that is several years old now. It will never generate 10 Mbps performance regardless of what cable or port you are plugged into on the Mac.

I use the much newer Crucial X8 (or X9) drives that are rated by Crucial as 1050 MB/s and they now have an X10 Professional drive rated at 2000 MB/s. My Crucial drives are direct connected to either a TB3 or USB4/USB-C port on my Macs and deliver full expected bandwidth using a Crucial provided USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 rated cable.

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Answer 7

FrankPerry Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 12, 2023 3:32 PM in response to den.thed

My Mac mini M2 Pro is a 2023.

Yes, the ORICO enclosure is connected directly to one of my Mac mini's Thunderbolt 4 (TB4) ports with a USB-C to USB-C cable (not a TB4 cable).

I now know that the SSD "should" be testing at the advertised 500+ MB/s Write/Read speeds.

My Mac's "System Information Report" indicates that the TB4 port's connection speed is registering at “Up to 10 Gb/s”.

But I wonder if there is something "not right" with the ORICO"s USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gb/s) interface.

Especially since your SSDs are performing "as advertised" but with a different brand of enclosure.

I wonder if the ORICO"s USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface is "throttling" the speed some how. But Why would it?

But I don't have any other SSD enclosures to swap and test with.

Thanks for the info.

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Answer 8

FrankPerry Author

Level 1

4 points

Nov 12, 2023 3:37 PM in response to VikingOSX

Thanks for your reply and info.

Yes, I understand that the limiting factor is the SATA 6.0 Gb/s.

But that shouldn't be causing the Crucial 2.5” MX500 SSD,

which is Spec’d at - Sequential Write 510 MB/s and Sequential Read 560 MB/s,

to test at only Write 213 MB/s and Read 247.8 MB/s speeds. (BlackMagic Disk Speed Test).

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Answer 9

Mar 17, 2024 4:00 AM in response to FrankPerry

Hi Frank, I have the same problem and have connected three external Crucial SSDs (PCIe 4.0 NVMe) to TB4 on my Mac Mini Pro M2 2023 (Sonoma 14.4), each with the ACASIS housing with a build-in cooling fan. Only one case is recognized as TB4 and the other 2 cases are recognized as USB 3.1 bus in the system information. The cases and the SSD's are all of the same type. I can't explain why the system doesn't recognize it correctly for a TB4 interface. If you already have further experience with your case, I would be happy to hear from you.

Reply