Samsung T9 Portable SSD Review: 20GBps, but not on Mac

The Samsung T9 is a great drive hitting very fast speeds but Mac computers cannot take advantage of the faster speeds because they don't support the USB 3.2 Gen 2 2x2 Standard.

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[Natak]

Damn, I was literally 2 clicks away from purchasing this. Really appreciate the heads up and the recommendation for a Mac-specific drive!

[adirondackwoodsman]

Thanks this was very helpful. I was having performance problems with my new T9 but it had been working fine with Final Cut Pro. I have a number of T7's with no issues but I kept dropping frames when editing on the T9. I swapped cables and now it is working as expected. I put a little silver dot on the cable with a silver sharpie to keep the cables straight moving forward.

[hakanyucel]

T9 is faster than T7 IF you transfer file bigger than 100GB! In my case My VR 4K 60fps file up to 500GB-800GB is 10 Time faster than T7! Now All my T7 is only for long term Storage!

[thelivingroomstudios]

Wish I had seen this before getting the T9. Also, great tip on the T7. Also, great info in the comments!!! KILLER value! New sub! Thanks!!!!

[ifeanyiubah]

What do you mean by “due to the dual lane system” ? The thunderbolt 4 ports on the MacBook Pro 2021 14inch have cross/backwards compatibility and is universal with USB 3.0 up to USB 3.2 Gen2 2x2 & even Thunderbolt4, Meaning the mac would easily be able to reach close to the 2000GBps read/write speeds on the Samsung T9 USB 3.2 Gen2x2 ?

[rswl_mrwn]

using the T9 i have riched 3.29Gb/s writing speed and the lowest speed was 1.7Gb/s im impressed that its faster than the speed samsung mentioned 😍😍😍and i started recording and saving videos sent directly to the T9 by using a third party app with s24 ultra thank you samsung for the speed and capabilities you gave us .

[koppjoseph]

Great video. Perfect timing as I just purchased the T7 Shield & T9 (1T / 1T) about 3 hours ago. I'm testing speeds using the same tool, and using an Apple branded Thunderbolt 4 cable. I'm copying from a SanDisk 1T (800mb/s read) to the T9. But somehow, I'm not transferring anywhere near your claim of 100Gb in ~2mins. Any thoughts or suggestions on what might be the limiting factor here?

[agentleman]

I currently have the 2tb T7's. I need another one. The T9 is on sale, cheaper than the T7. So even though I am not able to get the full speeds on my M2 Pro Max, I am still saving money. Adding to my cart. Thanks for the videos.

[SteveCarroll]

As I type this I’m copying 135GB from a soon to be failed internal iMac fusion drive to a new T9 at about 10 GB per hour. I ran Black Magic’s disk speed test on it before hand and only got 190MB/s read and write speeds. I’m using the USB to USB C cable it came with.

[ebproduction]

sorry my MacBook 2021 m1 has USB 4 up to 40....seems your test have some fails include wrong format of the SSD

[ReneTheFox]

Didi you test the T9 using a Thunderbolt 3 or 4 cable, or did you only test using the included, slower, USB-C cable? There will be a speed difference .

[TheFandangovideoguy]

hi there. I use mostly SamsungT7 for 4k editing with my M1pro MBP 2021...it has worked fine but I don't edit really complicated projects. One or two 4k streams and videos under 90 minutes max..so now I want to try the crucial brand. In another video you suggested the X9pro which is also very fast. But I know that Samsung has now the T9 and Crucial the X10 pro which are twice as fast as the previous generation but use the dual lane and macs cannot use take advantage of the speed..so are we mac users out of luck then? the max we can expect is the t7/crucial x9 pro speeds? still good for 4k - but I can see that for mac you recommend the Sandisk professional G40 which is a bit more expensive but it works really fast on a Mac...hmm

[cmathieu]

@adamtalkstech great review and very informative for Mac users. Would the T9 be able to reach close to it's claim speeds on an Intel NUC Pro 13 that has thunderbolt 4 ports or would it face the same limitations? Not sure if the Thunderbolt 4 ports on my NUC are similar to what is on a Mac. I would think the TB4 controller is different but unsure

[JamesWages]

While you have a point about the lack of Mac support for 2x2, you did not mention the format of the drive, which matters a lot when benchmarking SSDs on the Mac. You probably used ExFAT, which is NOT the format you need to test on the Mac. You need to reformat as APFS and do the Black Magic test again. That will allow you to see the SSD working at the maximum speed possible on a Mac. Even so, if I were in the market for a drive like this, I would go for TB3/4 as it makes a lot more sense for people who want good performance from an external SSD.

[JonPattersonMusic]

Hi Adam, I am in the process of replacing my iMac with a M2 Mac Studio - looking for a recommendation on a fast external SSD that will work well with the M2. Many thanks

[ifeanyiubah]

Random but do you think the LaCie Rugged Pro Thunderbolt 3 would reach close to it’s top speeds of 2800MBps on the MacPro 2021 14” or No since it’s Thunderbolt 3 standards & not Thunderbolt 4 ?

[Max-gejf]

what about the Macbook M3 Pro? can it use it full speed?

[StarryTemplar]

Great video, but most PC does not have 3.2 USB port?

[bonsaratbu]

I Bought Samsung T9 and excited to transfer a bunch of photos from my iPhone 15pm but every time I transfer photos and videos there's always a copy of IMG file that cannot open and its file size is only 4kb and also has a same file name of the photos that I copied.... could you tell what it is...??? or Do I need to do something... It's really annoying I transfer 1000 photos and there's also 1000 copies of blank files with a file size of 4kb each sorry but I'm not techie hope someone helps... I tried to google it but can't find it...

[richardreyes]

I’m extremely new to PC’s but just bought my first gaming pc from I buy power at Best Buy, will likely exclusively use it for gaming and was wondering is this something you would use to save gaming data as the build I bought only had 1t, I know it’s a silly question but can I store my modern warfare 3 game data on this ?