How to format new external SSD for best performance on Mac?

[Bernhard Meijer]

I just bought a external 1TB Samsung T7 NVMe SSD that I want to use as storage for the syncron piano library. But I read somewhere that you should format the drive to get the best performance here but don't remember where I can't find it. So I'm asking here :)

this drive was just released but it's the same version as Samsung T7 touch but without the touch. So maybe they are already formatted as they should since they have a speed of 1000mb/s read and write.

[Paul]

Welcome Bernhard, 

For Windows, please use standard NTFS formatting, for Mac you can choose between "macOS Extended" or APFS.
FAT32 and EXFAT will give very bad results. 

Best, 
Paul

[Cyril Blanc]

it depends how your external 1TB Samsung T7 NVMe SSD  is connected 

[Bernhard Meijer]

Hi,

It is connected via USB-C to USB-C to my Mac Mini 2018. 

But u did a format now to an APFS format and seems to be the best and fasted format to use.

[Cyril Blanc]

USB-C not "la crème de la crème"

SATA III is  theorically 600 Mb/s,  USB 3.0, is theorically 480 Mb/s 

Why theorically : it depends of the chips used for your I/O on both side

Inside the Mac Mini normally you have Sata III so your SSD will run faster if you put it in the Mac-Mini

You can test this with utility like : Black Magic disk test 

[Bernhard Meijer]

All Mac Mini 2018 has NVMe SSD and reach speeds of ca 1500mb/s read and 2500mb/s write and to get the same speed with an external ssd you need thunderbolt 3 connection that is possible with for example Samsung X5 drive. The Samsung T7 has NVMe SSD and is spec’ed at 1000mb/s over usb-c but in reality it gives 830mb/s write and 950mb/s read speeds. My question here was about how to format the drive to be optimal for Synchron player since I know if done with wrong format it will not reach good speeds and effect the performance.

[Cyril Blanc]

Have you run Black Magic disk test

[Bernhard Meijer]

Yes i have :) The formating of the SSD does not make a difference when doing a speed test but it will make a difference on performance for loading the small sample files for the synchron player. When having the D-274 installed in my internal SSD (1500/2500 r/w) it showed a read speed of 700mb/s in synchron player and i did a test in a factory formatted Samsung T5 (500mb/s r/w) and only got a speed of 120mb/s in synchron player. This is why I wanted to have it correctly formatted with my new T7 SSD.

[Cyril Blanc]

> The formating of the SSD does not make a difference when doing a speed test but it will make a difference on performance for loading the small sample files for the synchron player. 

In VSL you can ajust the pre-load buffer size and you do this depeding of the speed of your I/O, smaller if the buffer size more you will put in memory but you will have more disk access.

You have to be carefull that there is no swap used in Activity Monitor

You can make a Raid 0 of SSD, it is saying you multiply by 1.5 the speed, the only problem is if you have a problem with your disk you loose all the SSD that are in your Raid 0, so you have to be very carrefull and have a back of your SSD on a large HD. I build a Raid 0 of 8 x SSD on a SATA III interface

a good thing to do is to spread your libraries accros mutiple disk 

Have fun !

voilà,