Thunderbolt 5 is 🤯 - First Test on the M4 Max MacBook Pro

[@ahgflyguy]

Note for everyone: all passive Thunderbolt 3 and 4 cables automatically are able to reach the new TB5 speeds. Active cables are limited to their original speed, unfortunately. Cables under 1 meter are almost always passive and will be compatible with the higher speed, cables longer than 1 meter are almost always active, and will not get the speed upgrade. And the only active 1 meter cables that I know of (which will be limited to the slower speed) are sold by Apple. Essentially, the less you paid for your thunderbolt three or thunderbolt for cable, the more likely it is that it will reach thunderbolt five speeds.

[@春奈ルナ]

Thunderbolt 'For' lol

[@janplexy]

4TB Samsung 990pro in Satechi enclosure gives around 4000mb/s for 40% cheaper. I’m happy with that.

[@MrExpert]

4TB price is same as New Mac Mini M4 Base Model - Crazy World :)

[@akashsxo]

that being said there is Airpods Max for the same price,each thing has their own utility,can’t be compared just with price,what that can do this can’t,what this can,that can’t

[@MrExpert]

@@akashsxo that's why i said Crazy world

[@akashsxo]

@@MrExpert gotchu bro

[@Thomas-kp8mo]

@@akashsxoAnd those as an example are ridiculously overpriced for what they are when there are cheaper models that do a much better job.

[@melgross]

These new drives and interfaces always cost more at first. A year from now prices will be a good 25% less and dropping.

[@joesalyers]

I won't buy SSD enclosures that won't allow me to change the SSD simply because its nearly impossible to get into 90% of them if the cable or the port goes bad or if it has some issue not related to the SSD itself. The cable being attached is also a big NO GO. We go through about 6 to 8 TB a month of SSD in my recording studio so we are archiving multiple sessions to SSDs and to literal old school Tape Drives for longevity purposes. So I have to be able to switch out the SSD quickly to keep working. I love OWC and I use 2 OWC docks but we need a enclosure that has removable storage and a detachable cable. If this is just your basic daily computing backup or for Apple's Time-machine then sure this is probably awesome but too many downsides with this one right now to move to Thunderbolt 5, but when they have the easily removable drives then 100% I'll buy 4 of them from OWC, because their hardware lasts forever!!!

[@d-zone]

agree 100%

[@j340_official]

I don’t know if the TB5 version of the OWC envoy has removable storage, but the TB3 version does. The screws are under the microfiber pads, just unscrew, pop the top off and put in your own nvme. I can’t see why the TB5 version would be any different. What I don’t like with this model though is the encapsulated TB5 cable. If that cable breaks you’re SOL. I can’t wait for empty TB5 / usb4v2 enclosures to arrive.

[@joesalyers]

@@j340_officialI own a ton of OWC hardware it just not the product for me. When OWC come out with a TB5 drive that I can replace the cable and exchange the drive then I'll pick 2 up for sure. It just this version isn't for me but its a great product.

[@j340_official]

@@joesalyerszollo tech should do a tear down

[@j340_official]

@@joesalyersI would love to see a TB5 or usb4v2 version of the OWC Express 1M2. I have a couple of these and with the new Macs tb5 I’m getting 3600 MB/sec read write. On tb4 I was maxing out at 3000.

[@michael-4k4000]

Thunderbolt 5 is the GameChanger we all have been waiting for! Since I work with Marques Brownlee, we record him in Apple Pro Res 16K. 16K HDR 540Hz is the industry standard. Every KZbinr, should be recording their talking heads in 16k HDR 540Hz Apple Pro Res. There is essentially NO down side to this, well except for it takes approximately 127GB per minute of storage for 16K HDR 540HZ Apple Pro Res. But isn't Marques worth it? With his review of the new iPhone 16 Pro, I would have never upgraded. Well technically I would have because I receive a free new iPhone every 3 years, but Marques made me feel really good about all the new fancy buttons and, wait new "buttons", wtf? Where is Jony Ive's? You think he would have OK adding buttons to the iPhone?

[@welphereiam]

I very strongly dislike the non-removable cable. That should be a standard TB5 port on the back.

[@RichardServello]

Non-removable cable and not replaceable. Also no empty version. Ripoff. I'll stick with TB4 until a real TB5 enclosure is available.

[@melgross]

I disagree. A lot of portable drives come with fixed cables, often just a few inches long. Since it’s portable, you won’t lose your cable, or forget to bring it.

[@clintonelliott340]

I won’t buy a fixed cable external drive. They wear out and then what?? Hopefully they come out with an external case where you can also put in your own Nvme drive.

[@welphereiam]

@@melgross I don't lose cables nor do I forget them. I'd rather be able to simply plug in a new cable if the fixed cable becomes damaged rendering the contents of the drive inaccessible.

[@piyh3962]

In their defense, fixed cables have less signal loss

[@Adam.M.Broughton]

Why did they include a thunderbolt 5 cable on a drive which has a unremovable cable? Crazy external ssd tho, cool video :)

[@SignorLuigi]

The new Mac Mini with the non-Pro M4 chip does not support Thunderbolt 5. Only the upgrade version of the new Mac Mini with the M4 Pro chip supports Thunderbolt 5. Anyway, just a heads-up that not all of the newest Macs support Thunderbolt 5.

[@zollotech]

Correct. But the Mac mini with the M4 Pro does.

[@jpdj2715]

@@zollotech - for 3 decades I have not bought Apple because the price uplift ("brand value") is too high. And I could buy better production performance for less. I acknowledge that MacOS is plain better than MS-Win (efficiency with resources). With the new processor family, Apple have a better position, even when the uplift is still there. The problem with the price of solid state memory in the meantime, that most people forget is how many P/E cycles the memory cells can handle, and how much performance is actually available at the media speed level (sustained, behind the very fast cache). Last time I looked, some years ago, Samsung EVO offered some 300 P/E cycles, and Samsung PRO offered 3,000 P/E cycles. My Delkin CFexpress Type B cards offer 30,000 P/E cycles. You can increase the lifetime by buying a lot more than you need and |"wear levelling" will help you out. In enterprise/data centre class solid state a variant of this may be present in the form of overprovisioning where the OS and you see capacity 1 but under the hood is 1.25 or 1.5 that gets used by wear levelling. This has a price. And very high burst speed my become bad sustain (this was called media speed with magnetic platter HDD). Put the page file on the SSD and shut down every day and you wear cheap SSD very fast. What we generally don't know either is how long our data are safe when the SSD is off power - a committee of folk with a Ph.D. in electronics and quantum physics might say "between 7 and 7,000 hours." In the case of Apple, I don't know the specs of the SSD inside. It's tempting to buy the cheapest version of a model and add storage externally, but we don't know what we buy versus what we need in our use cases. Between the internal SSD and an external after-market, Apple is said to have some AI at work (not sure what, why, how) in these new M4 systems that only works with internal SSD memory.

[@j340_official]

Hi Aaron thanks for this. It would also nice if you could do a tear down of the envoy ultra to see if you can replace the nvme drive and/or attached TB5 cable. And let us know what you find!

[@driliagor]

It’s one for the first ones. It will become an industry standard and cheaper, just like TB4.

[@GameFaceMac]

8.000+MB/s read and write? 🤯 wow, I still remember the days I had to backup GBs of camera data every day and was glad I had 3,5“ HDDs that reached 150-200MB/s. And the day I received my first Mac with USB 3.0 was a game changer, and it took Apple ages to support that.

[@masterwatch]

but why doesn't the cable unplug from the drive ?

[@melgross]

It’s less expensive and more reliable. Since it’s a portable drive, you’ll never forget to bring a Thunderbolt 5 cable with you, or lose it if you do.

[@masterwatch]

@@melgross ah yes I understand that and for some people you will be right. For me having a cable attached is a show stopper and I much rather have a USB-C with backwards compatibility so I can carry only a couple of USB-C cables that can do everything. But thanks for note.

[@fVNzO]

@@melgross With that same argument why don't we just have a cable sticking out of the macbook so you never forget a charging cable? (spoiler: it's a dumb decision to have a non removable cable because they break).

[@robeigner4390]

I've seen other external drives that simply use a standard thunderbolt cable, plugging into an internal thunderbolt jack. This way if the cable gets damaged, it can easily be replaced. Every OWC/MacSales external drive I've purchased has been able to be opened. I would bet there's some screws under the feet pads. I'm also going to contact MacSales and ask them about it.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

​@@masterwatch a standard removeable cable does not increase compatibility. It still needs to plug into a Thunderbolt 3 or newer port on the other end. USB4 might work, probably not.

[@chevaliermusic]

I would note that you usually have to take the drive apart to change the cable. It’s usually not actually attached, but instead ran through a hole on the side of the enclosure and then connected to the drive.

[@WayneLiu945]

5000mb read/write speed is pretty damn nice have to say

[@shotbyarian]

1.) why does it come with an extra cable if you can't use it 2.) is the ssd inside the case removable? 3.) what ssd is inside?

[@TheGokki]

what about access latency? I'm curious about it, though not sure if there's a tool to measure the milliseconds.

[@zollotech]

I don’t know if a tool to measure that, but if you know of one, let me know and I’ll check it out for you

[@hectornevarez6804]

Please review the new M4 iMac fully max out model with 32gb of ram, I'm curious to see how it preforms

[@daysoslive9541]

Thank's for this video im going to change my t7 ssd ( 600mpbs) and i'm going to take this ssd for my mac mini thunderbolt 5

[@iPhonedo]

I don't need it, I don't need it, I don't need it, I don't need it!

[@aliwaqas5780]

yes you dont!!!!!!!

[@yigitkizilkaya]

Faruk abi sen de mi buradaydın

[@NirHason]

You truly don’t need it, this hard drive as a non detachable cable, which sucks! just buying an enclosure of thunderbolt5 it will be the best way to go

[@genxtechguy]

I don’t either … and that makes me want even more.

[@billx4266]

unsubscribed from your youtube channel longtime ago, because you dont interact with your viewers. Zollo does interact in the comments, learn from it.

[@SonuBara-og6qu]

As always your videos are always helpful Aaron, Thanks.

[@rafawasielewski3401]

Is this speed test is an app or website? Please pass the link. Thank you

[@RichardServello]

TB4 3000 MB/s is also plenty fast for any video editing.

[@somebrains5431]

But moar is moar, fomo.

[@HarvardHeinous]

The video you're editing is encoded at no more than 92 MB/sec, so, yeah.

[@digitalemotionfilms]

It might seem fast….. but to be honest you would get a much better deal just getting a Sabrant Thunderbolt 3 enclosure with Kingston 4TB NVme M.2 V3 drives. I have a few of these and I edit 6K raw on them. Cost me about $280. And they clock around 6500MB/s write and 4900 read

[@eduardolima5431]

I had some 40 Gbps enclosures before and most of them turned off, at some point, when not using even with all the settings to not turn off. I still have an enclosure 10Gbps that never turns off. My question is, does it turn off eventually or does it stays on all the time? I have a mac mini and that's why I don't have problem with saving energy, since it's a desktop. Nice vid.

[@somebrains5431]

Sick speed, I'll wait for oled panels to be an option.

[@grandchester]

Just got mine and it is crazy!

[@DanRustle]

is OWC a reputable brand? never heard of it

[@EvanHKatz]

One of the oldest companies making Mac accessories and hardware. Also, one of the best reviewed and most reliable. Universally considered one of the top third-party hardware vendors for Mac. I have many of their external SSD‘s. Also, fantastic technical support and customer service as well. I cannot recommend them highly enough. Just Google them and you will see very similar comments from many people and tech magazines and websites.

[@zollotech]

Very. They have been around for years.

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

OWC is perhaps the most reputable external SSD brand. Right up there with Samsung and WD. A teir above Sandisk, Patriot, or Kingston.

[@Cooper3312000]

I sure hope they come out with a disk-less version don't need anymore M.2 drives. $400 for a 2TB is way to expensive. Looks like the internal drive is slower than the Sabrent TB5 drive.

[@TechGameDev]

the youtuber at the cutting edge of computing

[@zachwarner7164]

Thank you for all that you do.

[@rosestines66]

Great video Aaron ❤😊

[@defyiant]

Would you suggest this for a Mac mini m4 pro as a permanent solution stationary drive?

[@JamesBond-fo6ow]

only if you need that kind of speed. Since you only bought a mini and not a studio... assuming your workflow doesn't need it. a nice 30 GB/s 4TB Tbolt 4 setup is about half $$ if you go with a budget NVMe and a Tbolt case.

[@rorywalters1614]

So the internet drive should be PCIe 5?

[@michaelmartin5995]

Mr. Zollo: Do you have any opinion or viewpoint about Apple's polices regarding data privacy and personal files sitting in MacOS file systems? Does the new M4 silicon make privacy a moot point?

[@zollotech]

Mac is far more private than windows and nothing has changed with the new processors

[@smaruzzi]

I got one. Amazing

[@JeffHorne]

This is such good info. Thank you!

[@WarlordMoA]

Not bad for an external drive.

[@kato1557]

Hi Aaron, are you not going to have a video on the new M4 iMac? 🙁

[@TechGameDev]

not very useful for me thunderbolt 4 is enough but it's not bad 5 is much more futureproof but the price is extremely high if we had egpu support it would be incredible

[@Agagh]

You should put battery to highest performance settings

[@MichaelAnderson-l3k]

Mine reads and writes the same speeds as the internal SSD on my M4 Pro Mini.

[@6shahrukh]

TB5 is 80gbps, so why are you getting just ~40gbps (TB4 speeds)? Shouldn’t it be way more? Around ~10,000 mB/s?

[@sidshekar]

Is the internal drive 1TB? How is he getting 8gbps speed on it. Iam seeing only 5gbps on the internal drive on other videos.

[@TheAlmighty]

Not file dragging as a test?

[@AIbutterFlay]

what is your mac specs? i have seen 3k normal speed but 8k on 4tb because internal ssd raid 0

[@TheHealingGrid]

Had the same question. If this M4 Max is the same machine as his last video yesterday then the spec of this laptop has 8TB of internal SSD.

[@xXHACKRCHILDXx]

Do USB 3.1 2x2 (20Gbps) work with thunderbolt 5? I know that it didn’t with the thunderbolt 4 chipset as apple left it out even though it’s part of the USB4 standard….

[@Ripperx121]

The Mac mini M4 external TB4 tests about 2900 internal and external. The Pro is faster for sure. Just a FYI and I didn't buy OWC.

[@dovmerrill804]

TB 5 is advertised at up to 120Gb per second. So, factoring at 10 bits per byte (rather than 8 bits per byte), one would think upwards of 12GB per second, or 12,000 MB per second, as a theoretical maximum. So, 8,000 MB per second writes means about 33% overhead (software or hardware) to get to the 12,000 MB per second theoretical maximum. Disappointing for most; seems sellers (Apple and OWC, etc) should warn customers that “typical max data rate will be 8,000 MB per second) to temper customer expectations.

[@Mohamedrasvi]

TB 5 and the read, write performance are very different. Internal 8000MB/s is not connected with a TB5 port. Only the external SSD uses TB5.

[@dovmerrill804]

@ Your statements are correct, but kind of miss the point. The issue is “marketing communication” versus “how much technical knowledge must consumers have to properly evaluate a product and/or technical aspects of a product”. In this case, Apple’s marketing documentation state “TB 5” and “120 Gb/sec”. Yes, the TB 5 spec indicates max transfer speeds of 120Gb/sec. As you’ve sort of indicated, this is just for the physical TB 5 interface (for this comment, I’m specifying the physical interface consisting of a TB 5 controller and USB-C connector on each end, with a TB 5 cable between them) between computer and peripheral (ie. External SSD). Marketing communications downplay the fact that the “overhead” (software and hardware overhead in both the computer and the external SSD drive) result in actual read and write speeds of 5GB or 6GB/sec), rather than consumer’s (wrong) expectations closer to 10GB or 12GB/sec. That’s the only point I was trying to make.

[@MJDross]

Just wondering what it says about windows users?

[@rightwingsafetysquad9872]

Will work just fine. Although the only PC with TB5 I'm aware of right now is the Razer gaming laptop. That's been out almost a year so more should be coming soon. It will work with Thunderbolt 3/4 ports, just slightly slower. It might work with USB4 ports, but probably not.

[@Sleight-l4y]

I bought one too, but didn’t get a cable 😅

[@1234clarknj]

I wonder how fast Time Machine backups go on this.

[@jackTabsCode]

Not sure if I understand why you didn’t format the drive. “I don’t want the documentation” proceeds to close the formatter. What??

[@imanalius7691]

Hilarious that they send you an extra cable for a drive with a hardwired cable!

[@zollotech]

ill use it elsewhere for sure though

[@piotrd.4850]

Heatsink my ..... I once had alluminium brick of enclosure and attempted to use it to clone 3/4 full 1 TB SSD to Samsung 990 PRO inside it at USB 3.2 speeds - it overheated and shut down before reaching 50%. Fortunatelly it was winter and I have metal windowsill outside. Really, nothing less would do. 4TB over full TB4 speed? GL,HF.

[@MrSamPhoenix]

Not exactly affordable. But impressive nonetheless

[@RichardServello]

No empty version???

[@melgross]

I don’t care what people buy. Some drives have a connected cable and some don’t.

[@mad_circuits]

I prefer watching real files being transfered. But thanks for the video anyway.

[@TheJoaolyraaraujo]

It should have removable cable!

[@zollotech]

thankfully my older OWC drive similar to this has never had an issue with the cable and not even the rubber around it has worn out. So they are very durable thankfully

[@kinocchio]

wow that's wild

[@nnnnnn3647]

Benchmark means nothing. Once the disk cashe is full (depending on the model), the speed drops to 1.3 GB/s.

[@Alejandrolanza]

interested in amorphousDiskMark default results

[@zollotech]

I’ve never heard of that. I’ll have to check it out.

[@zollotech]

Ran this for you. AmoephousDiskMark 4.0.1 SEQ1M QD8 6889.38 Read SEQ1M QD8 5038.48 Write SEQ1M QD1 4186.03 Read SEQ1M QD1 4104.32 Write RND4K QD64 742.83 Read RND4K QD64 230.04 Write RND4K QD1 54.91 Read RND4K QD1 35.39 Write

[@johnpp21]

this is the slowest TB5 ssd i've ever seen the other TB5 M.2 enclosure is ranging from 6300-7000MB/s read then 6000-6500MB/s write

[@Brett.McMillin]

I literally picked up the Apple thunderbolt 4 cable like a week before the thunderbolt 5 cable got released. I’m less than happy.

[@zollotech]

You have 14 days to return it but unless you have something that supports thunderbolt five it doesn’t really matter as thunderbolt four is plenty fast

[@somebrains5431]

@@zollotech If there's anything fasterererererer or beterererererer must get now. Anything slower is trash. Must pray at the Fruit Stand and buy all the stuffs.

[@ricarmig]

Pretty expensive, good for enterprises. I bought a Thunderbolt enclosure and put a 2 TB ssd inside, it costed half as much and I reach the TB4 speeds

[@Cooper3312000]

8,000MB/s write speed what?! mine maxes out at 6,000MB/s on my M4 Max MacBook Pro must have higher that 1TB internal drive.

[@bricetrophardy]

Test starts at 2:46

[@yordanmilchev]

8000 on the internal drive 🤯

[@rewanji]

What makes this external SSD so expensive? Can’t be the SSD itself, surely. So what? The Thunderbolt controller, maybe? Hopefully other brands will issue their own products and the prices will go down or, even better, you’ll be able to mount your own drive.

[@JamesBond-fo6ow]

TBolt. Tbolt cases are $100-140.

[@JustAPersonWhoComments]

That is an incredible speed of the new Thunderbolt 5 SSD. The price is the same as the base M4 Mac Mini. Crazy

[@dogussahin]

5000MBs is 40Gbs, while Thunderbolt 5 promises 80Gbs at minimum, so this video is shows there is a bottleneck somewhere

[@danieldevine]

disappointing to not see over 7GB/s drives being tested on a lot of the TB5 SSD reviews.

[@zollotech]

There aren't any available yet outside of building them yourself and thats if you can find an enclosure supporting thunderbolt 5.

[@d-zone]

having a fixed cable is a negative......I'm waiting for caddy's I can put my my own 8TB WD SN850x drives into. The wonders of user replacable NVME drives and TB caddy's. I'm getting 3000mbs with an TB4/USB4 caddy. I paid £450 plus tax for my 8tb drives.

[@JamesBond-fo6ow]

Sabrent looks like they will have a case. Expect a $200 price tag. Add good Gen 4 NVMe @ $300... $500 drive. The reason they have the cable on it is so that you use the RIGHT cable and not some dollar store USB C one. Like their other cases, scores are under felt feet and cable isnt permamant.

[@ryanscott7807]

Single non-raid SSD on TB5 is completely pointless (if it's being priced at a premium to TB4 or USB4) as a single SSD (of any kind) isn't capable of utilising the bandwidth and max speed above what the SSD can already do on TB4 or USB4. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@MMantiMManti]

When it comes to apple for the FANATICS everything is MINDBLOWIING! Then you open videos and you see they are just discussing just benchmarks... because let's be honest real software for real professionists are only on Windows and no, in not talking about the software to edit the video you do with "YOUR" iPhone and post it because you are all content creators.

[@JayfkProductions876]

Non removable cable is an absolutely terrible thing.

[@TheTrafficBoss]

So literally no faster than anything TB4 can do because the SSD in that enclosure isn’t fast enough to get to TB4 speeds much less TB5.

[@TheTrafficBoss]

For reference I have an SSD that can do around 6500mb r/w and it’s almost the fastest out there. It’s in a USB 3.2.2 enclosure that’s capable of 10Gpbs which is 3500mb faster than the SSD can handle. TB5 is mega overkill for even pros. Nothing available can read or write at 40000mb/s(TB4) much less 120000mb/s(TB5)

[@jreynosoxtrm2004]

🤯

[@TheTastefulThickness]

For $50 less you can get 8TB of storage instead of 4 with the Samsung T5 EVO. And detachable cable. Slower speeds though.

[@devin865]

First thing I do with new drives is reformat them. No, I don’t want your software, docs, or any extra garbage. Also, who knows what other items might be loaded on this thing after all

[@SamuelWilliams-d9k]

😮this is soo kool!!!

[@Amrrkevin]

2:50

[@Mrcrypto1214]

11 seconds? Damn im fast, or a loser 😂

[@appl_ai_cupertino]

What are you even talking about

[@danlovesayu]

OWC.....your product designers probably have serious problem. Do you know the meaning of the word "PORTABLE?". Cables should be detachable at all times and casing should be detachable if we wish to change SSD. Please don't do silly things like Apple.

[@zollotech]

You don’t really want a detachable cable because you can easily lose it. I’ve used OWC portable drives for years and even snagging the cables They have not broken.

[@opx4real]

Non removable cable should be a nonstarter. Terrible design choice. Cable getrs damaged and youre out a whole drive. Come on OWC.

[@zollotech]

This is something I actually appreciate as you dont have a chance to lose the cable. I have used their drives for years and never had a damaged cable. Technically it can be replaced, but you cant just remove it like normal.

[@mmc5261]

Over kill stupidity

[@appl_ai_cupertino]

First!

[@japonislam]

So what

[@Butterscotch_96]

Nah I’d win

[@billx4266]

So you bought the m4 max, you must be loaded, are you gonna buy every time a new one comes out? Thats wasting money.....

[@melgross]

I don’t care what people buy. Some drives have a connected cable and some don’t.