USB Sub-Par Speed On Mac Mini M1 - Not The Advertised 10Gbps

 The confusion continues regarding the USB speed of devices connected to Thunderbolt3 ports on the Mac Mini M1.

In my experience USB devices rated for 10Gbps connected to the Thunderbolt3 ports are only recognized as 5Gbps.

The only exception so far is the OWC Dual Drive Dock, which is correctly recognized as 10Gbps, although it is far from reaching the theoretical speed.

OWC Drive Dock correctly shows up as 10Gbps device on the Mini M1 System Report (macOS Monterey 12.1)

Phantom Drives DUO enclosure, rated 10Gbps, showing up as 5Gbps on Mac mini M1 (macOS Monterey 12.1)

There are now many entries related to this problem on various Apple forums:

Usb4 (TB3 latest) on M1 computers - Apple Community

USB 3.1 Gen 2 drops to 5Gbps on M1 Mac mi ... - Apple

Mac mini (M1, 2020) - Technical specifications - Apple

https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/74780-faster-external-drive-speed-m1-mac/

Is it a chip issue? Is it a M1 issue? Is it an issue with Monterey? There is no answer from Apple or from the manufacturers of 10Gbps USB devices.

Apple has to address this issue and explain why we cannot get the advertised speed of 10Gbps. Manufacturers have to be clear on the speed of USB 10Gbps devices when connected to M1 Macs.

There are too many very useful and perfectly adequate USB 10Gbps devices on the market to ignore this unfortunate situation.

Cable Matters is the only manufacturer recognizing there is a problem with their 10Gbps Dual Bay HD Enclosure when connected to M1 Macs.

• Mac M1 computers, laptops, and other devices with the M1 chip only support 5Gbps data transfer. Intel Macs are not affected by this limitation

Although that leaves us clueless as to why this is. I left a feedback with Apple, I encourage you to do the same.

How To Position An Object Properly In A Scene After Camera Tracking - After Effects

 How to position your object/text/whatever properly after running After Effects 3d Camera Tracker.

For some reason I always fail to remember this simple step:

 After the tracking is done and the camera is solved by AE, right click on a point or a target and create Null+Camera.

The thing to understand is that this Null is the actual position where you want to add you 3D objet so that it feels like it belongs to the scene.

As a side note, if you have several objects in several places, you must have several corresponding Nulls.

Anyway back to inserting a 3D object into the scene. When you bring in a new object/image/watever, first click on the cube to make it a 3D layer. That will probably wreak it up and move the 3D object to a random place. Not to worry.

Remember at this point to not try to move the object by hand try and make it go where you think it should go. I always have a tendency to do that and I have to make an effort to not do it.

Instead select the Null to which the object is attached, hit P for position and select Position (the word) and Command + C for Copy. You are copying the Null position to the 3D object which makes sense because that's where it belongs!

Now select the 3D object and hit P again, select Position (the word) and Command + V for Paste. All XYZ positions for the object and its associated Null should now match.

Now wherever you scrubbing/playing in the timeline, the object will match the track rock solid and feel like it belongs to the scene.

You can adjust scale, anchor point and rotate the 3D object as needed, but do not change its position.

The Mac Mini M1 Sub-Par Speed Of USB-C Devices Connected To Thunderbolt 3

 Something is up with the Mac Mini M1 when connecting USB-C devices rated 10Gbps. They don't show up as such, instead they are downgraded to 5Gbps.

I noticed that the Phantom Drives DUO was only recognized as a 5Gbps device on my Mac mini System Report, even though it is advertised as a 10Gbps device on Phantom website. And I picked this enclosure because of the advertised speed.

Only I am not getting the speed I should get, instead it maxes out at around 360MB/s, that matches the theoretical 5Gbps max speed.

Same thing with the OWC Mercury Dual Mini enclosure, advertised at 10Gbps, actual tested speed around 360MB/s.

And on top of this, the same dual SSD Raid 0 array reaches 690-800MB/s on a Sonnet Pcie card, which is the expected speed for such an array.

I'm not the only one seeing this, as mentioned in this Reddit post:

What the heck Apple? So if the 10Gbps devices are only operating at 5Gbps with TB3, and the other USB ports are also 5Gbps, what are we supposed to buy to get the 10Gbps speed we want?

Are we forced to upgrade to 40Gbps TB3? Not many devices on the market, all much more expensive than USB 3.1 10Gbps. I understand why now.

And what about USB4? Do these devices even exist? Looks like compatibility is not even guaranteed ?...

UPDATE 1:

Oh boy, there is more to this problem in this Apple Discussion thread. Someone mentions a "bug" in macOS, someone else mentions "Some of those folks have found that using a Thunderbolt3 cable instead of a USB-C cable returned stability and performance."

Damn! I don't have a Thunderbolt3 cable at the ready to test this. That would be dandy if true.

UPDATE 2:

I ordered a Thunderbolt3 cable and I am sad to say that this solution DOES NOT WORK for me with the Phantom Drives DUO external enclosure. I have the same exact speed with USB-C cable or with Thunderbolt3 or Thunderbolt4 cables. Not good.

Speed with Thunderbolt3 cable, same as with USB-C cable

Speed with Thunderbolt4 cable, same as with USB-C cable

Sub-par speed with USB-C cable. Should be in the 800MB/s.

So at this point I will be returning the Phantom Drives enclosure. I already parted with the OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini, so I can't test it with a Thunderbolt cable unfortunately, but I don't really fancy the form factor anyway. If someone would be kind enough to do the test and add comments below that'd be great.

What's left? I guess there is no solution for using the Sonnet TSATS6 in a Thunderbolt3 PCIe enclosure. Being 12.28" in length it does not fit in the Highpoint RocketStor 6661A (max 7.87") or most Sonnet PCIe Enclosure that are half-length as well.

It would fit in the $899 Sonnet Echo3.  But whoa! That's an expensive box! And it certainly reduces the portability. I could fit two other cards in the enclosure in addition to the Sonnet dual SSD. My BMD Mini Monitor would go in right away. And later I could upgrade to a Mini Monitor 4K or a Decklink. And I would still have a third slot available... For what though?

I think for the time being I will use the SSDs as two separate 1TB drives and just forget Raid 0. Instead I will maybe start looking again for a 4 or 8 drives bay fit with HHDs.

Phantom Drives DUO Dual 2.5' USB-C Enclosure - Review

 My quest to find a dual enclosure to house two Sata SSDs at 10Gbps speed is still ongoing.

I reviewed OWC's Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini enclosure last week, and it didn't meet my expectations. Namely the speed of the RAID 0 array composed of the two 1TB SSDs is not faster than a single drive. It should reach higher, maybe not the advertised max of 980MB/s, but at least faster than the around 360MB/s of a single Crucial SSD.

Today I'm testing another dual 2.5' enclosure, the Phantom Drives DUO (enclosure only).

And similarly I am not getting near the advertised "Up to 1000MB/s Read and Write". Instead I get the same as with the OWC's Mercury, a paltry 360MB/s in Raid 0, be it hardware Raid or Apple Raid, no difference.

As single drives in the Phantom enclosure, I get the usual 350-360MB/s.

Either SSD, (A) or (B) delivers the expected speed.

Now this is two SSDs configured as Raid 0 (Apple software) with basically the same speed as a single SSD. Not expected, not good.

And this is the same two SSDs as Raid 0 (Phantom hardware), same crappy speed.

More weird is that the Phantom enclosure only appears as a 5Gbps device in System Report, even though it is connected to Thunderbolt 3 via USB-C. On the Phantom website it is clearly described as a 10Gbps enclosure.

I already returned the Mercury Mini, so unfortunately I cannot check how it's being recognized by System Report.

By comparison, OWC's Dual Drive Dock is recognized as a 10Gbps device. And its speed with the same two Crucial 1TB SSDs is slightly better than either the Phantom or the Mercury Mini, around 550MB/s.

So far that's the best speed I can get on the Mac mini M1 with an external Raid 0 composed of two 1TB Crucial Sata SSDs. It's still slower than it should be.

The best speed of all, 800-680MB/s, an expected speed for dual SSD Raid 0, is only achieved with the Sonnet PCIe card in the Mac Pro 5.1

Why can't I get this kind of speed with USB-C enclosures rated for 10Gbps connected via Thunderbolt 3 on the Mac Mini M1?

I don't get it. Any ideas? Please comment.

Adobe Hates You. If You Ever Cancel An Adobe App Install From CC App, You Will Be Stuck There For A Long Time

 This is so infuriating Adobe, I clicked to install Premiere and realized I needed to do something before I installed, so I clicked Cancel...

And Now all that CC App is showing is "Canceling". And it's not going away.

So stupid, so retarded. I bet no one even in-house testers never ever clicked Cancel on an install. Right? Never tested. If you had you would have seen this stupid situation.

What are we supposed to do Adobe? I've been waiting for 20min. already. Restarting CC App does nothing. I cannot Sign Out, it's greyed out.

OK, enough, I am uninstalling CC. Of course it too is stuck in Adobe nowhere land of stupid. Nothing is happening, great.

 Finally 5min. later it has been uninstalled.

Of course the installer is nowhere to be found having been removed from my download folder by Adobe, without asking for permission. Fine, I'll re-download the installer and re-install. 5 more minutes later, here we go installing Premiere again... Do not press Cancel!

Yeah, yeah, Apple Silicon, blah, blah. 

OK looks like it's happening, fingers crossed.

Adobe Creative Cloud App And Creative Cloud Web Do Not Show The Same Things, Why?

 If there is something I utterly dislike with software and SaaS UI and behavior, it's inconsistency. Adobe and Avid are champions of inconsistency.

Why Adobe do I have different things showing in my Creative Cloud App and on my Creative Cloud Web?

The CC subscription comes with 100GB of Cloud storage, great. This is what it looks like in the CC App (on Mac):

If you try to upload some media file from your computer to your storage on CC App, you get an error:

OK, so if you can only upload PSD AI or XD files to your CC storage, what's the point of this storage?

Well in fact you can upload any kind of file to your CC storage, only YOU CANNOT DO IT VIA CC APP. Instead you have to do it from CC Web. Why Adobe? WHY?

This is now what my Cloud Storage looks like on CC Web:

See how Your Files now contains 4 sub categories / tabs? These are generated automatically by Adobe by the way, I didn't make them.

So now we have: "Cloud Documents", "Published", "Synced Files" and "Mobile Creations". Much different from what we have in CC App, which is... Nothing.

THIS IS VERY CONFUSING ADOBE!

Now let's have a look at what's inside Synced Files:

Bingo! This is where the media files are, and this is where, using CC Web, (or your Local CC Folder), you can upload ANY file to your CC Cloud Storage, including any type of media.

It's also synced to your Local CC Files folder, which looks like this on my Mac:

So dropping files inside this local folder (and whatever folder/subfolder organisation you maintain here) will ripple into your Cloud Storage / CC Web and vice versa. Fine we are used to this.

But why are they not showing anywhere in CC App???!!! Why is the CC App NOT CAPABLE of displaying all folders and files and dos not allow uploading any and all kind of file including media?

Why name "Your Files" in CC App what in reality is only some "Your Cloud Documents"? When "Your Files" in CC Web correctly describes all my files.

It's inconsistent and it's confusing and I don't like it. Please fix this Adobe.

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini Enclosure - Review

The OWC/MacSales Mercury Elite Pro Dual Mini Enclosure is a dual 2.5 inch HDD/SSD diskless enclosure with a 10Gbps USB-C connection and hardware RAID 0. You also have a choice of RAID 1, Span and Independent Drive modes.

It looks good, seems well built, is bit large unfortunately because the design has the two SSDs / HDDs side by side instead of stacked. It comes with USB-C and USB-A cables and power supply in a well packaged box. It's easy to open it and insert your own drives.

As far as speed is concerned though, I couldn't get nowhere near the advertised speed of 980MB/s.

I fitted the Mercury with two Crucial MX300 1TB SSDs, and selected RAID 0 on the enclosure, plugged the power supply and pushed the Set button. It quickly gave me an array of 2TB that I formatted Mac OS Extended Journaled with Disk Utility.

The best speed I could get was around 370MB/s connected to Thunderbolt 3 of a Mac Mini M1:

Rather disappointing. I also tried Apple software RAID 0 again for a total array of 2TB with Independent Drive mode selected on the Mercury and got the same results:

With the SSDs as single 1TB drives, not RAID, I actually got the same speed on each individual SSD. Meaning there is absolutely no speed advantage in having a RAID 0 array with this enclosure:

That's too bad. The same dual Crucial MX300 1TB set on a Sonnet TSATA6 PCIe Card fitted into a classic MacPro gets around 700MB/s:

Now maybe I got a lemon, maybe it's possible that fitted with OWC's own SSDs the enclosure is capable of the advertised speed. I don't know and I am not interested by this configuration. As a 0GB, add your own drives enclosure, fitted with 1TB Crucial MX300s, it does not keep its speed promises, so I will be returning it.

What's your experience with this piece of equipment? Leave your comments below.