topic Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW in Monitors and Memory

T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

cableguy1970 — Thu, 29 May 2025 21:50:26 GMT

I have (4) T7 Shield SSD Drives, 4TB size, and all four used to work flawlessly. Now attempting to save data to any of the drives they are going slower than dialup. Over 4 hours to save 4GB. I've used Samsung Magician to ensure all drives have the latest firmware (FXI72P2Q). It's odd that they all are performing exactly the same way. I've used two different Mac computers with the same results: 16" MBP M3 Max, 48 GB Memory and Sequoia 15.4 installed. 2nd Mac is a 16" MBP M2 Max, 96 GB Memory installed. I also have a Samsung T9 SSD, and it's just as slow. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

cableguy1970 — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:54:06 GMT

After what took forever - here is the benchmark of the T9...

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

3Fees — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 16:53:13 GMT

T7's are usb 3.2 10Gbs speed drives. There read/write speeds approx 1 GB/s. You have three usb 4 ports. I'd say it's apple computers not taking advantage of full usb 3.2 speeds. You should get a pluggable technology thunderbolt 4 / usb 4 hub and enjoy the faster speeds. This hub is rated for your laptop.

I have two pluggable technology usb 3 hubs and my backups run 400 MB/s all the time.

Step up here the air is nicer, lol.

Cheers
3Fees

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

LongHiker — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 17:18:47 GMT

@cableguy1970 What about cables? Did you use the cables that came with the drives originally, or another cable?

Not all USB cables are built for high speed data.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

cableguy1970 — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 17:32:26 GMT

@LongHiker I use the same cables that came with the drives originally.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Thu, 08 May 2025 03:34:02 GMT

I have pretty much exactly the same problem. I bought 5 T7 Shield SSD drives back in 2023. I copied tons of video onto the drives. We don't get them out much, but now I am trying to place more data on them. From two different computers, the performance is still 800/900 MB/s on the READ but the WRITE is now 2MB/s. That is not a mistype, WRITE is really really slow at 2MB/s. All of the drives and using the Samsung cables. Using the same computers. Granted, Microsoft has updated plenty of things since then. Windows 11 machine is the main one. I have updated the firmware on some, and that does not change the write performance. The performance numbers are from Magician. I had to take it down to 50MB and only 1 scan to get numbers since it was taking forever to run the performance numbers. The ports are USBC and USB 3.2 ports.

Some of the drives are only 1/2 or 1/4 full, so it is NOT the amount of data on the drives. Some are 95% full. The performance on the Magician performance test is the same. File system is exFAT on all of them. Most all the files are big, being video files.

Something clearly is different now, but I am at a loss and not sure what. After I put all the data on them, I did purchase AOMIE Backupper and use it. It is still installed on my main machine but not the laptop.

At this point the drives are basically read only. I played with these back in 2023 and the performance was great for read and write, and I used Vegas Pro to render and create content directly to the T7 Shield to prove to myself the performance would be good enough on these drives.

I hope someone can help us......

Followup -- My dad 600+ miles away bought a T7 Shield a year or so ago because I told him they are awesome and fast. I called him up and had him run the performance test on his drive...... 2MB/s .... something is seriously wrong here. His drive is always plugged into his computer and used as a backup drive so he didn't notice the performance is terrible since it runs in the background.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

whofly — Tue, 10 Jun 2025 19:36:03 GMT

I have a similar experience. The drive was previously used to transfer numerous large files, and did so quite quickly. I never paid much attention to how quick exactly, because it never seemed to be a problem.

After not writing to the drive for a year, I then got 2Mbps write speed. I reformatted the drive, updated the firmware, tried multiple USB cables and ports, across two different computers, both which were the same computers I used prior to the issues.

After updating the firmware, I am now getting slightly improved write speeds, ~35Mbps, but Windows displays a sort of 'serrated', very inconsistent transfer rate. It's comforting to notice that I'm not alone, but this is very frustrating. All other diagnostics indicate no issues with the drive.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

ddaniel51 — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 04:58:36 GMT

Do your drives contain a Recycle Bin? If so empty it.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Sun, 15 Jun 2025 02:07:39 GMT

Hi Red Giant --- thanks for the idea, but unfortunately no changes for me.

I just connected 2 of my 4 drives. One did have some files in Recycle Bin. I emptied the Recycle Bin, ran the Benchmark and no change. I even detached and reattached the drive and the same 2MB/s.

Both drives are still 2MB/s. The second one I had not updated the firmware, so I updated it. I don't know how long it took to update the firmware because after 16 minutes I needed to leave. When I returned a few hours later the firmware was updated. I re-ran the Benchmark and it is still 2MB/s.

The port they are connecting to is showing Interface USB 3.2, USB 3.2/ Slot Max: USB 3.2 / Drive Max: USB 3.2

I plan on contacting Samsung support sometime here, but I have not had time yet. I have multiple SandDisk 1TM Extreme Portable SSD and they do not show the performance issue with the same cables and port.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

Iuser2025 — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 11:46:15 GMT

Hello everyone!

This problem is about a year old, it is actively discussed on many forums, for example on reddit.

Quote from reddit:

I spent three days solving this problem. I have three Samsung T7 Shield SSDs. SSD1, which I use constantly, has no issues. SSD2 is a 4TB with the factory exFAT file system, and SSD3 is a 4TB with two ext4 partitions. Initially, the write speed on SSD2 dropped sharply, and then on SSD3 after two months. I use both SSD2 and SSD3 for backups every 2-3 months.

To fix the very low write speed on SSD:

1) Connect and mount the SSD through a high-performance USB-C port.

2) Write any 500MB file to the disk; at 2MB/s, this will take about five minutes.

3)Leave the SSD untouched for several hours.

However, if you disconnect the SSD drive, and then connect it after a day or a week, to restore the speed you need again to keep it turned on for several hours.

I really hope that Samsung support service will pay attention to the problem and fix this error.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

JonWood — Sun, 13 Jul 2025 19:16:25 GMT

There must be something further wrong here.

I've got multiple T5, T7 and one T9 which has developed this problem.

I've tested on multiple computers/ports/cables and no change in performance.

Samsung Magician says the drive is good, but takes alot longer that a T7 to complete the fault test. Still says is read/write speeds are what I had from new, just not achieving it in the real world, to the point of it being unusable.

For a relatively expensive drive that is only 18 months old, with relatively light use and not even half full, not sure what to do!

Always been happy with the Samsungs in the past, hence me having so many.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 02:32:09 GMT

Oh my!!!!

I thought I posted already tonight, but it is not showing up so I am trying this again.

I had not tried this copy 500MB and then let it sit. Yesterday I made time to do this. I pulled out the drive with the most free space. It showed about 800MB data written to it and 2. 84TB free. At 3:21:59PM I copied a 1.64 GB file to the T7 Shield and it took 10+ minutes and transferred at about 2MB/s. I then brought up Magician and performed a Performance Benchmark which confirmed the 2 MB/s. I waited 3 hours and at 6:44:26 PM I copied a different 1.28GB file and it also transferred at 2 MB/s. I went to bed bummed.

I let it sit. My computer is Windows 11. It does have a power scheme and ultimately goes into a standby mode. At 7 pm tonight I brought the computer back up. At 7:05:33 PM I copied a different 1.26GB file and it only took a few seconds :-). So at 7:08:07 PM I copied a 1.34 GB file and it was about 5 seconds. Then at 7:13:48 PM I copied another 1.21GB file and again it only took 4-5 seconds. I brought up Samsung Magician to confirm the speed and ran the exact same test that I have been running which is with Number of Test set to 1 and the Test Range set to 50 MiB, and the performance was 762MB/s and then 803 MB/s.

Thank you luser2025!!!! This is a start but this is unacceptable. I hope to contact Samsung directly. Here is the benchmark screen shot

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 02:33:26 GMT

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Tue, 29 Jul 2025 02:39:17 GMT

Another interesting observation. Tonight at 7:05 I copied the first 1.26GB file. It is now 8:35 PM and the blue light on the T7 Shield has been blinking with irregular beats from the time I copied and it is still blinking. It seems to be 4 short flashes and then a longer flash. I am going just leave this for now, but I don't remember the driving flashing the blue light before like this when I was not copying any data.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

Ercin — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 08:13:01 GMT

I'm not going to buy this trash. Thanks guys

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 18:10:05 GMT

I don't blame you for not wanting to buy it. It is, thankfully, not actually trash because I still have all my data but definitely not what it should be!

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Sat, 09 Aug 2025 18:17:23 GMT

More follow-up. I left that first drive hooked up and the performance was still good after a week.

So, then I pulled out another one of the drives. I verified its performance was still 2 MB/s.

1) I hooked the drive up, but did not copied data onto it
2) After 2 days the performance was still 2 MB/s
3) I then drag/dropped a 1GB file to the drive. The Windows copy dialog showed it was transferring at 2 MB/s and would take 6-10 minutes (whatever, I was not looking close and again bummed) so I brought up a different window to do some work in. However, after some time I noticed it seemed like that copy dialog sped up and all of the sudden it was done. I didn't think it took 6-10 minutes, so I copied a second >1GB file and sure enough it was transferring it in 3-4 seconds.

So, this is the second drive that now is fast again, as measured from Samsung it is 833 MB/s.

I really need to set aside time to try to contact Samsung's support team.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

TomaszHorski — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 16:58:37 GMT

So I'm not alone! I had T7 Shield 4TB. Read speed 993 MB/s, write speed 2 MB/s. I started RMA and got new T7 Sheld 4TB from Samsung. After 6 months new drive also have 2 MB/s write speed! Tested with 2 cables on 2 computers. So what now? Second RMA?

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

coloradobittersweet — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 02:44:54 GMT

I know it sounds crazy, but copy a 1GB file onto the drive, and then leave it connected for half a day or so, and retest. I still have 3 more drives to do this to, but really this is terrible.

Re: T7 Shield 4TB drives were FAST - Now Extremely SLOW

TomaszHorski — Tue, 19 Aug 2025 04:11:23 GMT

This is permanent fix or only for few hours/days? I can still use second RMA.