How much faster should a Thunderbolt 3 SSD be for making Time Machine backups? How can you speed up backups to your NAS? Here are representative speeds from real testing.
NVMe
This has become more complex with increasingly popular hybrid drives that support USB4/Thunderbolt and fall back to USB 3.x.
PC users will get 20 Gbit/s and SMART health indicators from this new external SSD, but Mac users will only see half that speed and no SMART without reducing security.
If you want it to have full TRIM and SMART support, it’ll need to have an NVMe interface and a Thunderbolt connection.
With a shiny new high-speed Samsung X5 SSD to test, I was looking forward to some real speed. Did it deliver good value for its high price, though?
What happens in your Mac when you press the Power button? Before it loads the EFI firmware, it goes through self-testing, and initialising key chips.
The Eclectic Light Company 