T7 Shield very slow in reading and writing

[keng75]

Hello everyone,

My 4TB T7 Shield SSD doesn't exceed 44 MB/s read speeds!

I ran the tests with Crystal Disk, which found nothing abnormal. I tested it with another 2TB Samsung T7 SSD, then I changed the location of the USB 3.0 port, the cable, etc. Nothing worked, I don't exceed 44 MB/s read speeds and 36 MB/s write speeds. It's formatted in exFAT.

My mini-PC is the Geekom A5 with 32 GB of RAM and Windows 11 Pro. The other two SSDs connected directly to the motherboard give good results, close to those given by the manufacturer.

If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.

Thank you.

[andytruman]

That definitely sounds off. I had a similar issue and it turned out Windows had set the drive to "Quick Removal" mode by default. Try going into Device Manager > Disk Drives > Properties > Policies tab and switch to "Better Performance", then reboot. Also, double-check that it's really using a USB 3.x port not just blue-colored but confirmed in system info. That fixed it for me. Good luck!

[keng75]

Hello,
Thank you for your reply. You were right, the cause was a faulty cable which, despite its blue marker, was USB 2.0.
Everything is back to normal.

Thanks again.

[andytruman]

good to hear

[bendavis983]

I'm having similar unresolved issues, getting usb2 speeds on both my laptop and pc on my T7 1TB drive.

samsung magician confirms it is connected as usb2 and no matter what cables i use its always the same result.

however, logging into linux on the same pc gave usb 3 speeds 

[andytruman]

Sounds like a Windows driver issue. If it works fine on Linux but not on Windows, try reinstalling or updating the USB drivers in Device Manager. Also, check for any Samsung drivers or firmware updates.

[Tommy19123]

I have several Samsung external SSD drives. The slow problem is specific to the Shield SSD drives. They ALL are very slow and must be plugged in for 2-10 minutes before they gain maximum speed which in my opinion render them useless. No need to change cables, usb port etc. I never need to change cables or usb port for other Samsung type drives. The problem is specific to Shield. Avoid!

[Sparkn]

I have the same issue.  My read/write will be about 40MB/s and then it will just go full speed at some time in the future.  Lately, though, I don’t even see full speed.

[Benitos]

I tried everything:

1. Firmware update - did NOT help

2. Samsung Magician update - did NOT help

3. Reformat the drive - DID help, but only for couple of months, then I was back at 2MB/s. I have data on my drive, I cannot simply afford to do the reformatting every few months... so this solution is like the last resort

4. Device manager > Disk > properties > enable better performance & tick the first box under it. Restart. - DID help, but again only for couple of weeks. - it did the trick once, but now I am not able to replicate it, I disable better performance, restart, enable it again, but still see slow write speed.

5. Open Samsung Magician - select the drive - Performance Optimization - disable TRIM - this worked immediately for me without the need to restart. I did the backup of my data at full write speed, then I turned the TRIM option back on. After that, I ran CrystalDiskMark and the write speed was still at 1000 MB/s even with the TRIM back on. So from now onward I know that whenever I got low write speed, I just need go to Samsung Magician, disable/toggle the TRIM option, do the backup and turn it back on.I hope this bit helps you guys.

It has been pain in the a#% this T7 Shield drive. It is shame that Samsung cannot fix this issue even with numerous firmware updates.

[vtorkalo]

Same issue with Shield T7  2 GB
Speed dropped to 2 MB/s. I formatted it from exFat to NTFS. It worked fine for some time. But again dropped in few month. 
Drive used as cold backup, transferring new photos every 2 month.

Updated firwmare with "magician", checked file system. left plugged in over night. still write speed terrible 2 MB/s, which is useless for 2 TB drive. Tested on 2 different PC with latest windows 11
Never will buy SSD from samsung, especially for important backups.