On 9/22/2025 at 5:19 PM, shermank said:

I think we all have seen the Prepar3d.commdown for repairs.

but I have never seen this before

https://prepar3d.com/

does. “Database error” mean LM taken the forum offline?

sherm

back on line when I last checked a few hours ago.

Sherm

2 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

We’ll forgive me for trying to help a friend.

geez, no good deed goes unpunished. 

Why are you taking it so personally? I had a look and decided it wasn’t for me. Thanks for the recommendation anyway.

4 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Why are you taking it so personally? I had a look and decided it wasn’t for me. Thanks for the recommendation anyway.

just joking, I thought someone might get a little chuckle.

You can't joke on these forums.🤬

11 minutes ago, Patco Lch said:

just joking, I thought someone might get a little chuckle.

In all honesty it didn’t come across as a joke. I thought you were being deadly serious.

14 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Looking at your numbers the external seems to be half the speed of internal.

As you wish.
In my world, 538.99 megabytes per second is much slower than 1028.37 megabytes per second.
This is one of my internal M2 SSDs.
Slower still?

 

4 hours ago, Reader said:

As you wish.
In my world, 538.99 megabytes per second is much slower than 1028.37 megabytes per second.
This is one of my internal M2 SSDs.
Slower still?

 

I misread the read numbers. The external is faster. How come? Do you have a particularly slow internal SSD.

8 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I misread the read numbers. The external is faster. How come? Do you have a particularly slow internal SSD.

No, as I mentioned, just because drives are external, no longer means that they must be slow.
USB C seems to have taken care of that.

6 hours ago, Reader said:

No, as I mentioned, just because drives are external, no longer means that they must be slow.
USB C seems to have taken care of that.

I appreciate reading this because I too felt the same as Ray. I need more space and was going to pick up maybe another 12 TB but will consider external now.

On 9/25/2025 at 12:48 PM, ywg256 said:

I appreciate reading this because I too felt the same as Ray. I need more space and was going to pick up maybe another 12 TB but will consider external now.

Please ensure you examine the published transfer speeds on the drive inside the enclosure (and probably check a few reviews as well). I've seen quite a few drive manufacturers put slow drives in "fast" USB enclosures so they can sell at a lower price.

Also beware that the USB-C spec has variable data speeds dependent on the hardware on both sides of the connection (e.g., Thunderbolt). ALSO ensure you have a quality cable that's capable of handling the speeds of both your external storage & USB port.

ANY of those things being off-spec can utterly hobble I/O performance.

@Reader

Edited September 29, 2025Sep 29 by UrgentSiesta

1 hour ago, UrgentSiesta said:

ANY of those things being off-spec can utterly hobble I/O performance.

@Reader

 I'm sure you are right, however, my point, which still stands, is that the previous situation, where 
by definition, an external drive was much slower than an internal one, is no longer the case.

40 minutes ago, Reader said:

 I'm sure you are right, however, my point, which still stands, is that the previous situation, where 
by definition, an external drive was much slower than an internal one, is no longer the case.

Yes, i generally agree. 👍

However, it's also true that it's always been possible to have external storage that outperforms internal storage, too.

I.e., one must pay close attention to all the components in order to ensure the expected/desired performance is delivered. My main point is "Caveat Emptor", especially when it comes to "USB" devices. 🙂

 

Edited September 29, 2025Sep 29 by UrgentSiesta

The fastest real-world transfer speed one can expect for an external SSD drive will be around 1.8 GB/s. Assuming you have the latest USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 ports.

For internal NVMe SSD drives, using PCIe 4.0, speed will be around 7 GB/s, or 12 GB/s when using PCIe 5.

So yes, there is a substantial  difference

 

Just now, willy647 said:

So yes, there is a substantial  difference

The comparison is between internal and external SSDs of the same type,
not different types of SSDs.
Of course an M2 is faster.

A reminder that the title of this topic is P3D, not the speeds of SSDs. Get back on topic please.