Nightmare after Windows 11 update

My 4TB T9 drives are always about 50% full keeping a rotating 7 images on them. I connect them to my Thunderbolt 4 ports. I list my specs in "My Computer" below.

I assume that T9 is faster than T7? When I was searching for a USB SSD drive I found some that can read/write up to 2040 GB/s. I didn't want to pay the extra $$ for speed I really didn't need. I ordered the Samsung T7 4TB mainly for backup purposes.

Ultrarunner22 said:

I assume that T9 is faster than T7? When I was searching for a USB SSD drive I found some that can read/write up to 2040 GB/s. I didn't want to pay the extra $$ for speed I really didn't need. I ordered the Samsung T7 4TB mainly for backup purposes.

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The T9 is twice as fast as the T7. For me that's significant. I make my backup images every night before I shut down, so for me speed is important. Currently my backup images of my complete C: drive and all partitions is taking less than 3 minutes to make on my T9 drives.

My Samsung T7 drive came formatted as exFAT. Should I leave it, or reformat to NTFS. I don't plan to use the drive with any OS other than Windows.

As for speed, The T7 is fast enough for me. I use EaseUS Todo Backup and set it to run just before I go to bed, and shut down when it's done, so even on the old USB HDD it would finish during the night.

The first thing I do is get rid of the Samsung backup software by doing a Quick Format. I choose to change to NTFS as it's faster and more efficient.

Thanks. I did get rid of the software, but hadn't formatted the drive yet.

Interesting observation:
I ran Crystal Disk Benchmark on the new T7 drive, first as delivered, formatted as exFAT, then again after converting to NTFS, and once again after re-converting to eXFAT from within Windows 11 using Disk management too.
Besides NTFS appearing a bit slower than exFAT, I noticed differences between test runs.

As delivered as exFAT (with Samsung software still installed on the Windows PC)


After (quick) formatting as NTFS - Samsung software has been removed from the PC


As exFAT reformatted using Windows Disk Management tool - Samsung software removed from the PC


Note that I ran CrystalDisk using the default file size - 1GB.

Could the software actually speed up the drive?
Apparently the answer is yes, and they claim it can extend the life of the SSD.
That said, I have serious doubts that keeping the software installed will not increase overall - real life - performance, even though it may improve performance on tests such as Crystal Disk.
I'm pretty sure I uninstalled the software when I bought the 500GB T5 drive; it may have thrown up ads or caused stability issues.
I did a Google search, and IMHO, the Magician software is hype. It increases benchmark scores, but may slow down real-life use.

All of the above said, I prefer NTFS, since I will be using the drive only with Windows 11.