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.

Click to expand...

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.

I am impressed. I ran a full file backup last night. The backup amounted to abut 300GB. When I was backing up to the Elements USB HDD, it would take at least 2 hours to complete.
Last night the same backup to the Samsung T7 SSD on USB 3.2 gen 2 took about 10 minutes!

Ultrarunner22 said:

I am impressed. I ran a full file backup last night. The backup amounted to abut 300GB. When I was backing up to the Elements USB HDD, it would take at least 2 hours to complete.
Last night the same backup to the Samsung T7 SSD on USB 3.2 gen 2 took about 10 minutes!

Click to expand...

I love my Samsung T series portable SSD drives. My wife and I have a total of 7 drives from T5, T7, and T9. With constant daily use over the years, they have been fast with never a single failure. Highly recommended!

TraderGary said:

I love my Samsung T series portable SSD drives. My wife and I have a total of 7 drives from T5, T7, and T9.

Click to expand...

Just don't get the T-1000 or the early T-800. We all saw those movies.

pseymour said:

Just don't get the T-1000 or the early T-800. We all saw those movies.

Click to expand...

You've lost me there. I don't find any information for such Samsung SSD Drives.

TraderGary said:

You've lost me there. I don't find any information for such Samsung SSD Drives.

Click to expand...

i am not sure that you got the humour but the T1000 & T800 are 'Terminator' units from the film of the same name.
but it has made me smile.

best of luck, Steve ..

@TraderGary, Both of my Samsung USB SSD drives are formatted as exFAT. From doing a google search this is recommended for External drives and NTSF is recommended for internal drives. To help me better understand, why do you think that NTSF is better for external drives when all of my searches say that exFAT is better?

Winuser said:

@TraderGary, Both of my Samsung USB SSD drives are formatted as exFAT. From doing a google search this is recommended for External drives and NTSF is recommended for internal drives. To help me better understand, why do you think that NTSF is better for external drives when all of my searches say that exFAT is better?

Click to expand...

It's been a while since I compared and made a decision for NTFS. I'm recalling that external or portable drives use exFAT for compatibility with other operating systems and if they are used only for Windows that NTFS was better and faster. Now you have me doubting my choice. But at this point I'm not going to format and destroy 7 days of images to test it.

Don't we have @Ultrarunner22 making the speed comparisons earlier in the thread? It looks like NTFS writes a little faster and reads a little slower in his tests, although not by much. I'll stay with NTFS.

NTFS is better for large files, which images typically are.