Samsung Portable Ssd T5 Software For Mac Catalina
You can't access a Sandisk, Crucial, or Samsung T3 when the external SSD is not recognized or detected by Mac, whether the external SSD was working for a long time or it's a new SSD you bought recently. However, this issue is so prone to happen even when you unplug the external SSD from the Mac and later on plug in the SSD again. It's definitely frustrating, especially when you have important files stored on it.
The Samsung Portable SSD T5 elevates data transfer speeds to the next level and unleashes a new experience in external storage. With a compact and durable design and password protection, the T5 is truly easy to carry and stores data securely. The MacBook and MacBook Pros come with an SSD to store data and an OS. When you use a hard disk drive, Time Machine will take a while to back up your Mac. You can get an external SSD (Samsung T5 500GB $89.99 from Amazon) and format for a reasonable price to use with your Mac’s Time Machine. The SSDs are fast, don’t need any external power. Samsung T5 portable SSD One of those ends is the sole USB-C port which supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 — up from USB 3.1 Gen 1 on the T3. It is also entirely bus-powered, making it great for on-the-go work.
How can you fix the unrecognized external SSD and access your files stored on it? You will find the answer and troubleshoot this problem in this post.
Format Samsung T5 for Mac and Windows. Your Samsung T5 comes delivered in ExFAT format. ExFAT formatting is a file system that both your Mac and a Windows PC can see and read and write to. But, if for some reason you want to reformat your Samsung T5. Or clear off everything off the drive you can do that on your Mac. Follow steps 1 to 6 above. Oct 20, 2019 I have a samsung ssd running Mojave. When I tried to install Catalina, it said my ssd was not formatted APFS. So my plan is to do an clone update from my ssd back to my iMac drive. Then boot back to the iMac drive, update to Catalina, verify it works, reformat ssd to APFS, clone Catalina to ssd, then check for bootability. Jul 19, 2019 1. Take the Samsung software OFF OF the drive. Get rid of it. After that's done, use Disk Utility to erase it Some external drives (like this one) come with pre-installed software from the manufacturer. Almost always, the drives will work BETTER with Macs if you remove this software and then erase the drive to Mac OS format. Oct 08, 2018 a MUST HAVE External SSD for Mac editors! Samsung T5 portable SSD review - Duration: 3:32. Martijn Wester 9,167 views. Best External SSD?
Why is external SSD not recognized on Mac?
Various reasons are leading to external SSD not showing up issue on Mac. Here we conclude four main causes as below:
1. The SATA to USB 3.0 adapter/Dock is malfunctioned.
Usually, you need to buy an additional dock, disk case, or SATA adapter to access an SSD drive. During this process, if the externally connected SSD is not recognized by your Mac, it's likely that the adapter is not compatible with the disk's SATA interface, or the dock/drive caddy is faulty.
2. The external SSD is new and uninitialized.
This happens when users externally connect the SSD to backup or transfer files on the internal hard drive. But many newly bought SSDs are not initialized with a file system, which means there is no entrance for macOS to recognize and communicate with this SSD, and for sure, the external SSD won't show up.
3. The external SSD has a file system that can't be recognized by Mac.
Possibly, the SSD that you try to access is formatted with a file system. However, it's not a file system that your Mac can recognize. For example, it is formatted with a Linux file system. In this case, your macOS can't recognize the external SSD surely.
4. New software or firmware needs to be updated.
This happens frequently for Samsung portable SSD T5/T3, because you need to install Samsung portable SSD Software to unlock disk's password and update certain firmware for this SSD. And if the necessary software and extension are not downloaded, you may receive 'No Samsung portable SSD is connected' from its software.
5. The external SSD is not set to show up on Mac.
Sometimes, your external SSD actually is recognized by the Mac, but some setups stop the SSD from showing up in the Finder, on the desktop, or even in the Disk Utility.
6. The external SSD is corrupted.
Another possible cause is that you have unsafely ejected your SSD, which makes the external drive corrupted after some core data like partition table or file system is damaged. Also, you need to be clear that the life span of an SSD is limited depending on how frequently you use it.
7. Other Hardware problems.
How to fix external SSD not recognized on Mac?
Solution 1: Check whether the external SSD is properly plugged in
Since all SSDs use SATA interface, so when an external SSD is not recognized by Mac, the first and foremost solution is to check whether the external SSD is properly plugged in. So simply do these checks:
- Check if the cable is working by connecting the external SSD with a different cable.
- Check whether your SSD is using SATA Ⅰ, Ⅱ, or Ⅲ so that your adapter/dock/case is compatible with your external SSD.
- Try a different SATA to USB adapter and make sure it works by plugging in a different drive.
- Try to connect the external SSD directly to your Mac if it's a type C drive, rather than accessing it via a USB-C adapter.
Tips: If the unrecognized external SSD is a Samsung T5/T3 SSD, and you got the 'System Extension Blocked' and 'No Samsung Portable SSD is connected' messages when executing Samsung Portable SSD Software, simply go to System Preferences > Security & Privacy > choose Allow button next to the message: System software from developer 'Samsung Electronics' was blocked from loading.
Solution 2: Reboot your Mac computer
Sometimes, Mac externalSSD not mounting issue is caused by the system issues. But you easily fix them by restarting. The restarting process will refresh your macOS's memory and starts it up fresh, which works efficiently especially when the USB port is busy. Simply choose the Apple menu and click Restart.
If you are interested in, you can learn what happened inside when Mac doesn't recognize an external drive with details.
Solution 3: Find the unrecognized external SSD in Disk Utility
When an external SSD is not showing up on Mac, the most necessary step is to check whether the external SSD can be found in Disk Utility. If the external SSD can be found in Disk Utility, you make sure that the drive doesn't have any hardware problems. But if you can't find it listed in Disk Utility, the external SSD might be physically damaged.
So simply Go > Disk Utility > View > Show All Devices to check the external SSD.
- If your external SSD is using Windows NTFS format, macOS won't mount the drive in writable mode. To write to an NTFS drive, you need to download a free NTFS for Mac driver.
- If you have used this external SSD on other computers for some time and now it is unrecognized by macOS, the file system of the SSD is either unsupportable or corrupted, you need to recover lost data from this external SSD and reformat the drive.
- If you newly bought this SSD and it is not initialized, you can't see the partitions of the external SSD in Disk Utility but receive an error message 'the disk you inserted was not readable by this computer'. In this case, you need to make sure you don't have any data on this drive and then initialize it in Disk Utility by erasing.
Solution 4: Repair the unrecognized external SSD with First Aid
If your external SSD shows up in Disk Utility but not mounted, you can right-click the drive and select Mount menu and then the SSD will show up on Mac. If the Mount button is grayed out or you fail to mount the external SSD, try running First Aid to verify and repair disk errors.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Choose the grayed out external SSD from the left sidebar.
Step 3: Select the 'First Aid' tab on the top.
Solution 5: Reformat the unrecognized external SSD without data loss
If all solutions above don't work, the external SSD might be corrupted and you need to reformat it. The thing is, reformat will cause data loss. But actually, whether the external SSD is not recognized due to logical disk errors or hardware problems, the most important thing is your files on the drive. So, to prevent data loss, you need to get your files off this external SSD first if you forget to back up. Hopefully, you can recover lost data from the external SSD with the help of professional Mac data recovery software.
iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac is highly recommended here to recover lost data from unrecognized external SSD. It's a free and professional data recovery tool, which can recover lost data from corrupted, formatted, unreadable, and unmountable SSD. This software works on macOS 10.15/10.14/10.13/10.12 and Mac OS X 10.11/10.10/10.9/10.8/10.7.
Moreover, iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac supports main storage devices including hard drives, external hard drives, USB flash drives, SD cards, memory cards, etc. and multiple file formats such as documents, audios, pictures, videos, emails, etc.
Tutorial to recover lost data from unrecognized SSD on Mac with iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac
Step 1:Steam for mac os yosemite. Launch iBoysoft Data Recovery for Mac.
Step 2: Select the unrecognized external SSD and click 'Next' to scan lost files on the drive.
Step 3: Preview the scanning results, choose files we need, and click 'Recover' to get lost files back from the unrecognized external SSD.
Step 4: Have a check to ensure we have recovered all lost files.
After your important data is recovered, you can go ahead to fix this issue by reformatting without data loss.
Tutorial to reformat the unrecognized external SSD
This operation will remove all data on the external SSD, please make sure you have recovered all useful files with iBoysoft Data Recovery.
Step 1: Launch Disk Utility.
Step 2: Select the external SSD on the left part of the window.
Step 3: Click 'Erase' on the top of the Disk Utility window.
Step 4: Complete related information (name, format, scheme), then click Erase.
Solution 6: Send the external SSD to a local technician for help
If unfortunately, the external SSD can't show up in Disk Utility or the solutions above failed to fix external SSD not recognized issue, the drive might have some hardware problems. You need to contact the manufacturer for technical support or product replacement.
Some SSD support pages you may need:
- Samsung: https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/support/warranty/
- Crucial: https://uk.crucial.com/gbr/en/support?cm_re=top-nav-v2-_-flyout-support-_-support-home
- Intel：https://supporttickets.intel.com/?lang=en-US
- WD: https://www.westerndigital.com/support
- Kingston: https://www.kingston.com/en/company/warranty
- Toshiba: https://www.toshiba-memory.com/warranty/
The Samsung T5 portable SSD isn't a new release, but is still a great compact drive that pairs very well not only with a Mac, but with an iPad Pro as well.
Though the Samsung T5 was introduced back in 2017, it recently was refreshed with new colors earlier this year.
With iPadOS and external storage support just landing for our iPad Pros as well, it seemed a good time to revisit and re-review the miniature drive.
Samsung's T5 is a small NVMe-based SSD that is incredibly tiny. Nearly the same size as the T3, but just a hair smaller.
Included in the box is not only a USB-C to USB-C cable, but a second USB-C to USB-A cable for anyone who isn't on the latest hardware.
It is made of an anodized aluminum body with black plastic caps on either end.
One of those ends is the sole USB-C port which supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 — up from USB 3.1 Gen 1 on the T3. It is also entirely bus-powered, making it great for on-the-go work.
Thanks to support for USB 3.1 Gen 2, speeds are now advertised to reach up to 540MB/s, an upgrade from the 450MB/s of the T3. But, those are advertised values.
We tested the speeds of the drive with the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test on our Mac over USB-C and saw speeds near the promised values. Our write speeds averaged around 445MB/s and our read speeds hit about 515MB/s. Longer timed tests of mixed file sizes saw about the same, so it also appears that heat isn't a problem.
As an optional bonus, Samsung includes its software with the disk that can be used for encrypting your data. The software also allows you to rename the drive and check for updates — most of which can be done through Disk Utility. So, frankly, we don't think Mac users need to even consider it.
Since this is designed to be taken outside the office, there is drop protection built-in with two meters of shock absorption promised. And, as we mentioned, Samsung has recently released new red and gold colors for the T5, of which the former we were particularly fond of.
The T5 dovetails nicely with iPadOS for the iPad Pros which finally brought support for external storage over USB-C.
Now a USB-C drive can be connected to the iPad Pro and accessed via the Files app or any app that supports external storage. The stylish design, fast speeds, and small footprint of the T5 made it out go-to for on-the-go work on our iPads.
They pair quite well together and it was no problem for us to use it connected directly to our iPad Pro or when we used our Kanex USB-C iPad Pro hub.
We've build an assortment of external SSD storage devices with some external cases we like, and a SATA drive. More recently, we've done some with M.2 drives. But, there's something to be said about just buying something at retail, and going.
It isn't some gold standard for external SSDs, and it isn't Thunderbolt 3 — but not everybody needs the fastest drive or the generally highest prices for the faster connectivity, and it is one of the best. We like the T5 very much for that general use case, and since it's USB 3.2 type C and not Thunderbolt, we can use it with our iPad Pro.
Pros
- Compact size
- Vivid colors
- Aluminum body
- Fast speeds
- USB-C
- Shock resistant
- Soft case material can be scratched
- No water or dust resistance
- No storage pouch or case
Samsung Portable Ssd T5 Software For Mac Catalina 2017
Grab the Samsung T5 in black, blue, gold, and red from Amazon from $89.95 to $292.93 in 500GB to 2TB capacities.
Samsung Portable Ssd T5 App
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