Samsung X5 Portable SSD - 2TB - Thunderbolt 3 External SSD for a reasonable price

[brentsg]

Was anyone able to flash the firmware on the shucked 500GB drive? I suppose it likely doesn't matter but Samsung Magician is too smart for this.

 

[MacRumoren]

Can anyone else confirm that the newer X5 cases are glued? I am also attempting to buy the 500GB and upgrade to larger capacity.

 

[Juicy Box]

The newest Samsung X5 drives have started gluing the enclosure shut at the far end (opposite the USB-C port).

Maybe you could apply some heat to loosen the glue?

Can anyone else confirm that the newer X5 cases are glued?

I purchased a Samsung X5 a few weeks ago from Best Buy, and assuming it isn't old stock, mine was not glued except for the trim around the TB3 port. Getting that trim off was the hardest part taking it apart, although if I had to do it again, I could probably do it quickly. I messed up the case a little trying to get the trim off with screw driver. This was after trying to get it off with a few plastic pry tools.

I ended up trying a razor blade, and that worked for me very easily.

There was no glue on the opposite side, and even if there was, I doubt it would be hard to work it loose, especially after heating it up.

is it possible to put a 970 EVO Plus in the X5 by changing the original SSD (500GB)?

So it’s possible to use a 970 EVO plus here too with 2 TB?

Exactly what I'm trying to find out! If you find out let me know please.

Do you happen to know if I can upgrade it with an 970 Evo Plus instead of the 970 Evo?

I can confirm that using the 970 EVO Plus does work. I just did it, and work worked fine.

I was unsure whether or not to leave the label on the 970 EVO Plus, thinking that it would be better to have better contact with the heatsinks and thermal pads with the label off, so I ended up removing them.

As for performance on my Late 2012 iMac with TB1, it has slower read speeds than the stock NVMe in the X5 and very slightly increased read speeds. Write/Read @ 715/890 MBps.

Also whilst on that note, could I upgrade with another brand nvme 2 SSD?

I almost tested this, but ended up going with the 970 EVO Plus. If anyone test this, let us know.

 

[elandy]

Just posting this for general information in case it may help others in the same situation.

I needed a fast high capacity external SSD for my new 2018 Mini for storing and editing a very large number of digital images. I was looking at the Samsung X5. The Samsung X5 2TB Version is currently selling for around $1,200.00 down from $1,400.00 but still very pricey.

So after doing a little research online I found it possible to upgrade the internal NVMe M.2 SSD. So I bought the 500GB version of the X5 for $300.00 and replaced the SSD with a 970 EVO 2TB ($540.00). I was able to sell the new original 500GB NVMe SSD for $100.00.

So I ended up with a 2TB X5 for a total cost of $740.00. A substantial savings of $460.00.

The SSD swap was very simple and took maybe 15 minutes.

View attachment 812253

Can you use this as a boot drive for the 2018 mac mini running High Sierra? Is the computer's performance the same as using the internal drive to boot.

 

[CoastalOR]

Can you use this as a boot drive for the 2018 mac mini running High Sierra? Is the computer's performance the same as using the internal drive to boot.

Dr. Stealth has not been on MacRumors since Aug 2019, so he will probably not respond to your query.

I'll try to respond. My answer is Yes & No. Yes the X5 will work fine for a boot drive, but it needs to have a macOS that supports the 2018 Mac Mini. Apple does not officially support High Sierra on the 2018 Mac Mini (HS does not have the hardware drivers for the Mini). The 2018 Mac Mini originally shipped with Mojave (10.14) and that is the oldest macOS that it supports.

 

[elandy]

So nice of you to let me know this. It saves me a lot of grief. I must have High Sierra in order to run an app I created (not publicly available.) I have a mojave mac mini (built in 2020) and it does not run the software. I appreciate your time. I also need to run 2 32bit apps so I don't plan to go beyond high sierra for my personal comptuer. For hi speed video stuff that's another thing.

 

[Ploki]

So nice of you to let me know this. It saves me a lot of grief. I must have High Sierra in order to run an app I created (not publicly available.) I have a mojave mac mini (built in 2020) and it does not run the software. I appreciate your time. I also need to run 2 32bit apps so I don't plan to go beyond high sierra for my personal comptuer. For hi speed video stuff that's another thing.

Mojave supports 32bit still

 

[elandy]

Yes, but I have a 32 bit quicktime based app that I developed for myself that does not work well on Mojave and works fine on High Sierra. It could be that I need to install some quicktime codecs, but I can't figure that out.

 

[mdgm]

You could see if running High Sierra in a Virtual Machine works for you.

 

[elandy]

Thanks. I have parallels and VM virtualized for HIgh Sierra, but I need one of them, which is a photo catalog, Expression Media - formerly Iview multimedia, to interact with multiple computers and hard drives (total of 10 drives) online and at least 4 local drives and various usb sticks I load into the computer every so often. To have to connect these to the virtual system would be a pain, I think. I played around with both. Also VM does not support mojave officially although a tech helped me to install it.

As a side question, I have various codecs installed in my computer by Final Cut Pro for quicktime. How woudl I copy them onto another computer? Do you know where they are kept in the system?

 

[Jack Neill]

I bought a X5 500GB off eBay for 95$ to give this a try, put a Samsung 980 1TB in it. Works fine but I'm getting inconsistent speeds, at first I was getting 1700 R/W's and after a few min I was getting 600/1300 R/W's. I just wanted a decent TB enclosure for my 2020 Air's. I like the faux ruggedness of case and I had the 980 left over from a failed 4th Hackintosh project I gave up on. So win win I guess.

 

[ENUCLEATION]

From med-tech2's profile on Reddit: ssd replacement inside Samsung x5 thunderbolt 3

Explore this post and more from med-tech2's profile

www.reddit.com

my ssd relacement and speed results
repaced ssd's:
970 evo plus 1 tb
970 pro 500 gb

 

[ENUCLEATION]

From med-tech2's profile on Reddit: ssd replacement inside Samsung x5 thunderbolt 3

Explore this post and more from med-tech2's profile

www.reddit.com

my ssd relacement and speed results
repaced ssd's:
970 evo plus 1 tb
970 pro 500 gb

repaced ssd's:
970 evo plus 1tb
970 evo plus 2tb

970 Pro 500gb
980 Pro 1tb PCİE GEN 4 SSD

WD BLACK sn750 1TB