Why M1 Macs don’t have full support for USB-C | Hacker News Reader

Why M1 Macs don’t have full support for USB-C

eclecticlight.co

16 pointsingve14 comments

...storage. USB-C storage. Because they don't support S.M.A.R.T.

Nothing to do with USB-C. Everything to do with storage. Click-baity title.

The article says SMART is supported over thunderbolt but not over USB.

As far as I understood Thunderbolt doesn't require the problematic kernel extension OP was using.

Right, but it's nothing to do with M1 or USB-C, it's any Mac regardless of CPU architecture and any USB external drive regardless of connector.

Apple's USB Mass Storage driver is incomplete. That's the actual problem.

Agreed. The fact that macs don’t (and never have) supported SMART over USB is interesting, but the article doesn’t really live up to the title - no real explanation of “why”, and the M1 and USB-C bits are irrelevant.

Really, it sounds like the title should be “FYI - Apple doesn’t support SMART over USB”. Or “Apple’s USB mass storage driver is incomplete — PLEASEFIX.”

I’d be interested to know the answer. But given that the original solution was to use a custom kernel extension, I’m more inclined to believe that the answer is — Apple didn’t think anyone would need it.

> The most compelling reason for connecting external storage to a Mac is for backups using Time Machine (or other backup software). As no M1 series Mac supports adding internal storage suitable for those backups, the choice is locally attached or networked.

In what world is internal storage appropriate for a backup? A backup should always be locally attached or networked with an offsite copy.

You can buy a NAS from Synology with 4 TB storage for about $ 500. Which allows you to do TimeMachine backups.

> Third-party NAS systems suitable for Time Machine are also limited by Apple’s deprecation of AFP, and at least one major manufacturer appears to be dropping Mac support as a result.

TimeMachine should work perfectly fine over SMB and SMB is the protocol recommended by Synology for example. So this shouldn't be a limiting factor at all. I don't think Apple or NAS vendors are going to drop SMB support anytime soon.

The issue is simply that most extra functions of USB storage devices are controlled by sending SCSI pass-through commands which macOS has never allowed from user space. This could be worked around by providing your own kext, but this has become almost impossible these days.

M1 consoles can't boot off external drives if your internal drives are inoperable. M1 consoles can't replace their internal drives. M1 consoles are generally hard to interface with third party thunderbolt 3 devices. M1 consoles don't have full USB-C support. M1 consoles have to emulate most software.

And yet people still question weather M1 are consoles and claim they are real computers. They're not. They're really nice, proprietary consoles with cut corners. And most users will never notice the hardware cut corners because they stay within Apple's walled garden and never open the hardware.

Calling it a “console” in this way makes it hard to take the argument seriously.

That said, I believe almost all of my software is now compiled for arm64, and is no longer emulated.

They’re real computers, no sense in arguing otherwise. It dilutes the very real criticism of “their firmware makes some poor choices that hinder compatibility, etc.”

I'm sorry but what do you mean by 'M1 consoles'?

He's trying to say they are no better than an XBox. It's a slur.

"Have to emulate most software", WTF? I just checked activity monitor, and of the 575 processes it shows, exactly zero are not native.

...but I can see how you may have trouble interfacing with things, like reason or society.

Also: the corners are rounded, not cut.

And how many of those processes come from software outside of your repos/app store? No one, myself included, is saying that megacorp software isn't going to eventually get ported. Even linux might eventually run. But as of right now, as it's been for a year or two, most software doesn't. It's okay for console users because they never download and compile that .tar.gz source tarball off some dude's website. But realistically most software isn't going to run without lots of effort so, yes, it has to be emulated. There's a reason isapplesiliconready.com exists.

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