How to read SMART data from Samsung T7 external SSD?

Tech Support
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1

I’m trying to read SMART data from a Samsung T7 external SSD with Smartmontools using this command:

smartctl /dev/disk7 -d nvme -a

which results in:

smartctl 7.5 2025-04-30 r5714 [Darwin 25.6.0 arm64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-25, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       Samsung Portable SSD T7
Serial Number:                      <Redacted>
Firmware Version:                   FXG43P2Q
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x144d
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x002538
Total NVM Capacity:                 2,000,398,934,016 [2.00 TB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity:           0
Controller ID:                      5
NVMe Version:                       1.4
Number of Namespaces:               1
Local Time is:                      Thu Sep  3 21:23:44 2026 CEST
Firmware Updates (0x16):            3 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0007):   Security Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x0015):     Comp DS_Mngmt Sav/Sel_Feat
Log Page Attributes (0x0f):         S/H_per_NS Cmd_Eff_Lg Ext_Get_Lg Telmtry_Lg
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         512 Pages
Warning  Comp. Temp. Threshold:     52 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold:     54 Celsius

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
 0 +     4.83W       -        -    0  0  0  0        0       0
 1 +     3.54W       -        -    1  1  1  1        0       0
 2 +     3.04W       -        -    2  2  2  2        0    6000
 3 -   0.0500W       -        -    3  3  3  3     6000    1500

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
Read NVMe SMART/Health Information (NSID 0x0) failed: GetLogPage failed: system=0x38, sub=0x0, code=706

Any T7 owners able to read the SMART data, with this or another tool?

(I have two of them; happens with both)

2

If the Samsung T7 is anything like my Crucial X8 then I don’t think you’ll be able to get a SMART reading for it. The Crucial X8 uses an NVMe drive internally and it looks like yours does too.

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/tech/NVMeAndSMART

Whether or not NVMe SSDs have SMART attributes depends on your perspective. In the perspective of the NVMe specifications, a NVMe SSD is required to provide you with what is called ‘SMART / Health Information’, so maybe you could say it has SMART attributes. In practice, this information is not in the format of SMART attributes and it doesn’t have the fields that they do, not even so much as an ID number.

So I doubt conventional SMART monitoring utilities will be able to read data off of it.

3

I believe that it’s actually a limitation of macOS, not the drives.

There’s a kernel extension that could do it, but not sure if it’d work on the latest versions and of course you’ll need to lower the security settings. DriveDx - external USB and FireWire drive diagnostics support

4

Apparently, the last commit was almost 10 years ago, so I have the same doubt…

(And I don’t even dare to test this)

5

Maybe Samsung has a newer driver?

Will try to look more into this later.

6

It points back to DriveDX, where there is an Apple Silicon version (SAT SMART Driver for Apple Silicon Macs) but it is not clear if it is still a kernel extension.

7

I does want to install a kext indeed.

Maybe I’ll try it once this weekend; not sure yet…

8

Looks like the issue is based in both the hardware and the OS.

DriveDx won’t do the trick either way. Unless you like being spooked by faulty readings.

Samsung Portable SSD T7 / T7 Touch is NVMe-based SSD internally, so it is not compatible with SAT SMART Driver. SAT is shortened for “SCSI to (S)ATA Translation”, it is for SATA-drives, not NVMe/PCI-drives. For more information about NVMe SMART over USB – please check this article in our FAQ.

https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx/kb#samsung-t7-ssd

Currently, there is no NVMe SMART over USB drivers for macOS. macOS does not support this and there are no third-party drivers (kernel extensions). Moreover, currently, there is no official specification for NVMe SMART over USB from NVM Express Workgroup. Currently only vendor-specific workarounds available like JMicron and AMedia but there is no common standard.

Some examples of external USB SSDs that are internally based on NVMe SSDs: Samsung Portable T7 SSD, Samsung Portable T7 Touch SSD, Crucial X8 Portable SSD, Sandisk Extreme SSD, Sandisk Extreme Pro SSD.

https://binaryfruit.com/drivedx/kb#NVMe-SMART-over-USB

Maybe Samsung has its own proprietary tool for this?

1 Like
9

Thanks!

Don’t have to try then…

1 Like
10

They do, but it’s a joke:

It recognizes the internal Apple SSD, but not Samsung’s own (external) T7…