external hard drive for macbook air 2021

The last thing I'm going to try is to reformat the drive with my new machine, but first I have to move some files around. I was so excited to do much faster photo/video work on this machine, but this external SSD problem is hampering my ability to do that. I've also checked that I have the latest firmware on the drive. I've gone through multiple cables to make sure that wasn't the issue, including the original C-to-C cable. Unfortunately I no longer have access to my older intel model to test if it would work fine with it vs the Apple silicon. I have racked my brain trying to figure out why this is happening. Sometimes it works fine but most of the time it is stuttering when trying to do anything.

Black Magic disk speed test can't even get it to test properly. None of these problems happened on my older machine. When I plug it into my new MBP it sometimes takes forever to mount, and once it does mount it is extremely slow to read and write.

It is a WD My Passport SSD 1 TB model with max read speeds of around 1050 MB/s. This same drive has always worked flawlessly with my 2015 i7 MBP that I traded in. I just picked up a new 14' MBP (10/16/16 model) and I'm having issues with my external SSD that I use for photo and video editing.

External hard drive for macbook air 2021