Transcend Introduces JetDrive Lite Expansion Cards Up to 128GB for MacBook Air, Retina Macbook Pro

Wow that is pretty awesome.

JetDrive Toolbox V1.4

Hello Everyone,
For the past few weeks, we've looked into the issue of our users' MacBooks not going into "deep sleep" mode (as documented in this Apple support document: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4392), due to JetDrive Lites being installed in the card reader.

Today we're happy to announce an update to our free JetDrive Toolbox (v1.4) which adds a "Power Save" mode that auto-ejects the JetDrive Lite before going to sleep and auto-remounts on wake, allowing your Mac to go into deep sleep normally. The effect is seamless and doesn't require JetDrive Toolbox to be running in the background. (Note: Remounting does take a few seconds to complete.)

Simply download the latest version of JetDrive Toolbox, enable Power Save, and quit JetDrive Toolbox.

Voila! Auto-ejecting and Auto-remounting JetDrive Lites that don't affect battery life during sleep.

Thank you,
Transcend

Wow. So cool. Downloaded the transcend toolbox. Don't know if it's actually working, but love that you created a feature based on feedback and came back here to post an update.

TranscendInfo said:

Voila! Auto-ejecting and Auto-remounting JetDrive Lites that don't affect battery life during sleep.

Click to expand...

I have used your toolbox for about a week now. Thanks for making this available.

I usually keep my MBA running during the day and close the lid in the evening. Usually, I see that the JDL is re-mounted and ready to use when I reopen the lid on the following day. But on a couple of occasions I saw that it did not appear when I opened the lid. I see from Disk Utility that the the disk is completely ejected. I cannot think of anything that I have done exceptionally, compared to the other days.

I had to run the following command in a terminal to get the JDL to appear again (without removing & re-inserting).

sudo kextunload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCardReader.kext
sudo kextload /System/Library/Extensions/AppleStorageDrivers.kext/Contents/PlugIns/AppleUSBCardReader.kext

What could be the problem?

I have a late 2010 MBA 13” with OS X 10.9.3 and a JDL 130 (128 GB).


- Asanga

Hi, does anyone have any feedback after using this card over the past few months? Just bought a MacBook Air online waiting on it arriving and was looking into a card like this. The built in 128Gb I opted for will be enough as I will be using the machine for work that will not involve storage heavy requirements just now. Thinking more long term for having media on it when I'm staying away from home with I will have to do as part of my new job.

Has any of the potential concerns that people speculated about turned out to be true in terms of preventing "deep sleep" and or affecting battery life?

Thanks and if anyone has any feedback in terms of how they find the working with the built in limited storage after Mavericks installed ect.

Thanks.

TranscendInfo said:

Hello Everyone,
For the past few weeks, we've looked into the issue of our users' MacBooks not going into "deep sleep" mode (as documented in this Apple support document: https://support.apple.com/kb/HT4392), due to JetDrive Lites being installed in the card reader.

Today we're happy to announce an update to our free JetDrive Toolbox (v1.4) which adds a "Power Save" mode that auto-ejects the JetDrive Lite before going to sleep and auto-remounts on wake, allowing your Mac to go into deep sleep normally. The effect is seamless and doesn't require JetDrive Toolbox to be running in the background. (Note: Remounting does take a few seconds to complete.)

Simply download the latest version of JetDrive Toolbox, enable Power Save, and quit JetDrive Toolbox.

Voila! Auto-ejecting and Auto-remounting JetDrive Lites that don't affect battery life during sleep.

Thank you,
Transcend

Click to expand...

Thanks...I already have St. Clair's Jettison installed--v 1.4, which seems to do what your are describing pretty seamlessly. Can you tell me if there is any reason to run your toolbox software in addition to this (i.e. does it do anything else?), or if you have tested running it on a computer with Jettison? I notice that your installer wants to install a helper application, and I would like to avoid conflict between two pieces of software that deal with disk mounting.

Oh, and by the way: I'm asking here because your support contact form seems to be broken:

http://www.transcend-info.com/Support/contact_form

TranscendInfo said:

Hello JGowan,
Transcend JetDrive Lite expansion cards have a max read/write speed of 95/60 MB/s. This is dependent on the host device though. The 2010-2012 MacBook Airs have a USB 2.0 card reader so they are limited to approximately 20 MB/s read and write. Hope that answers your question!

Click to expand...

Ouch! Yep... I wouldn't be advertising that either. Thanks for the info!

goy091 said:

Just got this piece of hardware in, and it has much faster read than my Nifty Drive with 64GB SanDisk micro sd card. Was getting about 10MB read and write with the nifty. Initial test with the JetDrive Lite was ~15MB read and ~50MB write.

Also I noticed there were no custom icons for the JetDrive Lite so I used Preview to edit one from a pic I found online (Note: I couldn't get the icon to change until I reformatted from exFat to Mac OS extended). Not too bad if you don't want to stare at the old generic SD card one. Hope it helps someone out.

EDIT

Pulled some more images from Transcend site to make the 130, 330, 350 and 360 icons. Hope someone can use them.

Click to expand...

Just want to say "Thank You!" for this..... I received my JetDrive Lite 330 in the mail today, so was all set to go once I'd popped it into my rMBP 13", reformatted it, and put the photo icon on there -- this looks much nicer on my desktop!

So far I'm pleased with the JetDrive Lite 330 -- immediately put some stuff on it and was able to free up several GB on my SSD, and I like the way the JetDrive fits unobtrusively right into my SD slot on the machine. I also installed the ToolBox and have implemented the Power Save feature. This is a nice way to have extra storage on the computer without external drives hanging out from it!

Hi,

I am very interested in this product. Just have a queston: Will this card work on a windows laptop? For example, if I want to transfer some data from another laptop to my macbook?

Thanks

The various cards are specifically configured to fit the various types of Mac notebook machines, as the SDHC slots are somewhat different in each..... That said, I did notice on Amazon that someone who uses an Asus something-or-other (Windows) laptop comments that one of the JetDrive Lite cards fits his machine perfectly. You might want to take a look at the reviews on Amazon. Also consulting the manufacturer of the JetDrive Lite (Transcend) might provide the info you need.

Apart from the physical fitting into the slot correctly, yes, the JetDrive Lite cards are formatted to ExFat right out of the box, and this will work with both Windows and Macs. That should make transferring information from a Windows machine to a Mac fairly painless. In my case, since this is an all-Mac household, my first act was to immediately reformat the card to work specifically only with my Macs since I don't need the flexibility of working with Windows, too.

TranscendInfo said:

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are actively developing a 128GB version of the JetDrive Lite 330 for 13" Retina MacBook Pros. ETA is within the next two months.

Click to expand...

hi, is there a new ETA date ?!
Looks like it will be delayed....

TranscendInfo said:

Hello Naimfan,
Here's a quick comparison:

Late 2013 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display

Transcend JetDrive Lite 360
Image

Click to expand...

Will this (the 360) work in a Late 2013 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display? I'm ok with the card sticking out a bit, but I desperately need more than 64 GB.

Thanks in advance!

nda

scottrichardson said:

Thats actually pretty neat. Could certainly make use of one of these for my DJ'ing gigs as a backup of all my music. Or transporting large files easily.

Click to expand...

I've ordered one, seems ideal for all my music.

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nicoladagostino said:

Will this (the 360) work in a Late 2013 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display? I'm ok with the card sticking out a bit, but I desperately need more than 64 GB.

Thanks in advance!

nda

Click to expand...

I've ordered the 360, I'll post my results here.

nicoladagostino said:

Will this (the 360) work in a Late 2013 13" MacBook Pro with Retina Display? I'm ok with the card sticking out a bit, but I desperately need more than 64 GB.

Thanks in advance!

nda

Click to expand...

The one for the 13" Air (the 130) works just fine in the 13" Retina.
It does stick out but it does work.

yes, but...

has anyone found a way yet to re-format it? disk utility won't allow me to do it.

solved

I used an external card reader.

Just got my jetDrive today. What a cool product, and soo much more room now on my Mac

I made an icon for the drive you can get it here:



It has all the resolutions for the icons including all for the retina screens.

FYI
Amazon is having a heck of a sale today on Transcend.
The larger SSDs are $100 off.

Gjwilly said:

FYI
Amazon is having a heck of a sale today on Transcend.
The larger SSDs are $100 off.

Click to expand...

Lets hope that transfers over to the UK site too. Thanks for the heads up.

If anyone is interested, I made an application that remounts the card for those who don't want the card mounted while your macbook is open but want the option to remount it without taking the card out.

I have the jetdrive lite 360 for my MBP 15inch and the performance is great. I have my iTunes folder running off it and it's rather snappy. Actually faster than when it was on my usb3.0 external hard drive.

Just to confirm, the JetDrive Lite 360 is compatible with the 15' 2014 Retina MacBook Pro?
I have a similiar product used on my 2012 rMBP and this sticks out much to my dissapointment.

Very nice. Interesting.

Now can anyone design Expansion Card with Thunderbolt? I would buy that in a heartbeat. Something like this but design like JetDrive.

Just double check, mine write at 8mb/s most of time and sometimes write at 58. Is mine spoiled? I'm using MBA 2013.

anthorumor said:

Just to confirm, the JetDrive Lite 360 is compatible with the 15' 2014 Retina MacBook Pro.

Click to expand...

15" yes.