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Ways to expand our MBAs storage (You're welcome to be creative)

G

gihad

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 13, 2011
22
0
I am here thinking of ways to expand the internal storage memory of my MBA, I could only get the 128GB SSD and that's not enough! I'm sure many of you are in the same situation.

One idea that I had would be getting a huge and fast SD card an leaving it in the MBA port permanently for movies, music, shows and etc. The problem with this idea is that the SD card would stick out. Would we be able to get or mod an SD card so that it it's shorter and would be completely contained inside the MBA port ?

Perhaps what would work would be getting an SD Micro SD adaptor and modding that, than buying a Micro SD card to go inside, something like this: http://images.tradekool.com/80898800/Micro-Sd-Trio-3-In-1-Adaptor.jpg

Is this even worth it or are SD cards just too slow ? Any other ideas ?

PS: Please don't tell me to buy the third party SSD that costs as much as the MBA.
 
There are several (at least 3) other threads that talk about this...I know at least 2 of those threads discuss an adapter like you posted and even talk about modding them.

Short answer: yes it works, but it's slow. You can also do a USB adapter that holds a MicroSD card inside the connector, but again brutally slow. If speed doesn't matter this stuff works fine, otherwise you're better off with an external hard drive or trying to buy the larger SSD model.
 
I read the 2 first pages and haven't found any other threads about this, but I didn't use the search function. There is one more thread about this now.

The USB solution sticks out and the external drive works but only if nothing else can be done.

There are some SD cards that transfer at 60 MB/s, but they are very expensive for now.
 
gihad said:
I read the 2 first pages and haven't found any other threads about this, but I didn't use the search function. There is one more thread about this now.
Click to expand...

That line right there is a keeper if there ever was one. Good luck.
 
gihad said:
One idea that I had would be getting a huge and fast SD card an leaving it in the MBA port permanently for movies, music, shows and etc. The problem with this idea is that the SD card would stick out. Would we be able to get or mod an SD card so that it it's shorter and would be completely contained inside the MBA port ?
Click to expand...

This could work, music and videos typically have relatively low bitrates, the largest movie I have is like 10 Mbps ( that's just over 1 MBps). As for making it flush with the air's chassis, how would you get it out?

Do you need these files on the go? I switched to ssds a few years ago and having my videos on a NAS has worked great for me. Then when I know I will be taking a flight I load a selection from there onto the air.
 
I've read on another post members were using the Delkin SD cards. Supposed to be pretty fast. From an Amazon seller > The Delkin Elite 633 SDHC memory card boasts an incredible 80MBps write speed and 95MBps read speed, making it the fastest SDHC card on the market*.

http://www.amazon.com/Delkin-Elite-...HEME/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1312664112&sr=8-7

Only problem is that its quite expensive. I'd do it just for the novelty of having removable storage maybe a year from now when prices come down a bit. Otherwise I'd just wait for SSD upgrades to come down in price. If you really needed the storage maybe you should have waited a bit and saved up for the 256 drive.
 
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As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Does leaving an SD card in all the time reduce battery life?
I'm considering leaving a 32gb SD card in with my iTunes library on it but am worried about its effect on battery life.
 
I would think that it doesn't affect battery life, if it does it would probably be minimum. Not 100% sure tho.

That 64GB card for $400+ is very fast but too expensive. For $300 you can upgrade to the 256GB drive (from apple), so $300 for 128GB. I Guess it's either that or we have to settle for cheaper SD cards or wait for the good ones to come down in price.
 
Do you travel with your MBA? Because if you dont and have another pc/mac available at home you could use it as a basic file server? Its actually quite simple to setup.
 
I just use a 500GB external USB hard drive. It fits in my bag when I am going out somewhere, but if I don't need the files on there I can just leave it at home.
 
Isn't USB used to communicate with the SD card reader? or has that changed with the SDXC card readers?? Because if it is USB then those 90mb/s cards will never actually work at 90mb/s but more like 35-40mb/s.

How about these USB sticks: http://www.amazon.com/LaCie-MosKeyt...0O/ref=sr_1_36?ie=UTF8&qid=1313423405&sr=8-36
you get from lots of brands, up to 32 GB I've seen. They hardly stick out, thats what I would do :)
 
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My pic~ with a 32GB MicroSD class 10.

51oqxE8SSKL.jpg


roccobladr said:
http://www.amazon.com/elago-Mobile-...UTF8&coliid=I3J7TBJ60SDEJR&colid=2ZYDVVGT845G

Thats probably the route I would go. It doesnt seem like it would stick out much further than the magsafe adapter already does.
Click to expand...
 
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zzz99 said:
My pic~ with a 32GB MicroSD class 10.

Image
Click to expand...

NICE!

You are the perfect person to ask, does the USB adapter cap the speed of the Micro SD card ? Did you do any sort of benchmark and can tell how fast your setup is in numbers ?

Also, that's pretty good but it still sticks out a little.
 
It is just a little stick out, which is totally fine.

Here is the benchmark of it, but the actually performance is slower than this.

MicroSD32GB.png




gihad said:
NICE!

You are the perfect person to ask, does the USB adapter cap the speed of the Micro SD card ? Did you do any sort of benchmark and can tell how fast your setup is in numbers ?

Also, that's pretty good but it still sticks out a little.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks a lot for the screenshot.

Just for comparison, attached is the result of this test on the samsung 128GB SSD.

I thought that a class 10 SD would be much faster, maybe the USB adapter is limiting the speed.
 

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hmm, most of the usb flash drive is around this speed, so I don't complain for this. aData 32GB class 10 for $60, and $10 for the elago nano usb.

I have my dropbox folder on this currently, going to move the iTunes library(music files @ nas), and iPhoto library on it.

gihad said:
Thanks a lot for the screenshot.

Just for comparison, attached is the result of this test on the samsung 128GB SSD.

I thought that a class 10 SD would be much faster, maybe the USB adapter is limiting the speed.
Click to expand...
 
use the micro sd card, and a usb/sd adapter then cut off the usb part and it will be flush, but you can only get 32gigs, another person posted their results along with pictures in another thread

This Thread

Its probably the best option if you want it to be flush
 
Duke15 said:
Its probably the best option if you want it to be flush
Click to expand...

Thanks for the link. I've asked the creator of that thread to post a benchmark, that would indeed be the best solution so far.
 
gihad said:
Thanks a lot for the screenshot.

Just for comparison, attached is the result of this test on the samsung 128GB SSD.

I thought that a class 10 SD would be much faster, maybe the USB adapter is limiting the speed.
Click to expand...

not all flash memory is created equal. Some is faster than others. Class 10 just means that it is guaranteed to read/write >= 10 mb/s.
 
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