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New Mac Mini Supports SDXC Specification for Memory Cards Up to 2 TB
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Quote:
Originally Posted by snberk103
I'm just wondering *why* Apple is choosing this time to introduce built in SD card readers.
Was it really that long ago? Time flies, eh? Anyway.... They could have added it to the Mini back then quietly and without redesigning the whole case, similar to the way that the 5th USB port was added, if it was to satisfy photographers.
And they didn't need to immediately go to the top end SDXC.... most consumer cameras aren't using those cards yet. Once the low or middle speed SD card reader was added, it would have been easy to upgrade it to the top end SD card reader in a few years when those cards were more widely used. This would have been more in line of Apple's philosophy of increasing specs and features and keeping prices down. i.e. Today's new Mini has plain SD card reader, and in a year they "add" the faster reader to make a "new" new Mini.
I think there is something more to this... we'll just have to stay tuned, eh?
Originally Posted by snberk103
I'm just wondering *why* Apple is choosing this time to introduce built in SD card readers.
Was it really that long ago? Time flies, eh? Anyway.... They could have added it to the Mini back then quietly and without redesigning the whole case, similar to the way that the 5th USB port was added, if it was to satisfy photographers.
And they didn't need to immediately go to the top end SDXC.... most consumer cameras aren't using those cards yet. Once the low or middle speed SD card reader was added, it would have been easy to upgrade it to the top end SD card reader in a few years when those cards were more widely used. This would have been more in line of Apple's philosophy of increasing specs and features and keeping prices down. i.e. Today's new Mini has plain SD card reader, and in a year they "add" the faster reader to make a "new" new Mini.
I think there is something more to this... we'll just have to stay tuned, eh?
Not sure how Apple is thinking any differently? People give them way too much credit.
I'm assuming Apple is finally yielding to pressure from the professional community as well as hobbyists since most PCs and laptops these days ship with SD ports. Apple realized they finally needed to catch up with the times. Although, they're still not resting on their "no BluRay" laurels in order to "encourage" people to use iTune$ to buy, stream and watch HD content (minus the extras only found on BluRay).
I said this a while back. Apple should buy SanDisk, buy Sony, get rid of Ex-FAT and re-package/re-brand/standardize this media in every product they make and package a flavor of it for ROM as a successor to Blu-Ray.
Small, portable, insane storage capacity and Apple could build the format without the insane licensing fees that have been attached to Blu-Ray. Apple is a global company and they want all of their products to be immensely useful globally, unfortunately broadband and internet mean something completely different to everyone, in terms of connection speed, and that will in all likely hood never change. A small disc, slightly larger than a half a stick of gum, that can hold up to 2TB of data potentially is the perfect bridge for every digital device in virtually any form factor.
Small, portable, insane storage capacity and Apple could build the format without the insane licensing fees that have been attached to Blu-Ray. Apple is a global company and they want all of their products to be immensely useful globally, unfortunately broadband and internet mean something completely different to everyone, in terms of connection speed, and that will in all likely hood never change. A small disc, slightly larger than a half a stick of gum, that can hold up to 2TB of data potentially is the perfect bridge for every digital device in virtually any form factor.
The seldom used optical drive is on the back. All the useful stuff is on the front.
Rocketman
You are totally correct!
Yeah, they scaled just fine when it came to sizes. But instead they are at like the 6:th revision when it comes to speed capabilities.
Look up anything about how both Sony and Apple operate internally and what they do in their respective fields and tell me the facepalm isn't relevant.
The facepalm is massive understatement.
Are you living in 2005 or so? Recent SD cards already max out at 64GB. That is already ~100 CDs worth of data.
So can I put one of these new SDXC cards in the back and use that as my boot drive while maintaining the internal HD for data storage?
Would that be better than an SSD?
Would that be better than an SSD?
As I already posted, I had a brain vapour lock when I wrote..... it happens at my age... though I've noticed that it is not exclusive to any particular age...
No. The maximum interface speed for SD cards that's UHS-I at 104 MB/s is slower than most SSDs. (Well, slower than SSDs you would want to use as a boot drive.)
No it wouldn't be better than an ssd, on the contrary it would worse than an HD, sd cards are not optimized for the many small writes that an os performs, nor do they lend themselves well to ntfs or hfs+, and that's why ssd drives that include flash have such convoluted contollers and cost that much more than sd cards, because of the development that goes into them.
Let's take a closer look at what we have here.
For references we have: http://www.sans.org/reading_room/wh...engineering-microsoft-exfat-file-system_33274 and the blog rshullic.wordpress.com
First, the SDXC card is set to be exclusively exFAT. You may be able to format the card as FAT32, or HFS or NTFS as FAT32 can be formatted to 2TB although you can't use Microsoft utilities to do so. Microsoft will read a 2TB FAT32 file system and write to it, they just won't let you create anything over 32GB. If you want to use the SDXC card exclusively with the Mac, then you could format the card with almost any file system. I have formated a 256MB (yes MB, it is SD Version 1.00) SD card as exFAT. But put that card with exFAT into a camera, like the Panasonic Lumix which has SDXC support, and it says that the card is not formatted properly and won't let you use the card until you reformat it. A SD card is speced for FAT, a SDHC card is speced for FAT32 and a SDXC card is speced for exFAT, and some camera manufacturers enforce the proper file system. So, if you intend to use the sdxc in a camera or a phone or other consumer device, formatting it as anything other than exFAT may not be an option.
And Apple might need to license exFAT just to read it even if not to write. (might need, I don't really know as there are now forensics tols that read exfat but I don't think those guys are licensing it, maybe read only is ok and doesn't violate licensing agreements?)
The SDXC card actually begins at 48GB, which is the equivalent of a dual layer Blu-Ray disc. I have seen 48GB and 64GB so far, and the 64GB (at a low i/o speed) can be gotten at amazon for about $200. But the card are running in the $350-$600 range with speeds claimed to be 30MBs (that is mega-bytes per second) so it will be a while for the prices to come down and the speeds to increase near the SD 3.0 level of 104 MBs, let alone the SD 4.00 spec of 300 MBs.
So, apart from all the discussions about exFAT and all... am I the only one who wish the SD reader was in the front?
They could have made a black plastic strip the same thickness and width as the optical drive, meaning two long black strips in the front of the Mac mini instead of one, and put the reader on the far right of the second strip, just like the infrared receptor is at the right of the CD/DVD slot.
Or even better, design some kind of CD/DVD slot with an SD reader built-in.
I also wish Apple would be able to get the same slot-loading mini-CD/DVD capability as the Nintendo Wii.
They could have made a black plastic strip the same thickness and width as the optical drive, meaning two long black strips in the front of the Mac mini instead of one, and put the reader on the far right of the second strip, just like the infrared receptor is at the right of the CD/DVD slot.
Or even better, design some kind of CD/DVD slot with an SD reader built-in.
I also wish Apple would be able to get the same slot-loading mini-CD/DVD capability as the Nintendo Wii.