Anyone using a BaseIQ flush SD card adapter on your M1+ MacBook Pro? How's the speed?

[izzy0242mr]

I've been considering getting the BaseIQ sd card adapter (which lets you use a UHS-II microSD card to expand your M1 Pro (or higher) MacBook Pro's storage). I know they're still slow compared to internal drives, but figured if I did, I'd get a UHS-II microSD for best possible speed.

There are $12 64 GB microSD cards at UHS-II speeds, which seems like the best deal out there right now.

Just wondering if anyone has tried this out and if so what the experience has been? Use case would be for just offloading stuff that's less critical (music, small video files, light local docs) so I have more internal room for things like 4K videos, virtual machines, games, and things that use more GPU power.

 

[xraydoc]

I am. I've got one of the flush-mount microSD adapters in my 14" MBP M1P. It works just fine. The speed is dictated by the SD card that you put into it, and not the adapter itself, so the speed all depends on what card you pair it with. But no issues so far.

I've got a 1TB microSD card in it, though I can't actually remember what speed class. I stuck it in the machine when I got it and it hasn't been taken out since. Something decent, though, that I remember. I'm pretty sure it's a SanDisk brand but not sure which model. Disk Utility doesn't give me any good info and I don't want to take it out of the machine.

Edit: also, my data is encrypted. Not sure how that impacts speed (I'm sure a little bit). But for my purposes, the speed is sufficient and it's been running since April of this year without an error.

 

[izzy0242mr]

I am. I've got one of the flush-mount microSD adapters in my 14" MBP M1P. It works just fine. The speed is dictated by the SD card that you put into it, and not the adapter itself, so the speed all depends on what card you pair it with. But no issues so far.

I've got a 1TB microSD card in it, though I can't actually remember what speed class. I stuck it in the machine when I got it and it hasn't been taken out since. Something decent, though, that I remember. I'm pretty sure it's a SanDisk brand but not sure which model. Disk Utility doesn't give me any good info and I don't want to take it out of the machine.

Thanks. I know these machines support UHS-II class, which is the highest, but from what I've seen those max out at like 150 MB/s, so not terribly faster than the 90~ MB/S on UHS-I.

What sort of things do you use the microSD card for? Just trying to get a sense of what else does and doesn't work.

 

[xraydoc]

What sort of things do you use the microSD card for? Just trying to get a sense of what else does and doesn't work.

So what I use it for, I do not recommend people actually do. I'm using it as a TimeMachine backup target. Now, when my laptop is docked at my desk, backups go to a Samsung T7 Shield SSD. I also have backups going to an old Apple Time Capsule (being used solely as an ethernet NAS; its wifi router functions are turned off).

- So when I'm at my desk, three hourly TM machine backups occur - the wired SSD, the Time Capsule, and the internal SD card.
- When I'm using my laptop at home but not docked, hourly backups go to the Time Capsule (over wifi) and the internal SD card.
- When I'm out and about with my laptop, hourly backups go to the internal SD card (plus documents get stored on iCloud presuming I have wifi access or I'm cellular tethered to my iPhone), and of course everything will be backed up to more reliable media once I'm home. But the SD card gives me a little bit of comfort knowing that if I drop and destroy my laptop, I've still got a snapshot of all the data... I can pull the SD card out of the carcass of my laptop if need be.

But of course, SD cards are not to be considered highly reliable storage media, so it's definitely not my primary, or even secondary, form of backup. It's really my tertiary/quaternary form of backup (since most of my documents are also stored on iCloud).

 

[AirpodsNow]

So what I use it for, I do not recommend people actually do. I'm using it as a TimeMachine backup target. Now, when my laptop is docked at my desk, backups go to a Samsung T7 Shield SSD. I also have backups going to an old Apple Time Capsule (being used solely as an ethernet NAS; its wifi router functions are turned off).

- So when I'm at my desk, three hourly TM machine backups occur - the wired SSD, the Time Capsule, and the internal SD card.
- When I'm using my laptop at home but not docked, hourly backups go to the Time Capsule (over wifi) and the internal SD card.
- When I'm out and about with my laptop, hourly backups go to the internal SD card (plus documents get stored on iCloud presuming I have wifi access or I'm cellular tethered to my iPhone), and of course everything will be backed up to more reliable media once I'm home. But the SD card gives me a little bit of comfort knowing that if I drop and destroy my laptop, I've still got a snapshot of all the data... I can pull the SD card out of the carcass of my laptop if need be.

But of course, SD cards are not to be considered highly reliable storage media, so it's definitely not my primary, or even secondary, form of backup. It's really my tertiary/quaternary form of backup (since most of my documents are also stored on iCloud).

Hi there, I just found out about these flush sd card options. I also consider using an SD card. Now I am ’shopping’ for one, and notice the UHS II are quite expensive, but I would assume Time Machine isn’t that quick anyways. It’s great to have a back up when using the device, I am often not connecting my extenral drive enough to have a reliable backup. Did you choose a particular SD card or just ‘anything’? I wonder there are sd cards that can sustain lots of writes, which I wonder if the Time Machine is something that requires this.

 

[izzy0242mr]

Hi there, I just found out about these flush sd card options. I also consider using an SD card. Now I am ’shopping’ for one, and notice the UHS II are quite expensive, but I would assume Time Machine isn’t that quick anyways. It’s great to have a back up when using the device, I am often not connecting my extenral drive enough to have a reliable backup. Did you choose a particular SD card or just ‘anything’? I wonder there are sd cards that can sustain lots of writes, which I wonder if the Time Machine is something that requires this.

I believe cards designed for high res photos might be good for lots of writes? I think I got an equivalent to a UHS I because the speed boost didn't seem that huge for II.

Pretty sure this is the one I got: Lexar PLAY 128GB microSDXC UHS-I... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08T8KD1BQ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Write speeds are definitely slow though. I use mine for media storage - not writing to it often and read times are fast enough that music and video files play just fine. I'm not sure Time Machine would be the best use case, at least in my opinion.

 

[AirpodsNow]

I believe cards designed for high res photos might be good for lots of writes? I think I got an equivalent to a UHS I because the speed boost didn't seem that huge for II.

Pretty sure this is the one I got: Lexar PLAY 128GB microSDXC UHS-I... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08T8KD1BQ?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Write speeds are definitely slow though. I use mine for media storage - not writing to it often and read times are fast enough that music and video files play just fine. I'm not sure Time Machine would be the best use case, at least in my opinion.

Thanks. So far have it been okay using this type of storage? It’s just that using it as a time machine give me a bit of peace of mind if the drive does decide to die or when my I accidentally overwrite some files.

 

[izzy0242mr]

Thanks. So far have it been okay using this type of storage? It’s just that using it as a time machine give me a bit of peace of mind if the drive does decide to die or when my I accidentally overwrite some files.

If you're keeping your laptop open/awake all the time, it'll probably be fine. My point was that because write speeds are so slow, backing up your entire system is probably going to take a long time.

I haven't had it very long (under a year) but it's been fine so far. No issues. I get cheap additional storage and can "offload" things without having to keep track of and connect a separate bulkier drive (which I do have and use for Time Machine backups).