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Anyone using an SD Card as a permanent storage increase for their rMBP?

PatriotInvasion

PatriotInvasion

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Jul 18, 2010
1,645
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Boston, MA
So, I have the 128GB 13" rMBP, and space is starting to become a little cramped. I do have an external Thunderbolt Drive to store big stuff, but I don't want to have that thing with me on the couch or wherever.

Has anyone popped a 64 or 128GB SD Card into the slot and left it their as expanded storage? Just wasn't sure if this was common practice or if it is even good for the machine.
 
It's do-able, but SD cards aren't the most reliable things around. You might have some that last years, and others that fail in a few months. I definitely wouldn't leave any critical data on there if it was me.

Look into the NiftyDrive, or something similar that will mount a micro-SD card and be able to sit flush with the rMBP. A standard SD card will stick out, and long term use like that unless you're careful will probably give you issues.
 
Thanks. It looks like the Nifty Drive is no longer available:(

----------

I still have 40GB of space left on the rMBP, and a Time Capsule I can access (slowly) for when I don't have my Thunderbolt Drive with me, but was just curious on other solutions.

I'm sure I can also externally store more things that I rarely use. I'll survive.
 
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fr4c said:
It's do-able, but SD cards aren't the most reliable things around. You might have some that last years, and others that fail in a few months. I definitely wouldn't leave any critical data on there if it was me.

Look into the NiftyDrive, or something similar that will mount a micro-SD card and be able to sit flush with the rMBP. A standard SD card will stick out, and long term use like that unless you're careful will probably give you issues.
Click to expand...

Although I haven't used SD cards routinely on a computer for auxiliary storage, I have beaten the crap out of them with my cameras and found SD and micro SD cards indestructible. They can be lost, however, and can be pricey for large capacity. :) There are several classes of cards, from throw away consumer grade to pro grade.

Critical data, regardless of where being stored, needs to be backed up!!!

I am using a 64GB SanDisk Ultra 64 GB MicroSDXC Class 10 card in my minidrive adapter for temporary storage and down loads. The minidrive addapter must be sanded down to fit in the rMBP slot, but there are other less elegant options discussed here often, including a $2 do it yourself one.

According to Blackmagic, the card provides 10MBps writes and 44MBps reads where the internal SSD supports 440MBps writes and 461MBps reads. To give you a rough idea, an external rotational USB3 drive typically support 80MBps. So the SD card is useful for on board storage, but not something you want high performance for. The rMBP will not deep sleep with the card inserted, but the $2 app Jettison is suppose to fixe that.
 
Last edited:
ColdCase said:
Although I haven't used SD cards routinely on a computer for auxiliary storage, I have beaten the crap out of them with my cameras and found SD and micro SD cards indestructible. They can be lost, however, and can be pricey for large capacity. :) There are several classes of cards, from throw away consumer grade to pro grade.

Critical data, regardless of where being stored, needs to be backed up!!!

I am using a 64GB SanDisk Ultra 64 GB MicroSDXC Class 10 card in my minidrive adapter for temporary storage and down loads. The minidrive addapter must be sanded down to fit in the rMBP slot, but there are other less elegant options discussed here often, including a $2 do it yourself one.

According to Blackmagic, the card provides 10MBps writes and 44MBps reads where the internal SSD supports 440MBps writes and 461MBps reads. To give you a rough idea, an external rotational USB3 drive typically support 80MBps. So the SD card is useful for on board storage, but not something you want high performance for. The rMBP will not deep sleep with the card inserted, but the $2 app Jettison fixes that.
Click to expand...

Good info. Yea, my 1TB Thunderbolt drive gets over 100MB/sec so I'll stick with that.

Also, I believe with Back to my Mac enabled, my Time Capsule can serve as a cloud storage device whether I'm on my home network or not. Between those 2 drives, I should be fine with the 128GB SSD in the rMBP. Was just exploring the idea of the SD Card slot.
 
PatriotInvasion said:
So, I have the 128GB 13" rMBP, and space is starting to become a little cramped. I do have an external Thunderbolt Drive to store big stuff, but I don't want to have that thing with me on the couch or wherever.

Has anyone popped a 64 or 128GB SD Card into the slot and left it their as expanded storage? Just wasn't sure if this was common practice or if it is even good for the machine.
Click to expand...

Just be aware that with an SD card inserted your machine will not enter standby mode, so the battery will run down faster when it is asleep on battery power.
 
Weaselboy said:
Just be aware that with an SD card inserted your machine will not enter standby mode, so the battery will run down faster when it is asleep on battery power.
Click to expand...

ColdCase said:
I hear that the $2 app Jettison fixes that.
Click to expand...

Interesting. Looks like Jettison would eject the card, but the Apple KB says just having one inserted stops standby mode. Have you tried it?
 
Weaselboy said:
Interesting. Looks like Jettison would eject the card, but the Apple KB says just having one inserted stops standby mode. Have you tried it?
Click to expand...

Is there an easy way to determine if deep sleep was activated, besides setting the machine aside for a week unplugged and then looking at the battery level??
 
GGJstudios said:
It appears just until next month. They're just temporarily out of stock. Unless their site is referring to May, 2012.

The Nifty MiniDrive
Click to expand...

They're working on a new version (Mark 3) to fix issues Kickstarters backers are having. It has been pushed back to June though.

niftymk3.png
 
ColdCase said:
Is there an easy way to determine if deep sleep was activated, besides setting the machine aside for a week unplugged and then looking at the battery level??
Click to expand...

You should be able to tell by the wake up behavior. If you close the lid and let it sleep just a minute or two and open the lid, it wakes almost immediately. If you wait an hour and it has entered stand by mode, when you wake there is a delay and when the screen comes on you will notice the password field is non-reposnsive for a couple seconds. This is because what you are seeing for a couple seconds is actually a screenshot of the page and not the login page itself. If you test both it is easy to tell the difference once you have seen it.
 
Weaselboy said:
You should be able to tell by the wake up behavior. If you close the lid and let it sleep just a minute or two and open the lid, it wakes almost immediately. If you wait an hour and it has entered stand by mode, when you wake there is a delay and when the screen comes on you will notice the password field is non-reposnsive for a couple seconds. This is because what you are seeing for a couple seconds is actually a screenshot of the page and not the login page itself. If you test both it is easy to tell the difference once you have seen it.
Click to expand...

There are also console log entries. Looks like about 90 minutes after lid closure with a 60% battery charge.

I confirmed that Jettison's latest development build unmounts the SD on lid closure (2013 rMBP Mountain Lion) and allows hibernation. It currently tries but fails to remount the SD on wakeup.

You can pick and choose which connected drive to not unmount on sleep, so you can set Jettison to ignore the SD card and the card will be there on wake. I think that will prevent hibernation if that's important for you. There are several users that disable hibernation anyway.
 
PatriotInvasion said:
Thanks. It looks like the Nifty Drive is no longer available:(

----------

I still have 40GB of space left on the rMBP, and a Time Capsule I can access (slowly) for when I don't have my Thunderbolt Drive with me, but was just curious on other solutions.

I'm sure I can also externally store more things that I rarely use. I'll survive.
Click to expand...

I bought mine on Ebay 1 week ago, have not received it yet.
 
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