Battery less if I plug in a SD card inside?

[kayleee]

I have 13 inch 2013 model..and plan to sue it for a long time ahead..
But its 256 GB.

Although I dont need much more, I saw today I can buy 128GB SD cards for just $60 or something...

If I plug them in ALL THE TIME..meaning just like default macbook storage, will it affect overall battery life?

I guess yes, and I think it might affect in a big way...whats your take?

 

[Tumbleweed666]

It won't make any difference at all. It's just an inert bit of electronics that requires no power to keep it alive, so it will have zero effect on battery life and most certainly won't make it worse, let alone much worse.

 

[Weaselboy]

If I plug them in ALL THE TIME..meaning just like default macbook storage, will it affect overall battery life?

It won't hurt your battery, but the if you sleep the computer on battery power it will not last as long with the SD card in there. Newer Mac portables like yours have a stand by mode they enter after three hours of sleep... then in that stand by mode they can last up to 30 days in battery power. If you have a SD card plugged in it will prevent the computer from entering standby mode and use more like 1-2% battery life per hour of sleep.

But if you don't plan to sleep on battery for long periods of time, it won't matter.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202124

 

[Tumbleweed666]

Do you know why it won't standby with a card in it Weaselboy? I can think of no technical reason for it to do that, since an SD card doesnt require power to maintain it.

 

[Gav2k]

Do you know why it won't standby with a card in it Weaselboy? I can think of no technical reason for it to do that, since an SD card doesnt require power to maintain it.

Because the sd card would be force ejected which could cause data loss.

 

[Weaselboy]

Do you know why it won't standby with a card in it Weaselboy? I can think of no technical reason for it to do that, since an SD card doesnt require power to maintain it.

I don't really know, but is has been in that support doc for the last couple years since those models came out and just going from user reports here it does seem to effect battery life in sleep.

 

[navaira]

Confirmed. With SD card mounted my Air goes from 100% to 92% overnight. With SD card unmounted from 100% to... 100%.

Somebody here recommended an app called Mountain which I definitely recommend. It unmounts SD card on sleep and re-mounts on wake. All I have to remember is to close iPhoto first (my iPhoto library is on the SD card and if iPhoto is open, card cannot be unmounted).