How many of y'all are using your SD card slot regularly?

[davidg4781]

On the day of Tim's announcement, I got to thinking about all the things Apple innovated with under his direction and how Apple let the market dictate their course of action, forgetting their vision.

One of them was the ports on the AS MBPs. Everyone wanted an SD slot (along with HDMI, USB-A, etc.) so they added one in. I'm just guessing at the Apple Silicon architecture didn't have much room for expandability in the beginning but as they grew, they were able to add multiple displays and more expansion.

So Thunderbolt 5 can do 80 Gbps while SDXC can only transfer at 2.5 Gbps. Are y'all really taking the card out, popping it in the slot, to transfer that much slower? I'm sure it's still limited to that if you plug in your camera or use a card reader. But now we're maybe missing out on Face ID, Touch Bar, or another USB-C port.

 

[Alameda]

My camera uses SD cards and also CFExpress. Most times I shoot with the CF card and I use a Thunderbolt CF reader. But occasionally, if I’m traveling, I copy in-camera to my SD card and use the reader built into the MacBook Pro. So I’m glad it’s there.

 

[TechRunner]

I use mine on the regular. When I take my Nikon Z50II out for a day I find it much quicker to pop out the SD card and put it in the slot of my M4 MBP than any other method of transferring my photos from camera to computer.

 

[JulianL]

I voted "pretty regularly" but that was only because your poll was missing the option I would have selected and that is "constantly".

I am fully aware that SD cards can fail so I include the contents of my SD card in my online backups and I keep a 1.5TB micro SD card permanently plugged into my laptop using a microSD adapter so that it is flush with the chassis. I use it as my Time Machine drive so that if I accidentally save a bad change to a file or just want to look at an old version of something that data is always available to me with the most integrated (with MacOS) user interface even if I'm not connected to the internet and, while my online backup software also supports versioning, even at my desk Time Machine is my first port of call since it is integrated into MacOS. Having an SD slot is actually one of the reasons why I choose a MacBook Pro rather than a MacBook Air.

I'm not a photographer or someone who has any other use for the SD card slot otherwise my use case for the slot would obviously be very disruptive whenever I wanted to use it for anything else. I'm also not a content creator, most of my activity is spreadsheets and scanned PDF documents so I'm not writing a high volume of changes to the SD card.

 

[theluggage]

One of them was the ports on the AS MBPs. Everyone wanted an SD slot (along with HDMI, USB-A, etc.) so they added one in.

The SD slot (along with HDMI, Magsafe and USB-A) was something they took away in 2015 and people had been asking for its return ever since. I think that was part of a wider feeling that the 2015 MBPs had gone too far down the "thin and light" route at the expense of ports, thermals plus the infamous "butterfly keyboard" debacle.

So Thunderbolt 5 can do 80 Gbps while SDXC can only transfer at 2.5 Gbps.

Cameras with Thunderbolt interfaces aren't exactly ubiquitous.
Not everybody uses type III or SD Express cards that can go faster than 2.5Gbps.
Thunderbolt card readers cost non-trivial money (do Thunderbolt-to-SDXD readers even exist?)
The bandwidth of a Thunderbolt cable that you've left back in the hotel room is exactly 0Gbps.
Convenience is sometimes more important than performance.

Not everybody with a Mac is a pro-level photographer. I use the SD slot to write flash drives for Raspberry Pis. It's not really speed critical. There are things like dashcams and drones that use SD cards (often, not the super-fast ones).

But now we're maybe missing out on Face ID, Touch Bar, or another USB-C port.

How is that a result of the SD card slot? AFAIK it's driven from a spare internal PCIe lane provided by the processor. It's not "stealing" a TB controller - I've yet to see an explanation of why the Mx Pro MBPs and M4 Minis only have 3 USB4/TB ports when the SoC seems to have 4 controllers (& the M4 iMac can have 4 plus Ethernet).

Apple could have designed the MBP to have physical space for SD and a 4th USB-C if they'd chosen to.

The Touch Bar was unpopular because it replaced physical function keys & didn't gain much app support.

I suspect that the SD slot is there because it was popular, fitted the height constraints (otherwise USB-A would have been more popular) & dirt cheap to implement.

 

[Performa460]

I was really, really, really surprised to see the SD card slot on my M5 MBP. I was happy, but wow was it strange to suddenly have one after years of not having one on my i9. I use a ton of SD cards, and it's great to not have to worry about dongles anymore.

 

[Fishrrman]

My vote is "sometimes".
I don't use it too much, but more than "rarely".
I'm pleased that it's "there" for when I need it.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I use it occasionally, for microSD cards.

I could certainly get by with USB for it instead, if needed.

 

[OldGuyInTheClub]

I have a memory card in it at all times. I keep some backups on it (I also back up to SSD and remote Hetzner storage) along with a Linux VM I use occasionally. I am very happy to have it.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

I was delighted, thinking I could stick a card in there and have a permanent storage upgrade. Then discovered it protruded and didn't seat flush. I know, that is how they all work.

Nope.

I don't have enough uses of SD cards otherwise to utilize it. Everything else is external enclosures (SSD/HDD) over Tbolt.

 

[Alameda]

I was delighted, thinking I could stick a card in there and have a permanent storage upgrade. Then discovered it protruded and didn't seat flush. I know, that is how they all work.

Nope.

I don't have enough uses of SD cards otherwise to utilize it. Everything else is external enclosures (SSD/HDD) over Tbolt.

There are vendors who make flush-mount SD cards for that purpose.

 

[IvyKing]

I was very happy to have the SD card slot and HDMI port on my M3 Pro MBP, after just having two USB-C ports on my previous MBP. That means two less dongles that I need to carry around.

 

[Non-Euclidean]

There are vendors who make flush-mount SD cards for that purpose.

Yeah, I was looking at those. Then the micro SD holders that are flush. Then saw that one starts separating and gets jammed.

An intersting option, but not if I have to buy the data card at these prices.

 

[Alameda]

Yeah, I was looking at those. Then the micro SD holders that are flush. Then saw that one starts separating and gets jammed.

An intersting option, but not if I have to buy the data card at these prices.

I think you have to accept that SDcards sell in massive volume and a card especially made for Macs will sell in far lower volume, so we will need to pay a little more.

Considering this adapter?

BASEQI microSD Adapter

This is designed for 2021 M1 Macbook Pro 14" and 16" What exactly is a Ninja Stealth Drive? It's an aluminum micro SD card adapter that fits 100% within your Macbook without any awkward protrusions. You can place a micro SD card into this adapter and gain up to 2T(SD Spec.) of extra storage space...

a.co

 

[Abydos]

yes, the only way to download off my game camera (the frequency depends on the season )

 

[OldGuyInTheClub]

Considering this adapter?

BASEQI microSD Adapter

This is designed for 2021 M1 Macbook Pro 14" and 16" What exactly is a Ninja Stealth Drive? It's an aluminum micro SD card adapter that fits 100% within your Macbook without any awkward protrusions. You can place a micro SD card into this adapter and gain up to 2T(SD Spec.) of extra storage space...

a.co

I am now. Didn't know they existed. Do you recommend it? I have a 512GB SanDisk card. Found a YT review where some cards fit and some didn't.

 

[Alameda]

I am now. Didn't know they existed. Do you recommend it? I have a 512GB SanDisk card. Found a YT review where some cards fit and some didn't.

I don't have one but now you have me thinking of getting one, except they don't seem to have one for my 2026 model. :-(

 

[cateye]

Yup. Use the one on my MBP when traveling, and the one on my Studio when at home, to pull photos from my mirrorless (Canon R6mii) for processing in Lightroom. There are SD to USB adapters, of course so it wouldn't be the end of the world if one or both of them didn't have it, but it's a nice convenience to have it built-in since I take a lot of travel photography in particular (hobbyist, not professional). It's a pretty constant need.

 

[raythompsontn]

I use the SDXC card slot on my M4 Pro quite often. I travel for sports pictures and have the high speed SDXC cards. The cards have extra contacts beyond the regular SD cards. My camera does support the high speed cards. The photos load really fast into Lightroom where I can process the pictures from a game on the team bus. I really like not having to cary another dongle.

 

[Churchman]

My camera uses an SD card.

I use that SD card and USB SD adapter to regularly to move files from camera to MBP.

I also use that card to move any other kind of file between phone, pad, MBP and external storage.

So quick, useful and easy. I like.

 

[Black_Mage]

I don't use it very often, but it's very nice to have when I want to use it. It's one of the reasons I wanted a Mac Studio. When I want to save video captured by my dash cam, I copy it from the SD card to my Mac Studio. An SD card reader is not just for photographers.

 

[Nermal]

Not everybody with a Mac is a pro-level photographer. I use the SD slot to write flash drives for Raspberry Pis.

Same here. I don't use it often, but if my Mac didn't have one then I'd need to have an external one floating around.

 

[indefinite]

Sometimes it's dark and I end up sliding my Thunderbolt connector into my SD port, but I occasionally need to use the port to access old archives I've stored on a bunch of SD cards.

 

[marcusthemaven]

I actually use mine all the time. I’ve got a 2TB microSD in one of those flush adapters and just leave it in permanently. I use it as a dedicated media drive for downloaded movies and TV shows from the TV app so I don’t clutter my internal storage.

It’s not the fastest thing for transfers, but for playback it’s perfectly fine. Honestly it kind of turns the SD slot into “bonus built-in storage” which makes it way more useful than I expected.

 

[whitby]

I use mine most days as I take a lot of photographs with my camera. This is one of the main reasons I bought a MBPro and not an Air for my main laptop. Having said that I have a Neo, but that is not used for Photo uploads and editing, so it is not an issue. The Neo is my casual email, web browsing, sometimes doc editing machine.