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New Mac Mini Supports SDXC Specification for Memory Cards Up to 2 TB

wizard said:
That is hiding specs from people that would really like to know. That is the people who read the spec sheets and have good reason to do so. Little things add up be it the RAM in an iPhone/iPad, what the SD slot is capable of or any of a number of other devices that are poorly speced on the machine. Is it that difficult to just be honest with your users? Further where is the advantage of not coming clean?
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And you managed to spin something positive into a negative... bravo!

By the way -- this wasn't too hidden. On page 28 of the user guide:
Using SD Cards
The SD card slot on the back of your Mac mini accepts most standard SD (Secure Digital), SDHC (SD High-Capacity), and SDXC (SD Extended Capacity) cards from digital cameras and other devices. You can also use MiniSD, MicroSD, and other smaller cards in a passive adapter. For more information about card sizes, speeds, and capacities, search for “SD” on the Apple Support website at www.apple.com/support.
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iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone!

Ok. up to 2TB, currently 64GB... we need this option in all of apple's portable devices!!!!!

How about an iPhone case that can fit 10- 64GB cards in it. Talk about expansion. Add to that a mini HDMI port.

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D:D
 
snberk103 said:
Imagine if people started exchanging SD cards. Initially lower capacities only will be available, but soon CD equivalent SD cards will be available, and soon after that the 1 and 2 TB cards.
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Actually, cards larger than both CDs and DVDs are already available. Average CD is 700 MB, DVD is 4.7 GB (8.5 GB for double-layer), Blu-Ray at 25 and 50 GB. Max capacity now is 64GB as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. The electronics and office supply stores routinely advertise 8GB cards for $20...
 
snberk103 said:
Is Apple thinking that SD cards are going to become the new "floppies"?

...
Plus while rewriteable CDs exist, they are pricey and most people don't use them.
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Re-writable optical media was only useful when the price of non-rewritable media was still non-trivial. When the cost of an optical disc is $0.10 in bulk at retail, people stopped caring considering how long it took to "erase" the disc for re-use.

I'd say around 2003 or 2004 is when I had long stopped caring about re-writable optical media. Especially considering that photo-reactive dye was prone to degrading over time, rendering the data unreadable.

The main issue with SD and most removable media is still transfer rate and access time. Although you *can* boot off of it, most mobile hard disks still handily trounce SD media. Granted, I'd expect SD and other removable flash memory to pass all spinning rust in due time.
 
CWallace said:
(And yes, I am sure such a 2TB card, if and when it ships, would be significantly expensive).
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Ironically, when technology is advanced enough to fit 2 TB on a little SDXC card, there will be a new specification in wide use instead. :) :)
 
joker2 said:
Actually, cards larger than both CDs and DVDs are already available. Average CD is 700 MB, DVD is 4.7 GB (8.5 GB for double-layer), Blu-Ray at 25 and 50 GB. Max capacity now is 64GB as mentioned elsewhere in this thread. The electronics and office supply stores routinely advertise 8GB cards for $20...
Click to expand...

Ooops, that was a silly mistake. Of course you're right, I mixed my Gs and Ms up in mind when comparing CDs to the 64Gb card. My Bad. :)
 
Does nobody realise that you have to support the exFAT format (from Microsoft, currently NOT supported on OS X, and has to be licensed by Microsoft) to be able to use more than 32 GB? (or the up to 2 TB). Otherwise if you format it with the old formats you are stuck on the same limits as you would with ad SDHC card.

The way I see it, it's just the controller which supports SDXC, but the OS doesn't as of now. So nothing to really be happy about for the moment except that you have technology on board you can't take advantage on.
 
Typical.

Pour all their R&D into technologies that don't even exist yet, while continuing to throw up excuses for why they can't include technologies that do. Like Blu-Ray.
 
BrettJDeriso said:
Pour all their R&D into technologies that don't even exist yet, while continuing to throw up excuses for why they can't include technologies that do. Like Blu-Ray.
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I recommend you listen to this interview.

While this quote doesn't specifically mention bluray, it seems like Apple is choosing not to "ride" Bluray into the future:

Apple has a history of doing that, Jobs says, noting that Apple was the first company to dump the floppy and later, to adopt USB. “Sometimes when we get rid of things, people call us crazy….But sometimes you just have to pick the things that are going to be the right horse to ride forward….And Flash has had it’s day…but HTML5 is starting emerge….The video looks better and it works better and you don’t need a plug-in to run it. And while 75 percent of the video on the Web may be available in Flash, a lot of it is available in HTML5 as well.”
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SDXC and limitations...

H$R said:
Does nobody realise that you have to support the exFAT format (from Microsoft, currently NOT supported on OS X, and has to be licensed by Microsoft) to be able to use more than 32 GB? (or the up to 2 TB). Otherwise if you format it with the old formats you are stuck on the same limits as you would with ad SDHC card..
Click to expand...

Sort of.

Lets separate reading and writing exFAT. If I can read it, I can pull stuff off of it. So OS X will require the ability to read exFAT in order to make it compatible with non apple devices that will be using this format. HOWEVER, it is not required that Apple choose to read exFAT. You could format with HFS+. Then any device that can read HFS+ could read and write to it.

If I can write to exFAT, then I can place data (even 4GB+ media files) on the card. Apple may create a driver that allows you to read exFAT but not write to it.

This matters if you are going to use the card to store media files (4 GB+), or are planning on using the card with non Apple devices. I could get a 128 GB SDXC card, format 100 GB in FAT32 for a user directory, and format 3 8GB swap spaces (one for OS X, one for Windows, and one for Unix). Then I'd have my user files and swap space with me wherever I go, and it would be cross platform compatible (everyone reads and writes FAT32). Yes, FAT32 does have a maximum partition size, this is why I used a 128 GB SDXC card as the example. And yes, I wouldn't have my media files (movies) on the card (I'd need one of the 2 TB cards to do this).

Since Pretec is selling an ExpressCard SDXC reader, this is what I plan to do with my triple boot MBP (see sig). I'll point my OS X user directory to the directory that will be on this card, I'll do the same for Win7, and BackTrack. Each OS will also have swap space on the card. This increases security too. If I have my SDXC card with me, someone using the laptop can't see my files at all. It also increases speed (maybe and a little) because I'm using a different storage device and bus to put my user files/swap space on.
 
H$R said:
Does nobody realise that you have to support the exFAT format (from Microsoft, currently NOT supported on OS X, and has to be licensed by Microsoft) to be able to use more than 32 GB?
Click to expand...

huh?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS_Plus
8 Exbibytes (2^60)

anyway, Kryder's Law applied to storage for the rest of the thread:

64GB June 2010
128GB June 2011
256 GB June 2012
512GB June 2013
1TB June 2014
2TB June 2015

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Kryder

but given the growth surrounding this technology I'm expecting closer to mid-2013 until we see 2TB SDXC.
 
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