SD Card Slot in New MacBook Pros Supports UHS-II With Speeds Up to 250 MB/s [Updated]

[Fomalhaut]

Sony SDXC Tough Series 128GB 300mb/s | Park Cameras

The Sony 128GB SF-G Tough Series UHS-II SDXC Memory Card can read and write up to 300MB/s making it ideal for the most demanding applications. Order now

www.parkcameras.com

Sony 128GB CFexpress Tough Series Type B | Park Cameras

Sony CFexpress Tough Series 128GB 1700mb/s Read Speed 1480mb/s Write Speed Type B memory card for demanding video and high speed shooting. Buy today

www.parkcameras.com

£214.00 vs £259.00

So on this particular week you are paying £45 more for a more reliable and 5x faster card. Hardly 3x the price.

Or from Amazon

Sony 128GB SF-G series TOUGH specification UHS-II U3 V90 SDHC Digital Memory Card Card - Read 300MB/s Write 299MB/s SF-G128T

Sony 128GB SF-G series TOUGH specification UHS-II U3 V90 SDHC Digital Memory Card Card - Read 300MB/s Write 299MB/s SF-G128T

www.amazon.co.uk

SonyMemory 128GB Tough CFexpress Card Type B Ultra Speed Memory Card (Read, 1700MB/s Write, 1480MB/s) - CEB-G128/J, CEB-G128/J SYM

Cfexpress Type B 128Gb R1700/W1480.

www.amazon.co.uk

Today it is £219.95 vs £245.29 for a grand total of £25 and some change you get the much faster and more reliable card.

I knew would answer with this; I should have added a caveat of “excluding the super high speed UHS-II SD cards“.

I bought such cards for my GH5 and Black Magic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. Guess what? They proved to be unnecessary for 4K 10-bit 4:2:2, or even RAW video, even though it cost 3-4x the equivalent 150MB/s SDXC card at the time.

Sure, if your codec requires very high data rates (or you absolutely need maixum buffer size for RAW stills), you buy what you actually need. If not, it makes no economic sense to buy something greatly in excess of this.

If you are a professional, i.e you make money from from your activity, then you reduce costs and maximize profit. Overspending just means you earn less money. The same applies to any professional endeavour -> minimize expenses, maximize income. Customers won’t know the difference if you‘ve overspent.

 

[ruka.snow]

I knew would answer with this; I should have added a caveat of “excluding the super high speed UHS-II SD cards“.

So you don't want a like for like comparison?

 

[Fomalhaut]

So you don't want a like for like comparison?

it’s true that *some* CFExpress cards are close in price to the top tier UHS-II cards, but not all. As I said, most people don’t actually need these, I’m pretty sure that all V30 (and probably V60) cards cost substantially less than the cheapest CFExpress card.

You are comparing the extremes of pricing to suit your argument. I’m taking an average.

Taking 128MB cards from Sony and Sandisk as an example from B&H: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/products/ci/1097/N/4093113320?sort=PRICE_HIGH_TO_LOW&filters=fct_brand_name:samsung|sandisk|sony,fct_capacity_568:128gb,fct_card-type_158:cfexpress|cfexpress-type-a|sdxc-64-512gb

Prices for SD cards range from $14-210. CFExpress go from $190-$210.

For 256GB cards it’s $25-380 for SDXC vs $330-390 for CFExpress.

You can get an SD card for less than a tenth of the price. Now, you may not want the bottom spec ( still perfectly fine for still photos ), but most applications don’t require the bandwidth and expense of CFExpress.

It’s like computer memory - if you know you need it, then you do. If you’re not sure, then you probably don’t.

If you spend $330 on a card for bragging rights, when you only needed a $25 one, then you lack financial judgement and good business sense.


[Update: I will add that at least doing this research brought me up to date with current prices, and they *do* seem to be coming down.

You can get a 64GB CFExpress (mostly type B) from about $99 now with very fast write speeds (>700MB/s). The top speed UHS-II SDXCs are sometimes a little cheaper ($80-90$), but often considerably more expensive.

If you needed to get close to 300MB/s write speeds, you may be better off going for CFExpress, if you have a camera that supports it, like the recent Sonys.

So, yes, there is definitely a tipping point where CFExpress makes more sense.

In any case, the point of this thread was to refute that "professionals" had moved away from SD "a long time ago", and I still think that is a premature observation. I don't doubt that many professionals and pro-sumers *will* move from SD in the future, just that I really don't think they have yet.

If there are any pro-photogs on the forum, I would love to hear your input on this!

Just to throw something new in the mix - for video on my Black Magic camera I use a Samsung T5 SSD attached to the camera cage....way better than SD or the in-builit CFast 2.0 reader for $/GB and performance. The cheapest 1TB CFast 2.0 is about $700, vs $120 for the Samsung T5 ]

 

[CarlJ]

Why no standard USB ports?

There are 3 standard USB ports. USB-C is a standard. Do you mean USB-A ports? If so, the answer is because you can use an adapter to turn a USB-C port into USB-A, but you can't do the opposite. USB-C is a superset of the capabilities of USB-A. I'm not a huge fan of USB-C, but it's pretty obvious why they did this. The connectors are also smaller, and reversible.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Because SD Express needs a whole PCIe lane's worth of bandwidth to satisfy a handful of users with the fastest cards (who haven't gone to CF instead), whereas UHS-II can share a spare USB 3.0 lane (or equivalent) with other internal peripherals still satisfy the majority of users (which, as people keep pointing out, includes users of drones, dashcams, synthesisers, Raspberry PIs etc. and not just those with high-end digital cameras).

Likewise with the HDMI: there's only so many pixels that the GPU can drive, and no point having HDMI 2.1 without the horsepower to actually use the >4k, >60Hz, HDR displays it supports. The M1 Pro is still relatively limited (c.f. desktop GPUs) in its external display support - Apple have chosen a sensible compromise so that a M1 Pro lets a video creator use the internal display + a 6K XDR display for editing and a regular 4K@60HZ for full-screen preview of what the vast majority of their viewers will see, while still leaving them with the choice of 2 6k displays via Thunderbolt if they have deep pockets. Plus the whole advantage of connecting to data projectors, domestic TVs etc "on the road" - which rarely even needs HDMI 2.0.

Fair enough. Good answer, thanks for that.

 

[Thebrochure]

It has 3 of them

I meant USB-A

 

[Thebrochure]

There are 3 standard USB ports. USB-C is a standard. Do you mean USB-A ports? If so, the answer is because you can use an adapter to turn a USB-C port into USB-A, but you can't do the opposite. USB-C is a superset of the capabilities of USB-A. I'm not a huge fan of USB-C, but it's pretty obvious why they did this. The connectors are also smaller, and reversible.

Yes, I mean't USB-A. Why not put have at least one of the three be USB-A? I doesn't make any sense to me.

 

[Fomalhaut]

Yes, I mean't USB-A. Why not put have at least one of the three be USB-A? I doesn't make any sense to me.

Because USB-C is the new standard and is superior in every way to USB-A, with the obvious caveat that it requires adapters for existing USB-A devices and cables.

USB-A is most definitely now an “older technology” that is being replaced by something better, so Apple is just moving with the times. You could argue that this was a step too far in 2016 when they went all-in on USB-C, but 5 years later it makes sense.

Nearly all disk drives, and many USB memory come are now USB-C, and I haven’t bought a USB-A device for 3-4 years. I still have a ton if USB-A cables and memory sticks, but I just use hubs and adapters, and eventually these devices will be replaced.

 

[Thebrochure]

Because USB-C is the new standard and is superior in every way to USB-A, with the obvious caveat that it requires adapters for existing USB-A devices and cables.

USB-A is most definitely now an “older technology” that is being replaced by something better, so Apple is just moving with the times. You could argue that this was a step too far in 2016 when they went all-in on USB-C, but 5 years later it makes sense.

Nearly all disk drives, and many USB memory come are now USB-C, and I haven’t bought a USB-A device for 3-4 years. I still have a ton if USB-A cables and memory sticks, but I just use hubs and adapters, and eventually these devices will be replaced.

I see. Admittedly, I don't really keep up with tech (kinda hilarious considering the site I'm on) all that much outside of Apple. Guess I'm just horribly out of date lol.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Unless you use to connect to your monitor via HDMI and regularly transfer photos &videos to your computer, which many people do…in which case these are extremely welcome!

If you're connecting to a monitor via HDMI then it's not a monitor designed for anything more than HDMI 2.0, so no loss there.

 

[transpo1]

Yes, so put the SD slot on the consumer machines like the iMac and Macbook Air. The pro machines should have pro ports.

Yeah, and then a whole 1.5% of Apple MacBook Pro customers will be happy they have a CFExpress card slot. ??

 

[MacBH928]

SD Card is outdated or the read speed of this new slot is outdated? Again, single use ports are a waste of time, but people cried and whined and stomped their feet to get these ports back, and Apple caved, so basically I don’t want to hear anyone complaining anymore. They wanted them they got them, suck it up buttercups.

Please tell me which single HDMI port on what device allows both In and Out? I’ve never seen that before on any device that I own. I have several monitors with HDMI In/HDMI Out as separate ports. You’re basically asking for Apple to make an Atomos Ninja and give it away for free to customers, which isn’t going to happen.

single use ports are great. Pop in SD card, no dongles. Go to work, insert HDMI cable , no dongles. insert AUX in headphone jack, no dongles.

Unless everything else uses usbC : sd cards, ethernet, monitors, hdmi cables, etc etc single use ports save money and carrying+losing dongles

 

[ruka.snow]

Unless everything else uses usbC : sd cards, ethernet, monitors, hdmi cables, etc etc single use ports save money and carrying+losing dongles

When I use a HDMI monitor, projector, or TV I just plug in a HDMI to USB-C cable. No dongle required. Ethernet would have been nice, especially if they could get 10 Gb ethernet in the machine.

 

[MBAir2010]

Good decision to go full size SD and not micro.

I agree, while the micro slot works very good on the Dell XSP, the full size one was a better option on the new MacBook.

 

[theluggage]

Because USB-C is the new standard and is superior in every way to USB-A

Except it isn’t - in the majority of use cases it is still only being used for either plain old USB 3.1 or DisplayPort 1.2, which work perfectly well over USB-A or (Mini)DisplayPort connectors. Many USB-C host ports only support USB 3.1 gen 1. Many of those “USB-C” peripherals have just replaced the old Mini/micro USB sockets with USB-C but are otherwise the same old USB 3 peripherals... with reason, because USB 3 speeds are still more than good enough for most applications, including all but the highest end single SSD drives. In those cases there is no technical payoff for getting USB-C adapters and more complex, more-to-go-wrong video cables.

The problem is not Thunderbolt or the new USB 4 modes - you do need a super high-speed port for connecting those specialist peripherals, but Apple’s 2016 decision to go all thunderbolt 3. That ran in to the most serious flaw in the whole TB3/USB-C scheme: the ports are so much more expensive to implement - both in actual cost and the amount of PCIe and eDP bandwidth needed per-port - that we end up with a frugal 2 or 4 ports. Otherwise independent resources like display, low-speed USB, PCIe-speed IO and charging suddenly have to compete for the same, limited number of ports... or people have to carry around extra ”docks”.

Another USB-C failure is the lack, until recently, of any one-to-many USB-C to USB-C hubs. We do now have USB4 hubs which should be great if you want to connect several high-speed USB4/TB devices to the same port - esp. now every Mac host port has a dedicated controller - but aren’t yet an economical replacement for the good old 8-port USB-A hub. In my case I have a shedload of USB devices - some of which barely need USB 2 let alone TB - connected via a $30 USB-A hub. One side effect of that is to keep me dependent on USB-A cables and mean that - if I got a USB-C only laptop - I’d need two sets of cables (or a load of adapters) for anything I wanted to use on-the-road as well as on the desk.

However - reality check - the new MBP represents a massive U turn by Apple, but they have stopped short of USB-A so it is gone, folks. Meanwhile what was a stupid situation in 2016 has improved, with more things now available in USB-C form and various improvements in TB/USB4 (like DP 1.4 support and the possibility of multiple TB port hubs)... so USB-C is starting to become more credible just as all those 2016 MacBooks pass into obsolescence for other reasons... (Hmm... didn’t we have a conversation about “future proofing” vs “present proofing” elsewhere....?)

 

[Fomalhaut]

Except it isn’t - in the majority of use cases it is still only being used for either plain old USB 3.1 or DisplayPort 1.2, which work perfectly well over USB-A or (Mini)DisplayPort connectors. Many USB-C host ports only support USB 3.1 gen 1. Many of those “USB-C” peripherals have just replaced the old Mini/micro USB sockets with USB-C but are otherwise the same old USB 3 peripherals... with reason, because USB 3 speeds are still more than good enough for most applications, including all but the highest end single SSD drives. In those cases there is no technical payoff for getting USB-C adapters and more complex, more-to-go-wrong video cables.

The problem is not Thunderbolt or the new USB 4 modes - you do need a super high-speed port for connecting those specialist peripherals, but Apple’s 2016 decision to go all thunderbolt 3. That ran in to the most serious flaw in the whole TB3/USB-C scheme: the ports are so much more expensive to implement - both in actual cost and the amount of PCIe and eDP bandwidth needed per-port - that we end up with a frugal 2 or 4 ports. Otherwise independent resources like display, low-speed USB, PCIe-speed IO and charging suddenly have to compete for the same, limited number of ports... or people have to carry around extra ”docks”.

Another USB-C failure is the lack, until recently, of any one-to-many USB-C to USB-C hubs. We do now have USB4 hubs which should be great if you want to connect several high-speed USB4/TB devices to the same port - esp. now every Mac host port has a dedicated controller - but aren’t yet an economical replacement for the good old 8-port USB-A hub. In my case I have a shedload of USB devices - some of which barely need USB 2 let alone TB - connected via a $30 USB-A hub. One side effect of that is to keep me dependent on USB-A cables and mean that - if I got a USB-C only laptop - I’d need two sets of cables (or a load of adapters) for anything I wanted to use on-the-road as well as on the desk.

However - reality check - the new MBP represents a massive U turn by Apple, but they have stopped short of USB-A so it is gone, folks. Meanwhile what was a stupid situation in 2016 has improved, with more things now available in USB-C form and various improvements in TB/USB4 (like DP 1.4 support and the possibility of multiple TB port hubs)... so USB-C is starting to become more credible just as all those 2016 MacBooks pass into obsolescence for other reasons... (Hmm... didn’t we have a conversation about “future proofing” vs “present proofing” elsewhere....?)

You make some good points, but are also mixing in several ideas unrelated to my answer. I wasn't talking solely about TB3/USB4 sockets as implemented by Apple, but USB-C in general.

As you know USB-C is just the connector, not the USB standard, and can be implemented to support USB2,3 or 4 protocols, so it doesn't necessarily follow that it is more expensive or overkill for simple devices.

I agree that there is a shortage of hubs, and clearly we are still in a transition phase where people need to connect USB-A devices - and probably will for many years - I wouldn't be surprised to see USB-A devices used for the next 10-15 years.

 

[theluggage]

As you know USB-C is just the connector,

Well, that's not exactly true - at least not in the way that (say) a D-connector, RJ-45 connector or DIN connector is "just a connector". For starters, last I looked, a USB-C branded device has to support at least USB 2.0 over the specified pins, has to be reversible etc. and had to support enough of the USB protocol stack to ensure other USB-C devices could identify it's capabilities. You can't really separate it from the USB software/signalling standards, and I suspect that even a 3.0-only host port is still more complex and expensive to implement than a type A or B.

But, yes, it can "just" be a USB 2 or 3 connector - and maybe, arguably, it is a slightly better mechanical solution than USB-A, but then, frankly, nobody is asking for USB-A because they liked having to turn the connector over 3 times before it would plug in, or thought that the USB 3 versions of the "B" connectors were a thing of elegant beauty... If you cross "lets me plug in what I already have without adapters" off the list of requirements and just want a better plug, give me Lightning any time.

With USB-C you lose backwards compatibility without an adapter, yet without adding USB4, TB, DisplayPort or the higher Power Delivery modes you don't gain any functionality in return. (I'm counting the USB 3.2 x2 modes as a "no show" - never heard of anything using them and they're pretty much obsoleted by 40Gbps USB4)... and if you put a mixture of USB 3 and USB 4/TB sockets on a host you have identical, plug-compatible sockets with significantly different functions (ugh...)

 

[CarlJ]

Yes, I mean't USB-A. Why not put have at least one of the three be USB-A? I doesn't make any sense to me.

Again, because you can use an adapter to turn a USB-C port into USB-A, but you can't do the opposite. USB-C is a superset of the capabilities of USB-A. A USB-A connection cannot do things that a USB-C connection can - by doing 2 C and 1 A, you’d be losing capability.

 

[CarlJ]

When I use a HDMI monitor, projector, or TV I just plug in a HDMI to USB-C cable. No dongle required. Ethernet would have been nice, especially if they could get 10 Gb ethernet in the machine.

I would have loved to get Ethernet on this machine. When you need Ethernet, dongles suck, because often a lengthy cable is hanging off the machine (something that USB-C can’t handle - all that side force on the connector - but RJ-45 was designed for).

On the other hand, I think one common use case for HDMI is going to some random location where they hand you the plug end of an HDMI cable, and expect you to feed video through it to a display or projector or some such. If you only have USB-C you need to carry that HDMI to USB-C cable you mentioned and a female-to-female HDMI adapter to connect your cable to the HDMI cable you’re handed (the other end, that connects to the screen or display may be inaccessible, so simply plugging your USB-C to HDMI cable directly in would not be an option - and fiddling around with connections isn’t the goal at that point - watching the video or presentation is). I won’t get much use out of the HDMI port myself, but I can totally see the logic for including it.

 

[CarlJ]

With USB-C you lose backwards compatibility without an adapter, yet without adding USB4, TB, DisplayPort or the higher Power Delivery modes you don't gain any functionality in return.

In general, USB-C is a mess, and it didn’t have to be - yes, it’s just “one simple connector for everything”, but they didn’t do enough to keep everyone on the same track, so now you have lots of different cables and devices that plug into the same connector, but can’t talk with each other, and (in the case of some cheaper cables) can actually damage devices.

In this specific case, though, Apple has done all (most?) of the things you mention, working with USB4, Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, and PD off of the ports in the new MBPs.

I’m not a huge fan of USB-C the way it’s ended up (needlessly fractured and incompatible with itself), but it seems to be the way things are going now. I’m happier with Apple’s decision for HDMI and USB-C (complete with USB4 and TB support), than if they’d sacrificed some of them to, say, dedicated mini-DisplayPort / Thunderbolt connectors.

 

[ruka.snow]

On the other hand, I think one common use case for HDMI is going to some random location where they hand you the plug end of an HDMI cable, and expect you to feed video through it to a display or projector or some such. If you only have USB-C you need to carry that HDMI to USB-C cable you mentioned and a female-to-female HDMI adapter to connect your cable to the HDMI cable you’re handed (the other end, that connects to the screen or display may be inaccessible, so simply plugging your USB-C to HDMI cable directly in would not be an option - and fiddling around with connections isn’t the goal at that point - watching the video or presentation is). I won’t get much use out of the HDMI port myself, but I can totally see the logic for including it.

It is very region dependent I think. Every meeting I have been to, they have had a TB3 dock to connect to with everything else plugged into it (projector/tv, mic, speakers, controller/keyboard+mouse).

 

[Thebrochure]

Again, because you can use an adapter to turn a USB-C port into USB-A, but you can't do the opposite. USB-C is a superset of the capabilities of USB-A. A USB-A connection cannot do things that a USB-C connection can - by doing 2 C and 1 A, you’d be losing capability.

In one port, yes. But you'd also be saving time and money by not having to buy an adaptor.

 

[JDW]

I don’t want to hear anyone complaining anymore.

Absolutely!! Especially the complaining from you about those of us who are benefitted from getting a feature back1

The whining and complaining from you folks who don't need a feature, is quite awful. You complainers hoped to keep it from The Rest of Us, but Apple gave you a big punch in the nose by bringing it back! Ha!

If you don't need a feature, for goodness sake, just stop talking and don't use it. No need to endlessly complain about people like me who feel it's a true godsend to have back!

Thank you, Apple, for showing the naysayers that their complaining about their fellow Mac lovers is foolish and a waste of time! You listened to us, and we THANK YOU for that!

 

[Thebrochure]

Absolutely!! Especially the complaining from you about those of us who are benefitted from getting a feature back1

The whining and complaining from you folks who don't need a feature, is quite awful. You complainers hoped to keep it from The Rest of Us, but Apple gave you a big punch in the nose by bringing it back! Ha!

If you don't need a feature, for goodness sake, just stop talking and don't use it. No need to endlessly complain about people like me who feel it's a true godsend to have back!

Thank you, Apple, for showing the naysayers that their complaining about their fellow Mac lovers is foolish and a waste of time! You listened to us, and we THANK YOU for that!

No offense but, I honestly think you're taking this all too seriously. The same can be said for whomever you're referring to as well. These are just computers. Inanimate objects, built by a mega-corporation for cold hard profit and nothing more. To invest so much emotion in something like that is almost derelict to one's own life. There are a vast number of things which are far more important that you can direct your energy toward instead. Why not find out what those thing are? Who knows what you might discover.

 

[CarlJ]

In one port, yes. But you'd also be saving time and money by not having to buy an adaptor.

We "lost" one of the 4 USB-C ports from the previous model - I think it was a fair trade, not because the port went to running HDMI and SD, but because one of the 4 would commonly be used for power, and Apple added a separate MagSafe connection, so if you needed to be plugged in, it was a pretty even trade. Still, people are salty about 3 ports instead of 4. You really want to take away another one, to devote to a standard that is an older subset of USB-C?

For every person that would save from having to buy a cable with USB-A on one end and USB-C on the other, there'd be someone else who actually needed 4 USB-C ports who would now have to buy a USB-C hub and a USB-C to USB-C cable, to lug around and plug into one of the Mac's USB-C ports and then plug their extra USB-C devices into the hub. I'm happy Apple went with the solution they chose.