Some SD Cards Not Working Properly With 2021 14 and 16-Inch MacBook Pros

[jgrove]

This is an interesting article, I use the SD slot on my MBP as it saves yet another adaptor, although I haven’t had any issues it doesn’t rule out that I won’t.

But before we all jump to conclusion we need to better understand when this happens and is there a pattern to certain types of card from certain manufacturers. This has been the same with CFx in some cameras requiring firmware updates.

 

[nwcs]

This pretty makes sense to me. Sounds like a good security feature. Just like the iPhone accepting or not accepting USB accessoires when phone is locked.

Not really, whether it mounts before I log in or after it would still get mounted. And any USB malware likely would do the same work regardless. It's just an inconvenience.

 

[Ray_zayas]

This happened to me this week. Went to edit photos and the built in SD card reader was so slow it was unbearable. Grabbled a dongle and imported RAW files fine. I hope there’s a fix soon.

 

[boss.king]

I am sure if they put SD on the MBA and iMac and CF Express on the MBP that not a soul would be confused that the consumer model got a consumer card reader and the pro model got a pro card reader.

Do you think the only pro use of an SD card is in a camera?

 

[karranz]

Apple introduced back the sd card reader in 2021, hahahahahaha

 

[mansplains]

At least if the usbc/sd adapter wasn't working it was easier to replace under ALW versus the MBP.

 

[Macintosh TV]

I'd remember that this and other forums make issues appear more widespread than they actually are. While the thread may be long, it's only a very small number of users experiencing the issue and much of is it made up of the same couple users over and over again. We saw the same with multiple other issues, such as the 2012 Mac mini dual monitor issue (which I experienced). Millions of these things have shipped and even if it was 100+ or even 1000+ people experiencing the problem, that's still a silly small percentage of total users.

 

[jlocker]

Lets see, 6 months ago we heard how great it was going to be bring back the Magnetic Charger and the SD card reader and how great the new MacBook Pro models were going to be so superior over the current MacBook Pro models with the Intel processors.

Well be carful what you wish for, I have my 2019 MacBook Pro 16 and it has never given me a day of trouble over the last 2 years. ohh I have a dongle to read my SD card but it works!!!

When this Mac goes, I will be upgrading to a new top of the line Chromebook with Linux under the hood for portable computing, I have already left Mac for gaming with a AMD Ryzen 9 and a 3080 Ti card.

Most likely will buy a low end Mac mini just to have access to some of what is left of my Mac business needs.

 

[boss.king]

Lets see, 6 months ago we heard how great it was going to be bring back the Magnetic Charger and the SD card reader and how great the new MacBook Pro models were going to be so superior over the current MacBook Pro models with the Intel processors.

I'm confused as to what your point is. The new Macs are superior to the Intel Macs in pretty much every way. Even with a faulty SD slot they're more capable of data throughput and have more charging options. It's not even close.

Well be carful what you wish for, I have my 2019 MacBook Pro 16 and it has never given me a day of trouble over the last 2 years. ohh I have a dongle to read my SD card but it works!!!

When this Mac goes, I will be upgrading to a new top of the line Chromebook with Linux under the hood for portable computing, I have already left Mac for gaming with a AMD Ryzen 9 and a 3080 Ti card.

Most likely will buy a low end Mac mini just to have access to some of what is left of my Mac business needs.

So it sounds like you're not happy with a Mac because you don't need a Mac. There's nothing wrong with that, but that doesn't mean the new machines aren't a massive step up from the 2019 ones.

 

[smithrh]

So, a real-world example here.

Recently, I took about 2000 images at an event. Later on at my hotel, I decided to import them using the slot.

All seemed fine for a while during the import, but then eventually I got a message saying some images were not imported (IIRC, it took me a while to notice some key photos were missing, then I started poking around as to why). A "retry" button was right there, so I mashed that and hoped for the best, but nope, they wouldn't import.
In fact the error message sounded downright fatal, something like "there is no data in these files."

So I put the card back into the camera and was easily able to navigate back to the "corrupt" images and I could see they were fine on the camera.

Placed the SD card back into the Mac, and tried one of the "suspect" files for importation, and it came through fine.
Decided to select all the "suspect" files and imported them all with no issues.

So yeah, this has happened to me. And the sad thing was I was so happy to be able to just take the card from the phone and put it into the Mac with no searching for a dongle and all that.

 

[wilberforce]

I'd remember that this and other forums make issues appear more widespread than they actually are. While the thread may be long, it's only a very small number of users experiencing the issue and much of is it made up of the same couple users over and over again. We saw the same with multiple other issues, such as the 2012 Mac mini dual monitor issue (which I experienced). Millions of these things have shipped and even if it was 100+ or even 1000+ people experiencing the problem, that's still a silly small percentage of total users.

It still indicates an endemic problem.

Probably less than 1% of users come to this forum. That does not mean the other 99% have no problems.

Likewise, it may be that only 1% of users actually regularly use an SD card. This does not mean that the other 99% of users do not have a faulty SD card slot.

If the MBP had a problem, for example, with connecting an external display, it would not be a valid excuse to argue that it only affects a tiny percentage of users because most users don't use an external display.

My experience is that when there is a real issue the complaints get repeated over and over again from different people in this forum, and the thread never dies until it is fixed. Here is an example of a thread that ran to 80 pages, until it was finally fixed by a software update:

iMac 2020, 5700XT - graphical glitch?

I got my 2020 iMac Thursday night. It's as fast as expected and gorgeous. Last night I thought I saw, out of the corner of my eye, a horizontal white line flash mid-way up the screen. It was really fleeting and I thought I was just seeing things. This morning, I saw the same thing. The computer...

forums.macrumors.com

Yes, it only affected a tiny percentage of users, but it was a real repeatable problem.

When there is not a real issue, and it is just an isolated or uncommon defect, the thread gets little interest and dies after a page or two.

So I understand your point about it affecting a small percentage of users, but it is not a silly small percentage as if it doesn't really matter. The SD card slot (or its software) is definitely defective, and quite possibly in most if not all of the new MBPs. People just don't realize it yet.

 

[Manzanito]

I'm curious,

I'm not a SD card user or a camera/audio recording person. But if your camera/equipment has a USB (any type) connection, shouldn't you be able to transfer your data from that?

I think it would be better to keep the storage inside the device and transfer the files with USB-c and it would be faster and more reliable? No?

For me it’s way slower connecting the camera via usb instead of using a card reader. I don’t know why, if it’s because it’s faster for the mac directly mounting the card and accessing the files instead of having to access through whatever mechanism the camera uses to deliver the files, or a software issue or what.

 

[boss.king]

For me it’s way slower connecting the camera via usb instead of using a card reader. I don’t know why, if it’s because it’s faster for the mac directly mounting the card and accessing the files instead of having to access through whatever mechanism the camera uses to deliver the files, or a software issue or what.

Not to mention that you have to then have the camera there with you (same for a dongle, it's a thing hanging off the side of your computer that it less firmly connected than a card jammed halfway into the machine).

 

[BuddyTronic]

Sorry this is not right, all my 5 old cards are working very well, only my half a year old has the symptoms described by many. The one who does not work, works in external reader and in old Macbook Pro 2015.

OK - my experience is not conclusive.

I brought out a bunch of old SD cards and started using them for 3D printing "sneaker net" fmainly, and I just noticed a couple cards were flaky.

 

[jgrove]

I have done some tests:

Internal Card Reader is actually slow by comparison to an externally connected USB C Reader which is disappointing given that logically you would think it would be the same:

Here are the internal screen grabs. External Reader pushed 230 MBS

 

[wilberforce]

I have done some tests:

Internal Card Reader is actually slow by comparison to an externally connected USB C Reader:

Here are the internal screen grabs. External Reader pushed 230 MBS

I have gotten 250MB/s on a UHS-II card that "plays nice" with the internal slot, the same as using an external reader.

On other cards I have gotten less than 5 MB/s in the internal slot, and 90 to 250 MB/s in an external reader.

I can provide some screen grabs later.

 

[jgrove]

I have gotten 250MB/s on a UHS-II card that "plays nice" with the internal slot, the same as using an external reader.

On other cards I have gotten less than 5 MB/s in the internal slot, and 90 to 250 MB/s in an external reader.

I can provide some screen grabs later.

If you could please, and the model of the cards used, I was disappointed with the results to be honest, the Sony Tough SD cards are pretty quick so was surprised that the internal reader was so poor. Hoping this is a driver issue.

 

[BuddyTronic]

This is what happens when drivers are rewritten from scratch; all those weird things you had to do for "compatibility" get thrown out, and all those old cards which you don't have to test start causing problems.

Maybe the M1 pro is so fast that it's causing hardware interface problems - like there was latency present in the x86 world that was "built in" and is now gone. Hardware can be surprisingly intolerant of bad timing.

It's possible this is a real problem - I hope it gets worked out. To me, it sounds like a difficult debug - old cards, thicker cards, thinner cards. UHS II and backwards compatability - the world of SD is pretty confusing to me - so much 1000X and 600X speeds jargon and tons of 3 letter acronyms. Fake SD cards. on and on. Should I believe anyone on this yet?

I have a "BaseQi" flush mount Micro SD UHS-I adapter, and they specifically say "don't use this particular brand of micro SD card in this adapter" - but they do not say why. It's a bunch of voodoo. I'll be happy to stick with some good brand if this becomes known - for my own drone footage or 3D printing sneakernet.

How many of you guys are using expensive and hard to find UHS-II cards? How many have callipers to measure the thickness of their SD cards for debug purposes? No? Using cheap cards or old cards maybe. I don't know, or care much, but I just see this as one big difficult debug.

So far I am ok with mine.

 

[ChrisA]

Each microSD card has its own controller and there are dozens of companies making their own controllers, each with different firmware.

This is probably why Apple hates add-on storage. They're used to coding for only Apple approved vendors.

This is a computer that sells for WAY more than others and is marketed as a premium product. You would THINK, Apple would simply order a few of every brand SD card sold on Amazon and have some poor quality control engineers spend a few hundred hours trying each card on a sample of computers. Yes it might cost $200K to do this, but that is only the cost of 100 MBPs being returned as "defective" under warrenty.

I would expect the people who test this stuff to have a collection of a few hundred SD cards and some motivation to keep buying more.

 

[Runequester]

Is this an issue of Apple ****ing it up or shady cards bought cheap? Seems likely to be both I suspect.

 

[the-msa]

Apple is preparing Mfi certification for sd cards, mark my words lol

 

[wilberforce]

Is this an issue of Apple ****ing it up or shady cards bought cheap? Seems likely to be both I suspect.

Not an issue of shady cards. All my cards are top-of-the-line name brands, bought from reputable merchants like B&H. I cannot risk using some sketchy card of doubtful provenance. In any case they all work perfectly in every other device and reader, but half of them do not work (or work very slowly) in the MPB card slot.

 

[dspdoc]

Not an issue of shady cards. All my cards are top-of-the-line name brands, bought from reputable merchants like B&H. I cannot risk using some sketchy card of doubtful provenance. In any case they all work perfectly in every other device and reader, but half of them do not work (or work very slowly) in the MPB card slot.

Not good news. I assume you have reported this to Apple?

 

[Vsevolod]

That's because the built-in reader is using the cheap slow standard, and a recent external reader probably uses the more recent fast standards.

You can see that there are also those that are not affected, so I strongly doubt that the built-in reader is totally incapable of working fast.

 

[ruka.snow]

I have gotten 250MB/s on a UHS-II card that "plays nice" with the internal slot, the same as using an external reader.

On other cards I have gotten less than 5 MB/s in the internal slot, and 90 to 250 MB/s in an external reader.

I can provide some screen grabs later.

Very much like the SD slot on the older MacBook in that regard. It was convenient for the odd use but anyone that needed SD cards also needed and used an external reader. The same issue was in the PC side as the built in readers where always bottom of the barrel. The FW port was great for my CF reader at that time and I know a few that where using the crop bodies used external SD readers(the USB option was even slower than Apples SD reader).