Transcend Announces 1TB JetDrive Lite 330 Expansion Card for 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro

[CarlJ]

They do for the Mac Studio and Intel Mac Pro (in which the SSD controller is on the T2 chip so it uses raw flash like the M1). Unlike the LPDDR RAM, I don't think there's any technical advantage to soldering in flash - I guess there's just a critical number of the highest-spec SSD options you have to sell above which soldering them in becomes cheaper than using modules.

There are always tradeoffs for using sockets - on one hand, they take more physical space and the metal-to-metal connection required can degrade over time compared to soldered parts (the "press-fit" connection can become less than 100% reliable whether from oxidation/etc or components getting jostled slightly out of alignment from numerous bumps over time), on the other hand, they allow upgrading whether it's because you now need more space than when you bought the machine (or prices have dropped enough to make additional space a sort of "why not" situation), or because the parts fail (SSDs will wear out over time, even if that's a very long time).

I can totally understand soldering in the flash on phones and iPads, because you're dealing with a very sealed box that's roughly a quarter inch thick (with the screen taking a portion of that) - extremely space constrained - but I still wish they'd put the flash (even if it's proprietary raw flash modules) in sockets in the laptops, so that it would be possible to replace them in the future without replacing the entire machine.

 

[Wahlstrm]

As someone who purchased a BTO 16" M1 MBP with 2TB of storage, I don't understand why someone would purchase a 1TB Transcend Card for $250 over purchasing the additional internal 1GB for $400 from Apple (or additional $80 for 512GB). The advantages of internal storage (blazing speed, swappable memory, wear leveling, etc) seems well worth the $150 cost difference. It just doesn't make much sense unless you couldn't wait for BTO or realized you needed more storage well after you purchased. Not sure I would rely on the transcend card for time machine backups. With that all said, I applaud Transcend for providing options.

Not all markets have access to BTO.

We do have BTO where I live but the stock configs can usually be had a bit cheaper from 3rd party resellers.
Currently you can buy the stock 512GB 14" for $477 less than ordering the 1TB BTO from Apple.
Price difference between the stock 512GB 14" and the 2TB BTO is currently $1006.

The real world benefit between opening a 3-10MB pdf/.doc/.xls document from a 75MB/s or a 5000MB/s drive,
is basically non existent. For the vast majority of people it's probably better to save a few hundred instead.

 

[planteater]

certainly not as fast as internal, but definitely can be used as a media solution where speed is not the essence.

Exactly. I permanently had a 512GB card in my 2015 MBP and it worked great, although it was sticking out a bit and ultimately was destroyed after a few years of taking a hit here and there. This Transcend card that fits flush is an excellent way to expand storage.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Also security and performance but who cares about that?

Um, no. "Security" and "performance" are just key words Apple uses to throw around when it wants to justify greedy behaviour.

Put it this way, The fastest Intel Mac that Apple ever made was the Mac Pro, which has both plug in RAM and SSDs (plus plug in PCIe cards and IO cards). Why? Because that customer base simply wouldn't buy them otherwise, the flexibility is a major requirement for the use case. And yet it was the highest performance Mac at the time, and with the same level of security as any other Mac. All the other lower performance Macs had soldered in RAM and SSD. Yeaaaah, it was all about performance and security huh?

If Apple don't do the same for the AS Mac Pro, I will be incredibly surprised. The current rumours are for an AS Mac Pro with an M1 Extreme chip that is double the M1 Ultra, thus containing up to 256GB SoC RAM. The Intel Mac Pro has 6 memory slots taking up to 1.5TB (256GB per slot) of DDR4. I would expect the M1 Extreme Mac Pro to have both 256GB SoC LPDDR5, and either 4 or 6 slots, with each slot taking up to 512GB, giving a total plug-in RAM of either 2TB or 3TB.

Going by the shenanigans Apple has played with the Mac Studio's twin SSD slots (yeah, slots, not soldered in, or SoC), the self-upgrading SSD option might be in doubt though. Um, yeah, sure, and that's all about security and performance ha hahahahhhhahhaa. Wake up mate, you're being played by Apple, and cheering them along like a chump.

 

[Spotlighter9]

Sure, you're right. But what about in 2 years time when your SSD needs grow and you're running out of space? Sell your laptop and buy a new one? Sure, it's a genuine option, especially if you've got business tax advantages of doing so. But if not... instead you could buy one of these cards to dump your music and movie collection on (or anything else that doesn't need the high speeds to play), and free up the space. I also just ordered a 16" M1 MBP w 2TB (to replace my champion 2015 15" MBP w 1TB (self upgraded from 512GB, ah, those were the days)), which is enough for now, but could see myself buying one of these cards down the track. And by then, a 2TB card might be available for the same $250 as the 1TB is now.

Yep. I completely agree and the circumstance you describe falls in-line my thoughts that Transcend does make sense if you "realized you needed more storage well after you purchased." However, where a MBP purchaser foregoes the Apple BTO SSD upgrade and instead purchases one of these Transcend cards to save $80-$150...that just doesn't seem worth it, IMO.

 

[YanDev]

Just purchased this. I didn't went for bigger storage option in MacBook Pro 16 (2021) because my bank didn't allowed to pay more than $5,000 in a single transaction. Yep there is another reason for it.

I'm using it only mostly for backup and if (again - another reason!) the MacBook is broken, then I've still secured my SD backup for important data.

 

[Makosuke]

No known UHS-3 cards and SD express would kill it before it got of the ground. It is unlikely SD Express or faster SD will take off now that CF Express is taken hold. The things that don’t need CF Express can make do with internal storage or UHS-1 and 2 cards. SD Express has a major downside in that the PCIe pins replace the pins that would allow it backward compatibility with UHS-2 meaning you would end up with 80 MB/s transfers on your legacy readers and devices at best.

Thanks for confirming what I thought about nonexistent UHS-III cards, and I'm in full agreement that SD Express has rendered that entire technology DOA.

Given the extremely high (>1GB/s) speeds CF Express cards already boast, while UHS-II cards are quite spendy to hit 300MB/s, it does seem like the battle is pretty much over in pro gear. My assumption (maybe mistaken) is that the thicker and slightly larger form factor CF Express inherited from XQD works to CF Express' advantage when it comes to getting that kind of speed (albeit at a steep per-GB cost).

That said, I'm not going to count SD Express as a definite non-starter at this point, because there's no CF-Express equivalent of microSD. Near term, yes--SD Express' incompatibility with UHS-II speeds is going to make it hard to make a case for when CF Express cards are available today with extremely high speeds.

But even if the larger SD form-factor gets its lunch eaten by CF Express, one assumes it will eventually be possible to build a microSD Express card with speeds that can take advantage of SD Express bus speeds, at which point makers of higher-end ultra-compact devices will presumably start building support for them.

 

[cr2]

Well I bought a Mac Studio (Max) and immediately supplemented it with a 2TB thunderbolt attached SSD, reaching 2.5GB/s transfer rate, roughly on par with the internal storage. It cost me less than a third of Apples offering, (which would have been preferable to me if price would have been equal, even though having the storage detachable has its upsides too). So in my case Apple simply lost the storage sale and associated profit completely. As I wrote earlier, I think they would stand to gain in a lot of ways by rethinking their policies on this.

Which brand of SSD did you use?