I'm sorry, but I was disappointed hearing Apple removed the expresscard. This is what sets it apart from the MacBooks. I have a 1st gen MacBook Pro where I use the expresscard when I'm at home to hook up eSATA drives. The SD is a nice feature, but I already have a cheap USB dongle solution for that. Booting from a SD card is a nice feature, but it isn't practical today as the I/O is slow. Yes, one could go with a 17" MBP, but we're talking about a $800 price difference. Not to mention the extra weight.
Yes but once you get to 32GB these cards become secondary storage and thus viewing them within the context of "only" photography does them injustic.
Imagine 32GB of music or videos or whatever you wish. If Apple follows the trend to SDXC in 3 years you could be running a 256MB card that can throughput 40-50 megabytes per second.
I think the small size is more attractive to Apple than ExpressCard.
Yeah, but who doesn't walk around with a USB memory stick in their pocket these days? I just bought a new 16GB one for $30 at Radio Shack. 400Mbps transfer on USB which beats out the SD-card slot, and they're given away like candy at many places.
Yeah, but who doesn't walk around with a USB memory stick in their pocket these days? I just bought a new 16GB one for $30 at Radio Shack. 400Mbps transfer on USB which beats out the SD-card slot, and they're given away like candy at many places.
If just over 1% of customers polled used the ExpressCard and a vast majority of consumers use the SD slot, use your head. Apple consolidated on the volume, not the edge cases.
(My MacBook Pro gets over 60 Megabytes per second off a 7,200 RPM hard drive.)
The other SD standards are slower, SDHC having 20 megabytes per second, which is I believe is the fastest supported on the new MacBook Pro's with SD slot being SD 2.
Heck so what if it takes 3 times as long to boot off a SDHC? It's only for emergencies.
But I want a SDXC 2TB and flush mount for my new MacBook Air.
Yeah, but who doesn't walk around with a USB memory stick in their pocket these days? I just bought a new 16GB one for $30 at Radio Shack. 400Mbps transfer on USB which beats out the SD-card slot, and they're given away like candy at many places.
Right, so no big deal booting of SDHC anyway, it's three times slower than a 7,200 RPM hard drive.
It's the SDXC that's gets the attention, with 104 MB/s is about 1.5x as fast as a 7,200 RPM hard drive. Plus its very thin and it's capacity is up to 2TB. Unlike the bulky and pricey SSD drives.
SDXC (or something like it on a chip) makes a prime boot drive for very thin MacBooks and Tablets. It could be included right on the logic board.
Apple didn't need to put a SD drive on Mac's, but they did, my theory is they are warming up to SanDisk because of the new SDXC's huge potential for ultra thin laptops.
USB doesn't allow you to boot up from another drive and access a user account on another drive that is password protected. Firewire does if you boot up from the master drive as a root user. That is what makes Firewire so useful for fixing problems and installing the OS by drag and drop. That is what made is so sad when Apple temporarily got rid of Firewire on Macbooks.
But your point does hold. Firewire has always allowed a user to access another computer. That is File Vault is designed to address.
maybe, but you could always turn the expresscard slot or USB into SD accessable.
You can only turn an SD slot into very few things. it makes the laptop very very limited on what you can add to it.
The worst thing about ExpressCard on Macs was the high probability that you would end up purchasing a card with horrendous drivers.
Not only is ExpressCard a nich of a nich in usage but I gotta figure that Apple's taken too many Tech Support calls based on problems caused by flaky ExpressCards.
Keep in mind if you have two Firewire enabled Macs now you can use one to access the other overriding any passwords. Firewire treats one drive as a master drive, and the other as a slave. The user level of the master drive dictates what you can access on the slave drive. So if you sign in on the master drive as an administrative user you will not be able to access a password protected user account on a slave drive. However, if you sign in as a root user on the master drive, you can easily by-pass any user passwords on the slave drive. I do it all the time.
That is what makes Firewire so powerfully useful for fixing problems and saving data from an injured Mac.
USB acts more like Ethernet. It treats any connected drive as a network connection and will respect any user settings on the connected drive. Not super useful is you are trying to save data or replace a corrupted file.
Firewire has saved my life a billion times.
I suspect this feature will work like if you suggest and not like Firewire.
Quote:
Originally Posted by macFanDave
I'm skeptical about the security by-pass concern. The system is the one on the chip and you won't have any access to the hard drive unless you know the user ids and passwords.
I've seen people using their SD card slots on their netbooks to actually run Windows. Kind of weird if you ask me since someone can just walk up, take the card, and your system doesn't have an os anymore lol
Still though, this seems to be a feature the majority of people prefer. I'm surprised Apple didn't do it sooner.
Keep in mind if you have two Firewire enabled Macs now you can use one to access the other overriding any passwords.
Not if you have a firmware password enabled. That will prevent the computer from going into firewire target disk mode at all. That is a moot point, though. If the attacker has physical access to your system, there are ways for them to get to your data even if you have welded all of the ports closed (firewire, USB, ethernet, CD drive, etc.) You have to use File Vault or whole disk encryption to stop a physical attack.
Comments
To me a card sticking out slighly is in fact a reminder that it's there and I like it.
Uh, that little glitch can solved in software, a reminder that you have a SD card in the flush mount before sleep/shutdown would do the job.
But break your SD card slot or even a SD card full of important data and you might be changing your mind about flush mount.
Yes but once you get to 32GB these cards become secondary storage and thus viewing them within the context of "only" photography does them injustic.
Imagine 32GB of music or videos or whatever you wish. If Apple follows the trend to SDXC in 3 years you could be running a 256MB card that can throughput 40-50 megabytes per second.
I think the small size is more attractive to Apple than ExpressCard.
Yeah, but who doesn't walk around with a USB memory stick in their pocket these days? I just bought a new 16GB one for $30 at Radio Shack. 400Mbps transfer on USB which beats out the SD-card slot, and they're given away like candy at many places.
Yeah, but who doesn't walk around with a USB memory stick in their pocket these days? I just bought a new 16GB one for $30 at Radio Shack. 400Mbps transfer on USB which beats out the SD-card slot, and they're given away like candy at many places.
I concur...
Security issue also. Bypass logins that way.
Would a firmware password not stop that?
Without knowing hard drive speeds off the top of my head, how long is it going to take to boot from an SD card compared to booting from a hard drive?
With the new SDXC just announced (for sale?):
note: not compatible with new MacBook Pros's.
SDXC - 104 Megabytes per second. 300 eventually.
http://www.sdcard.org/developers/tech/sdxc
(My MacBook Pro gets over 60 Megabytes per second off a 7,200 RPM hard drive.)
The other SD standards are slower, SDHC having 20 megabytes per second, which is I believe is the fastest supported on the new MacBook Pro's with SD slot being SD 2.
Heck so what if it takes 3 times as long to boot off a SDHC? It's only for emergencies.
But I want a SDXC 2TB and flush mount for my new MacBook Air.
http://www.sdcard.org/home
Yeah, but who doesn't walk around with a USB memory stick in their pocket these days? I just bought a new 16GB one for $30 at Radio Shack. 400Mbps transfer on USB which beats out the SD-card slot, and they're given away like candy at many places.
Right, so no big deal booting of SDHC anyway, it's three times slower than a 7,200 RPM hard drive.
It's the SDXC that's gets the attention, with 104 MB/s is about 1.5x as fast as a 7,200 RPM hard drive. Plus its very thin and it's capacity is up to 2TB. Unlike the bulky and pricey SSD drives.
SDXC (or something like it on a chip) makes a prime boot drive for very thin MacBooks and Tablets. It could be included right on the logic board.
Apple didn't need to put a SD drive on Mac's, but they did, my theory is they are warming up to SanDisk because of the new SDXC's huge potential for ultra thin laptops.
Begone CD's and DVD's!
Exactly! about time too! And while we're at it, let's have one format already!
Funny how people are trying to turn a lousy little SD card slot into lemonade.
you can i believe boot from the USB also ie using a techtool pro data USB card.
they ought to put the expresscard back in there.
I've never used the express card slot but will definitely use the SD card slot.
I've never used the express card slot but will definitely use the SD card slot.
maybe, but you could always turn the expresscard slot or USB into SD accessable.
You can only turn an SD slot into very few things. it makes the laptop very very limited on what you can add to it.
But your point does hold. Firewire has always allowed a user to access another computer. That is File Vault is designed to address.
Ummm kinda like USB and FW?
Not sure I get your point?
Dave
maybe, but you could always turn the expresscard slot or USB into SD accessable.
You can only turn an SD slot into very few things. it makes the laptop very very limited on what you can add to it.
The worst thing about ExpressCard on Macs was the high probability that you would end up purchasing a card with horrendous drivers.
Not only is ExpressCard a nich of a nich in usage but I gotta figure that Apple's taken too many Tech Support calls based on problems caused by flaky ExpressCards.
That is what makes Firewire so powerfully useful for fixing problems and saving data from an injured Mac.
USB acts more like Ethernet. It treats any connected drive as a network connection and will respect any user settings on the connected drive. Not super useful is you are trying to save data or replace a corrupted file.
Firewire has saved my life a billion times.
I suspect this feature will work like if you suggest and not like Firewire.
I'm skeptical about the security by-pass concern. The system is the one on the chip and you won't have any access to the hard drive unless you know the user ids and passwords.
Still though, this seems to be a feature the majority of people prefer. I'm surprised Apple didn't do it sooner.
Begone CD's and DVD's!
Isn't that what Macbook Air is there for?
Security issue also. Bypass logins that way.
...by booting from USB or FW. Both prevented with a firmware password which will work here too...
Keep in mind if you have two Firewire enabled Macs now you can use one to access the other overriding any passwords.
Not if you have a firmware password enabled. That will prevent the computer from going into firewire target disk mode at all. That is a moot point, though. If the attacker has physical access to your system, there are ways for them to get to your data even if you have welded all of the ports closed (firewire, USB, ethernet, CD drive, etc.) You have to use File Vault or whole disk encryption to stop a physical attack.