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That SD slot on the MacBook Pro? Not just for digital cameras

by Megan Lavey-Heaton Jun 10th 2009 at 3:15PM

Hard Mac reports on a newly released Apple Knowledge Base article that reveals this nice little tidbit about the new MacBook Pro's SD slot. Not only can you use it to dump pictures off your digital camera, but you can use it as a boot disk if need be. The article also reveals:
  • You can use the thinner MultiMediaCards with the SD slot. Cards that have a thickness or surfaces that exceed 2.1mm should not be used.
  • You can use standard SD cards (4MB to 4GB) and SDHC (4-32GB) cards in the slot. MiniSD, MicroSD, MiniSDHC and MicroSDHC can also be used with adapters.
  • The SD slot will work with cards that exceed 32GB
  • SD cards with the exFAT file system will not be read, will need to be reformatted as a FAT32
  • SD cards are read as USB storage devices
  • To use the SD card as a startup volume, change the default partition table to GUID and format the card to use the Mac OS Extended file format
  • SDIO (Secure Digital Input Output) cards will not be recognized
  • The SD card slot will work with Boot Camp for both Windows XP and Windows Vista.
[Via Macworld]

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Hard Mac reports on a newly released Apple Knowledge Base article that reveals this nice little tidbit about the new MacBook Pro's SD slot....
 

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Jason Anderson

So does that mean I could buy an SD card, install Windows onto it and use it as a removable/portable BootCamp "partition"?

June 14 2009 at 4:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jake

Replacing the ExpressCard slot with a SD slot is not cool! At least I could use and adapter to hook up CompactFlash cards. Now I will have to go back to USB. Sad times.

June 11 2009 at 10:49 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
vandil

Well, the cool thing about this is that you can carry around a 32GB emergency boot volume on an SD card, boot an ailing Intel Mac and try to fix their system with whatever utilities you have loaded on the card.

June 11 2009 at 9:17 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
now4real954

I think it is cool idea...it's right most people never use the XC port at all ever...so I think it's cool that they have come up with something for everyone

what I am stoked about is the fact that they reduced the price of the 13inch macbook...and...wait for it...

WE WON...FIREWIRE BACK ON THE 13" MACBOOK...YEAH...who cares they decided to change it's name to PRO...lol

fact is all of us that voted on the petition have gotten what we wanted...FIREWIRE IS BACK

I think they should offer free exchanges to all the people that screwed up and bought the 13 inch that was FW-free...and regretted it

long live FIREWIRE...YEAH

ps...was that a little over the top? GOOD!

June 11 2009 at 12:12 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
ashoka8350

I believe the SD slot will finally replace the function of optical drive, and the MacBook and MacBook Pro will be lot thinner. You do remember Apple discarded their regular drive slot long time ago and kept only the optical drive. SD cards are getting so cheap, there is no reason for a bulky optical drive minimizing the space in the computer by eliminating it.
Do not forget I gave my opinion first!!!

Bushan

June 10 2009 at 8:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nickganga

I wonder if this means they will release Snow Leopard on SD card.... or I'll just have to make another guide :)

June 10 2009 at 7:44 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
brzy

Does this mean you can remove the hard drive and use only the SD as a startup disk and get even more life out of the battery?

June 10 2009 at 5:46 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to brzy's comment
mabhatter

Why would you do that? Apple sells a $300+ SDD drive built in that does the same thing.

June 11 2009 at 12:37 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
MacSlut

It's a shame because Apple could've simply bundled an SDHC card reader with the ExpressCard slot and pleased far more people. I have a reader in my slot and it only cost about $20 retail, I'm sure most of that goes to marketing, packaging and profit. By swapping out the ExpressCard slot, Apple has removed many options from eSata to ExpressCard drives to 3G cards and so on.

June 10 2009 at 5:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
dan.roden


i cant people a complaining about it being there. i would rather them put it in than not. it doesnt cost much. there would probably be an equal amount of people argueing that their netbook has a SD slot why doesnt the mbp.

it sounds quite handy if you can boot from it as you could keep a scaled down fully functioning osx install on one for emergencies or just using other peoples machines

June 10 2009 at 5:18 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
2 replies to dan.roden's comment
dan.roden

saying that i do that with a usb drive but i have loads of 1,2,4gb sd cards around.

June 10 2009 at 5:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Joseph

people dont care that they added this, they care that they got rid of the XC which 1% of apple users use. It just so happens, that is 10% of TUAW users. Another case of the vocal minority.

I dont use mine and i am stoked on the $300 discount due to licensing costs being lowered.

June 10 2009 at 5:28 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
kenfagerdotcom

I'll be sure to remember my 4mb SD card with my spankin' new Macbook Pro.

::chuckle::

June 10 2009 at 4:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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