SD Card Reader SUPER Slow in 2021 M1Pro MBP 16"

I have all Sandisk SD Extreme Pro SD cards, some are 95MB/s others are 170MB/s. The 95MB/s cards are extremely slow indeed, except when you use an external card reader. The 170MB/s cards seem to work just fine with the internal reader. Surely this must be solvable with a software update, no?

Hello Christian:

You could do yourself ~ & others who may just stop here, a big

favor: by sending [Product Feedback - MacBook Pro - Apple]

instead of just commenting to this peer-based discussion area.

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html

By doing so (& if they so choose) you may be contacted further

for input. ~ Consider the process; and it's relatively benign. It's

almost a Bug Report; only a hardware issue, that needs action.

"Please read Apple’s Unsolicited Idea Submission Policy

before you send us your feedback."

Take care & safe travels! ☺︎

I think there is hope. It looks like they fixed some of the problem in macOS 12.1and I expect they will continue to improve it. Reporting the problem, and your specific SD card type, directly to Apple should help them improve things.

Report at https://www.apple.com/feedback/macbookpro.html as previously commented.

A disappointing start.

Mac Pro 2021 14" slow as ****

MacPro 2011 same sd card (extrem 90mb/s) super fast

I was about to bring my new mac in for repairs :-(

I too get nice performance on 12.2 with card that on 12.1had

Slow mounting.

Slow start of copying.

Error message in Finder.

Beach ball in Lightroom.

All fixed in 12.2

I'm using an Extreme Pro 95MB/s SDHC V30 UHS-1 u3 10circle and the card reader is extremely slow and will crash. It is an older card, but UHS-I and it is not working. Wondering what else it could possibly be.

i bought the apple external sd to usb c card reader and it’s blazing on my MacBook Pro m1pro. With UHS-1 cards the internal card reader is so slow it’s unusable. I bought a new $200 uhs 2 card and it works in the internal card reader but still slower than the external card reading UHS 1. I’m going to take it into apple or exchange the m1pro.

Same here. I have a SanDisk 32GB Extreme Pro card, which is UHS-I with 95MB/s I believe. And it's EXTREMELY slow and will crash in a minute. But with a 10 dollars external sd card reader I previously own, it works fine and reads smoothly. I think it's a serious problem, the user experience is pretty horrible.

I also have a problem with UHS-I cards.

I am a photographer and work a lot with 32 GB SD cards Sandisk Extreme, 32 GB, 90 MB/s) . I must have 20 of them, which I use rotating in my jobs. But the reader of my new Macbook Pro has a problem with these cards: copying processes are slow or faulty or break off in the middle (error -36). The Finder shows the spinning wheel.

On the other hand, I also have several UHS-II cards (Toshiba Experia Pro, 32 GB, 260 GB/s) that always work reliably and transfer the RAWS quickly to the computer.

UHS-I is officially supported by Apple, but de facto it is not the case for me. I can rule out defective cards as they all work fine in an external reader.

I also made a screen recording of the problem, which I'm happy to provide to Apple.

Best wishes, Christian

I have the same problem on a 16" MBP with M1 Max. The reader is unreasonably slow compared to my USB 3.1 external reader. It takes a very long time to start transferring when files are dragged to a folder on the SSD (10-15 seconds for a transfer of 100 photos) and is slow in transferring the data. Occasionally, it just throws an error and gives up. I'm using Sandisk Extreme Pro UHS 3 32GB cards that otherwise have been reliable.

I was not expecting the reader to be quite as fast as my external reader but this seems like a fault to me. I have followed K Shaffer's advice and reported this to Apple. I also recommend that others do this: include as many facts as you can (eg actual times, number/size of files).

This is a real shame because a built-in card reader is one of the improvements in this (rather good) computer.

..and certain cameras etc like to use their own internal card to be read by USB wire.

Some of mine prefer to not have their cards removed/read by an external reader..

Yet there are no excuses for a newer device to find a card reader so ineffectual. 🙈🤨

Same here! I’ve had my 16inch max for two weeks and I’ve never experienced such slow import/export on Lightroom. I have another call with Apple tomorrow but for the meantime I’m back on my 7 year old iMac! Can you believe after spending £3600 on it!!

mom currently trying to export my Lightroom catalog so I have it for my old computer and it’s now over 1 hour and still not exported 🙈

[Update] I updated to macOS 12.1 today (from 12.0.1). A big improvement!

I repeated the load of 101 Canon CR3 files (about 20MB each) and the transfer was much faster. The 10-15s wait before anything started was gone and the transfer was much faster. It's still slower than my external card reader but it's now perfectly usable.

Well done Apple.