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M1 Pro MacBook as card slot is useless

Hi there,

I found my Macbook M1 Pro 14" SD card slot totally unusable!!!!! crazily slow and I have to use an external card reader again . That is ridiculous to me as the return of the SD card slot is one of the key reasons I bought this expensive m1 pro.


Anyone has a solution for me?


Thanks,

Rise

Posted on Jan 6, 2022 4:50 PM

Reply
6 replies

Jan 7, 2022 3:39 PM in response to riseli83

Hey there, and welcome to Apple Support Communities, riseli83!


From our understanding, your SD slot is running slower than expected. We can certainly understand your concern and can help provide some insight.


Does it seem slower than expected with just one card or with all cards that are used? When you notice it running slow, try any of the steps found here to see if any of them help: If your Mac runs slowly - Apple Support


Kindest regards!

Jan 8, 2022 8:26 AM in response to Shannon_DN

Hi Shannon,


Thanks for your reply.


I have 2 sd cards (uhs-i v30 class 10 ) and both of them are incredibly/ unusably slow with the built in sd card reader. Again, they performance normally by using external type-c card reader.


I have seen a lot of article from the internet pointing out this issue. Some people it got back to normal after upgraded to the latest macOS. However it doesn't work in my case.


And sorry the link you have suggested above didn't help at all


Thanks,

Rise


Jan 8, 2022 8:33 AM in response to riseli83

If the reader runs slowly with ALL UHS-I, UHS-II, and faster cards, it may be defective, and if you can show them that at the Genius Bar, Apple should be able to replace it for you.


The problem with a small sample of cards is that read errors on a particular card can make it appear slow as well, masking an underlying fault in the reader.

Jan 8, 2022 8:38 AM in response to riseli83

I've had the very problem starting with a 2015 iMac. We've still got that model and two 2020s now and none of the card slots have ever worked satisfactory. For that reason, and others, I've abandoned cards in Macs as well as thumb drives for anything other than bootable MacOS installers.


A while back I bought a pair of less expensive SSDs (PNY by brand) at $28US each at the time. As far as SSDs are concerned, the speeds are a little slower ... 380 MBps to 420 MBps (USB-A) read speeds but reliability has been fine. Even at the slower speeds they run circles around any SD card or flash drive I've ever owned.


My wife is a photographer and the cards in her cameras work as expected. But even then, she either send the files wirelessly to her iMac or cable connects the camera.

M1 Pro MacBook as card slot is useless

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