Macs and digital cameras have gone hand in hand for decades. But Apple hasn’t always provided a direct way to transfer images from a camera if you don’t have the right USB cable handy. Let’s not start Wi-Fi transfer – a nightmare with most cameras, even in 2023.
Almost all digital cameras switched to SD (Secure Digital) card format about 15 years ago from previous formats. It offers compact, high-density flash memory storage, with higher capacities coming with the 2009 SDXC (eXtended Capacity) upgrade, which increased a maximum of 32GB up to 2TB in one card!
Apple has included or is including an SDXC card slot that can read almost all SD formats on these Mac models:
- 21.5-inch and 27-inch iMac models (2010 or later)
- MacBook Air 13 inches (2013 to 2017)
- Mac mini (2011 to 2014)
- MacBook Pro (2011 to 2014, then restart in 2021)
- mac studio
SD cards are categorized by throughput, which has increased significantly over the years. The latest widespread standards are UHS-I and UHS-II. (UHS stands for Ultra High Speed.) All of the Macs above can read older MMC, Default Speed, and High Speed flavors, as well as UHS-I and UHS-II. SD cards are available in standard and microSD sizes. However, you can use a microSD adapter (these are sometimes included when you buy a microSD card) which is actually a full size SD card for use with a Mac or card reader.
However, the newer UHS-II cards, which are three times faster than UHS-I, only support their higher speeds on a few Mac models. These are the iMac Pro, the 27-inch Intel iMac model released in 2020, and all MacBook Pro models released from 2021 onwards.
You probably won’t buy a UHS-II speed card unless you have a particular purpose, like recording low-compression 4K video directly to a camera, because the cost of that extra speed is much more pupil. A 256GB SanDisk UHS-I card has a street price of $40, while the UHS-II version is $280.
If you don’t have a Mac with an SD card slot, it’s easy to add one. You can get simple USB Type-A adapters for just $7 with UHS-I throughput support. Apple sells a $39 USB-C adapter that supports UHS-II. Don’t pay for UHS-II support unless you need it.
Many USB-C and Thunderbolt docking stations also include an SD card slot as a base feature. Check out our best recommended Thunderbolt docks for Mac.
This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by igamesnews reader Kevin.
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