Will using an SD card work as a backup storage device?

[Luca Brazzi]

Currently have a MacBook Pro (2014) with a 512Gb SSD ...and using Apple Time Machine s/w to backup to an external drive.

Rather than connecting to an external HDD, I want to use 512Gb SD card in the memory slot and perform the same process. Before I go a purchase said super high speed card, has anyone tried this? Should it work? Or have I missed something?

Cheers.

[TonyRPH]

SD cards typically have a limited lifespan for writes.

I wouldn't recommend it.

[Luca Brazzi]

Ah interesting. Hadn't thought about that angle. Are they deemed much less than the solid state drive in the machine?

Thanks.

[budgie smuggler]

Luca Brazzi said:

Ah interesting. Hadn't thought about that angle. Are they deemed much less than the solid state drive in the machine?

Thanks.

Well yes but it's also doing (far) less writes. The computer's SSD will be constantly doing writes to log files, swap, temporary files, erasing and rewriting sectors that have already been written, etc.

Your backup will just append a chunk of data every hour or whatever, so unless you are changing masses of data, the individual sectors on the SD card aren't getting a lot of wear.

However you might want to check that Time Machine supports backing up to an SD card first. It may just need to be reformatted as HFS+ to make it work.

[TonyRPH]

Here's a couple of interesting topics about SD cards.

https://superuser.com/questions/17350/whats-the-li...

http://www.datarecoveryspecialists.co.uk/blog/what...

[techguyone]

Just get a USB 3.0 external drive for backup, SDCards are not designed for lots of writes and will fail randomly.

[Luca Brazzi]

Fascinating links. Thanks for that. Guess I'll stick with external drive back up for the foreseeable.

:-)

[NDA]

I will give you a different view... I have used one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-JetDrive-256GB-...

Since 2013 - 7 years without a single problem. It's used for absolutely everything on my MacBook.... since upgrading to a MacBook Pro my son is now using it - every day. Again without a problem.

[budgie smuggler]

Luca Brazzi said:

Fascinating links. Thanks for that. Guess I'll stick with external drive back up for the foreseeable.

:-)

If you can put up with only 128GB there are high endurance SD cards which are used for dashcams, cctv etc. These have better write endurance, the one I have is rated for constant writes for 5 years.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-Endurance-MicroSD...

[jshell]

Minimum 2 backup drives. I've had failures and lost loads of data. SSD's can decay over time too! 2 backups...

[alock]

Luca Brazzi said:

has anyone tried this?

I use a SD card as one of my backup targets. It's fast, completely encased within the laptop, and works when I'm disconnected from wifi. I currently have a batch file on my desktop that syncs some folders to it on demand.

It wouldn't be my preference if you only have one backup target, and probably wouldn't be on the list if you have 2 backups. I currently have 6 different backup locations and the SD card works great as one of those.

[Paul Drawmer]

Just don't keep the SD card in the slot!

[alorotom]

NDA said:

I will give you a different view... I have used one of these:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Transcend-JetDrive-256GB-...

Since 2013 - 7 years without a single problem. It's used for absolutely everything on my MacBook.... since upgrading to a MacBook Pro my son is now using it - every day. Again without a problem.

I’m similar in my 2009(?) MBA ... faultless.