There is a cool alternative way you can easily add up to 128GB of storage to your MacBook Air or Pro — without cracking the case and installing a new SSD flash drive, without buying a bulky external hard drive, and without jamming a USB thumb drive into the side of your MacBook. The alternative method?
A Transcend JetDrive Lite Storage Expansion Card.
Designed to fit into the SDXC card slot, which is usually used for loading photos into your Mac from a camera, the tiny little drive is specially made to fit flush inside the SDXC slot, giving you extra storage space in a form factor that works perfectly with your 13-inch MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with Retina display (the 11-inch MacBook Air does not have an SDXC slot).
Apple MacBook Pro 16' with Touch Bar - Intel Core i7 - 16GB Memory - 512GB SSD 9th Gen 6-Core Intel® Core™ i7 Processor 2.6GHz; 16' LED-Backlit (3072 x 1920) Retina Display with True Tone. My Macbook Pro was connected to Spectrum, and streamed the audio to my Echo; It worked fine for several weeks, then just quit working for no apparant reason. 😠 My Macbook Pro still plays the video, (Spectrum is my ISP) and it say's I'm connected to 'Echo' to stream the sound via 'Bluetooth', but the sound only comes through the Macbook Pro.
The Transcend JetDrive Lite lets you add a flush-fitting drive to your MacBook Air or Pro’s SD card slot.
A 128GB card, for example, can hold 62,000 high resolution photos, 32,000 mp3 songs, or 32 hours of Full HD quality video.
If your 128GB MacBook Air or MacBook Pro is running out of space, a Transcend JetDrive Lite Storage Expansion Card is flat out the easiest, fastest, and most cost-effective solution I’ve seen yet.
The maximum read speed is 95MB/s, which will be slower than the flash drive that’s in your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro with Retina display, but typically faster than most traditional hard drives. The maximum read speed is 60MB/s. What does this really mean? If you’re actively working with a large file — like editing a movie — you might want to make sure that your movie files are on your MacBook’s main drive for best performance.
Offload Large Files to the JetDrive Lite
That said, this new light drive option will let you add storage to offload all sorts of photos, video, and documents, freeing up your primary drive. The Transcend JetDrive Lite Storage Expansion Card will show up on your desktop like an external drive. If, for instance, your iTunes library is full of movies, TV shows, and songs, you can move it to the expansion card, which is what I would do first to free up a large mount of space. Why? 3d animation online. In addition to gaining a big win over your storage problem, nearly all of you iTunes media is likely purchased from Apple, which means if there is ever any problem with the drive, you can easily download your purchased movies, video, and songs again from Apple at no charge.
In addition to moving large files to the drive, you can use it as a complete backup to your internal 128GB drive, but since you’re reading this, you probably need the free space more than a skinny on-board backup solution. Note: Just use a good external drive or thumb drive for your backups and store it somewhere safe.
Once you have the JetDrive Lite, you’ll want to use Disk Utility on your Mac to reformat the drive to Mac OS Extended. One last tip: Because the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with Retina display models have slightly different SDXC card slot depths, you’ll need to choose the correct JetDrive Lite to fit your particular MacBook.
And one last hint: If you think you might rather just install an internal SSD drive to increase storage capacity, here’s some help on how to get that done for MacBook Air and for MacBook Pro with Retina displays.
Get the Transcend JetDrive Lite:
- JetDrive Lite 130 for 13-inch MacBook Air, 64GB or 128GB
(Late 2010 – Early 2014 models) - JetDrive Lite 330 for 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina, 64GB or 128GB
(Late 2012 – Mid 2014 models) - JetDrive Lite 350 for 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina, 64GB or 128GB
(Mid 2012 – Early 2013 models) - JetDrive Lite 360 for 15-inch MacBook Pro with Retina, 64GB or 128GB
(Late 2013 – Mid 2014 models)
Note: There are some alternate options for this class of SD card slot drive for MacBooks: The PNY StorEDGE, which sits nearly flush (but not flush), or the Nifty MiniDrive, which sits flush but requires a separate purchase of a microSD card to get the storage you need.
While examining Reverb, AppleInsider determines Alexa in name only is no Alexa at all. The new app aims to bring Amazon's personal assistant to the Mac, but in our tests it fell short.
Adding Mac Book Air To Alexa 3rd Generation
Alexa is Amazon's equivalent of Siri and it - or she - lives in the company's Echo and Dot devices. Now Reverb for Amazon Alexa 2.0.2 wants you to be able to use Alexa on your Mac and the new version does bring a significant new feature. It works. Some of the time, just not all of the time and not for the main reason you'd use Alexa for in the first place.
When we first tried Reverb, it didn't actually do anything meaningful, or work very well at all. The updated version 2.0.2 still has its moments of failing to notice when you're talking, or when you stop.
However, this was never going to be a serious application: it isn't made by Amazon and you're not going to order any products over it. So, Reverb is really a way to find out what you think of Alexa without buying a new device.
The prevailing wisdom is that Alexa is superior to Siri — but your mileage may vary and so might your need for privacy. Can you photoshop on ipad. But, if you wait to hear about Amazon's sales figures you're going to wait a long time.
All you can be reasonably sure of is that Amazon hasn't sold remotely as many devices as Apple has sold iPhones. So, with millions of more people using Siri than using Alexa and the Echo, Amazon's assistant is going to get fewer criticisms by volume.
Consequently the only way you can really assess Alexa and whether it's any use to you is to try out the service and Reverb does give you a flavor of how it all works.
With the real Alexa, a genuine boon is how well its microphones hear you so just calling out 'Hey, Alexa' across the room will get you a quick response. https://ologyfree.mystrikingly.com/blog/native-instruments-fm8-1-4-1-download-free. With Reverb, you have to launch the app, then click and hold down the mouse while you ask whatever you want to ask.
There's not a great deal you can ask. You could copy the TV ads and ask Alexa what the height of Mount Everest is. You could ask one of the funnies that it's programmed to josh with you about. So 'Alexa, surely you can't be serious?' does indeed get you the Leslie Nielsen's 'Airplane' response of 'I am serious. And don't call me Shirley.'
Certainly, you can ask Alexa what the weather is today and that's the one thing which worked every single time we tried - except it always told us it was cloudy in Seattle when we're some thousands of miles away from there.
Adding Mac Book Air To Alexa Bliss
You could ask Reverb to set a timer for you and it may very well do it. Or might not. Depends, really — just on what, we're not sure.
What it definitely can't do is order anything from Amazon for you, which might be a good thing. What it definitely can do is make you conscious of the irony when you ask Siri on your Mac to 'Search the web for 'what can I say to Alexa?'.
Reverb 2.0.2 is free on the App Store and we're not shocked. For the Mac, Reverb 2.0.2 requires macOS 10.12.2, is also free, and worth every cent.
AppleInsider has affiliate partnerships and may earn commission on products purchased through affiliate links. These partnerships do not influence our editorial content.