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TarDisk Pear promises to double your MacBook’s HD by creating an SD card-based fusion drive

Tardisk-Pear

TarDisk is launching its new ‘Pear’ product today, a customized SD card solution for MacBook users that can double the device’s storage capacity while using software to create a hybrid drive that works hand in hand with your built-in drive.

There are a lot of SD card products on the market that make adding extra storage to MacBooks easy, but TarDisk Pear is different in that it merges with your built-in drives to create a new logically merged volume managed by OS X, meaning you’ll be able to tap into the storage just like a built-in drive:

“Unlike most external hard drives, where manual file allocation is necessary, this SD card creates a hybrid drive, combining the card and the internal hard drive into one. When installed, the hard drive is increased by up to 256GB and the product lies flush with the side wall of the laptop.”

WerqfDE_njX2pL0lvttFo_HYwTS70ASoxGjS16vUg3UTarDisk walked us through what makes the product different after the Pear is merged with your internal drive:

  • The new logically merged volume is managed by OSX.
  • Internal SSD is primarily used before data is sent to the product.
  • More frequently used files are maintained on SSD hardware.
  • TRIM enabled SSDs maintain original speed benefits of Trim.
  • Read/Write buffer (“swap-space-equivalent”) is maintained on SSD to buffer writes to files located on the product.
  • Failure modes, if ever encountered, allow for direct restoration from TimeMachine backups.

TarDisk is hoping consumers consider the Pear as a permanent ugprade, meaning once it’s installed you’ll have some of the likely expected issues if you remove/lose it. The company explained:

While TarDisk can be removed, its recommended use is as a permanent upgrade. This is comparable to the level of involvement required to replace a hard drive. Because it creates a hybrid drive, removing it will cause files to appear as missing. Re-inserting the TarDisk remedies this problem. As with any storage device, a backup should be a part of your routine. TarDisk Pear becomes part of your hard drive, and just like your regular hard drive if it fails, you lose that data. While read/write cycles are estimated at 3000 vs. the 5000 of your SSD, the logic used by Pear caches frequently read files in your SSD to reduce wear. That said, two hard drives increases the potential of one failing. Back up your computer normally using Time Machine. In our testing, we’ve had a very low failure rate.

The company originally launched a similar product on Kickstarter and raised over $100,000, but the new product is its first to create the hybrid, fusion drive. We haven’t been able to test the product, but we plan on doing so shortly once our review unit arrives. 

TarDisk is selling the product starting today through its website in two models: a 128GB version for $149 and 256GB for $399. Compare that to standard 256GB SD cards that on average sell for around $100 -$200 on Amazon. 

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gut6kp-b1Yc]

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Comments

  1. viciosodiego - 8 years ago

    this is perfect for people who get an optibay.
    And also get a 500gb SSd.
    perfect combination.

  2. jamdox - 8 years ago

    …can’t you just do this yourself?

  3. Luis E - 8 years ago

    careful people I bought the Trascend JetDrive Lite for the MacBook Air and it damaged the sd slot from the logic board, I went to Apple to complain about it, because it was a product bought from their store and recommended by them, Now I lost the money I payed for that product, and an SD Slot that i used a lot, it basically burned it!!! So careful with this kind of products.

    • David (@AuCycle) - 8 years ago

      well the Tardisk has an aluminium body unlike the plastic Jetdrive. A little bit of aluminium goes a long way to keep things cool i.e. all aluminium MacBook body.

  4. tknospdr - 8 years ago

    You’re welcome TarDisk, I did this back in July with my wife’s MBP and it’s been flawless. I wrote about it on ArsTechnica and was told it was a bad idea.
    I set it up as a Fusion drive and it’s worked perfectly. I even have a functioning recovery partition, I wonder if the Pear software does that?

    • seanadb - 8 years ago

      When you say you did this with your wife’s MBP, how did you do it? You didn’t use TarDisk’s product; was it just a matter of using Disk Utility? (as much detail as you can provide would be great; I’ve been thinking of doing this for my wife’s older iMac). Cheers!

    • viciosodiego - 8 years ago

      Can you show me how to?

    • These kind of products? Just because you had an odd issue with an entirely different card and vendor is no reason to spread FUD about TarDisk.

  5. Looks great – I just think it’s priced too high.

    • Ryan Kelly - 8 years ago

      I think it’s reasonably priced, You get what you pay for, I got mine last week and it has been working perfectly.

  6. standardpull - 8 years ago

    A single 500 GB SSD, replacing the stock HDD, would seem to offer higher reliability, higher performance, and lower complexity than this solution.

    Reliability: a spinning HDD and SD slot device would generally have lower combined reliability than an SSD. The loss of either device would result in the loss of data.

    Performance: An SSD over SATA would have higher performance than an HDD over SATA. An SD card generally would have lower performance over an SSD. Combined, one could expect lower performance with this solution.

    Complexity: the management of a single file system stored on two physical devices a using special configuration or drivers is more complex than using the built in file system in a stock configuration mode.

  7. modeyabsolom - 8 years ago

    These products are very pricey! Especially the 256GB version.

  8. Josh Lambert - 8 years ago

    Very pricey. Better to buy a used OEM apple SSD in 512GB. Hopefully soon, OWC will get some drives for the newer Macs.

  9. Dave Cheng - 8 years ago

    I have a StorEDGE myself, no problem so far, occasionally, I will need to reinsert the card because I didn’t “eject it” properly due to dead battery or OSX decides to tell me so. A simple reinsert will fix it and I will be able to use it again.

    My concern with this SD based fusion drive is, what if you are in a middle of something and somehow it gets ejected improperly, would the data be more likely to be corrupted?

  10. jonathanjk - 8 years ago

    It can’t double the space on my Macbook judging by their products. Was expecting a 768GB drive at least.

  11. missbeccas - 8 years ago

    it kills stand-by time

  12. Mike Mihalik (@M2inOR) - 8 years ago

    People may be in for a surprise. Few understand that these SD cards have no bad cell management. Almost all SD cards are useful for perhaps a few thousand read/write cycles at most. Creating a Fusion drive using an SD card (likely method) could result in too many read/write cycles to the SD portion.

    True SSD cards have memory management for wear leveling. SD cards do not.

  13. neurotrophic - 8 years ago

    This thing looks awesome, I have been dealing with a low HD in my MacBook Air for a few months now. Ordered one from their website and I can’t wait for it to come. Does anyone know what the Pear installation is like?

  14. do you know what this means? if this product becomes popular, Apple with not continue support for SSD cards in the next laptop and iMac upgrades :(

  15. Martin Kaninsky - 8 years ago

    Will this be faster than your ssd? I mean i have 2012 retina macbook. Will the fusion drive help the performance? Also do you know if this type of device is good for booting from? Like boot windows with it? Thank you

  16. cdavenport4 - 8 years ago

    Ah… did anyone see the similarity of the Name (Tardis and Tardisk) and the the fact it looks like the pervious logo for Doctor Who? https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a1/70/3c/a1703cae9b7946e1f28a333b542e6c11.jpg

  17. neurotrophic - 8 years ago

    Seems pretty easy to install https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmyxhZ4wf-E

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.