If there's one common complaint about Apple laptops, it's that the base configurations have a relatively small 128GB or 256GB of flash storage. That's where the TarDisk Pear ($399 for 256GB) comes in. The Pear is a supplemental storage device for Mac laptops that resembles a shorter, metal version of an SD card, and slips into the SD card slot in your MacBook. While you can also get extra storage by plugging a USB flash drive like the Editors' Choice Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3.0 (64GB)($25.78 at Amazon) or a regular SD card, the Pear($185.00 at Amazon) simplifies file management by modifying and managing the OS X system so it looks like you have one drive, not two, on your notebook. It's a unique product, and very useful if you're running out of space on your Mac laptop, but using it is an all-or-nothing proposition.
Design and Features
The Pear is a single piece of aluminum. It's the same shape and size as a standard SD card, albeit a few millimeters shorter. That means that once you insert it into your MacBook's SD card slot, it will be completely hidden. There's a little groove in the body, so you can remove the drive with your fingernail or the included removal tool that's shaped like a guitar pick. (Tardisk warns that using a metal implement, like a butter knife, could damage the delicate electronics inside.) The card is easy to remove, but you need to keep it in place while your MacBook is powered on.
There are several different models of the Pear, each one specific to a different MacBook line. Our review unit is made for the latest Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch with Retina display and has a 256GB capacity, for $399. That works out to $1.56 per gigabyte, which is expensive compared with some SD cards like the SanDisk Ultra MicroSDXC UHS-I 200GB Card($59.99 at Amazon), which costs $1.25 per gigabyte. A 128GB version of the TarDisk Pear is available for $149 ($1.16 per gigabyte). Configurations are available for the Macbook Pro 13-inch with Retina Display, the non-Retina versions of the MacBook Pro 13-inch and 15-inch, and the MacBook Air 13-inch, in 128GB or 256GB capacities for the same prices.
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Unfortunately, the Apple MacBook Air 11-inch and the 12-inch Apple MacBook aren't supported, since they don't have an SD card slot. Likewise, the Pear doesn't work with Windows or Linux PCs, including MacBooks that have Boot Camp installed. However, it will work on MacBooks with Virtual Machines (VMs) that reside completely in OS X, like Parallels Desktop and VM Fusion. You need to be running OS X Yosemite or El Capitan.
Setup
When you first plug the Pear in, it shows up as a separate 256GB drive. However, once you run the included Pear installer, it will pair the system's internal flash storage to the TarDisk device, resulting in a single, larger Macintosh HD drive. For example, our Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch testbed's system drive initially showed a capacity of 256GB, with about 230GB free. Once we inserted the Pear and ran the utility in testing, it instantly became a 512GB system drive, with about 500GB free. Imagine doing that on a system that's already 80 percent full, and you see the benefit.
The Pear works like Apple's Fusion Drive technology in that you don't have to worry about moving files manually from the PCIe-based flash storage over to the SD-based flash storage. It all happens automatically, and TarDisk claims that frequently used apps and files will reside on the faster PCIe storage (your former system drive), while seldom-used files will eventually find their way over to the slower flash storage on the Pear. (For more on how Fusion Drive technology works, read 5 Things to Know About the Apple Fusion Drive.)
The drawback to this setup is that everything is done on the OS X level, so you can't physically remove the Pear from the SD card slot unless you want to risk data loss. TarDisk claims that an accidental should be okay, as long as you quickly put it back and reboot the system. However, having the Pear installed means you can't use the SD card slot for anything else. If, for example, you want to transfer files from another SD card (like the one in your digital SLR), you have to use an external card reader, a Wi-Fi transfer, or directly connect the camera to the MacBook via a USB cable. Removing the Pear while the system is on may corrupt your files.
If you decide to stop using the TarDisk Pear permanently, you have to perform a complex procedure which involves reformatting the internal system drive, wiping out your data, and restoring your Mac from a Time Machine Backup. Once that's done, the Pear will have to be manually reconfigured to work again with the same, or another, similar MacBook Pro.
Performance
The Pear is somewhat speedy for a device with flash storage. We filled the internal flash storage on the system drive with more than 350GB of files, so we could see how fast files were being read from and written to the Pear. On our BlackMagic Disk Speed Test, the Pear showed about 77MBps read and write speeds. That's still far slower than the 1,100MBps read and write speeds we saw when the MacBook Pro's system drive was nearly empty. Thus, as long as the TarDisk drive reserves the speedy internal system drive for apps and OS X, everything should work swimmingly; but when storage fills up to around 90-percent capacity or more (i.e., approximately 460GB), the system is more likely to slow down. If you are a videographer, a digital animator, or a scientist with humungous data files (around 200GB or larger), you are better off using a speedy, Thunderbolt-equipped external solid-state drive (SSD) like the LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt (500GB SSD)( at Amazon).
Conclusion
If you find yourself running out of space on your current Apple MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, the TarDisk Pear can help extend its storage capacity. It is certainly pricey, and it renders your SD card slot unusable once you insert it. It's also not as versatile (or inexpensive) as our Editors' Choice for USB flash drives, the Kingston DataTraveler microDuo 3.0, so it's not a direct replacement for external storage. Still, the Pear is worth considering if you have all of your important data on your MacBook, and you're loathe to get rid of any of your files.
The TarDisk Pear offers an easy way to add more onboard storage to your MacBook Pro or Air. It fits neatly into your system's SD card slot and can double the available space.
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