Painfully slow transfer speeds with built-in SD card reader on M1 MacBook Pro

27 gb of CR2 from my SD (sandisk 64 gb speed 120 m/s )card are now beeing transfer via sd card reader to a folder on my macbook pro m3 14 with a speed incredible .....****** slow! it's been 30 minutes now , only 7 GB data transfered! way to go APPLE!

You should put this fact in your advertising for selling macbookpros! how productiv can be this? You are beautiful like a blond with no brain! i need time to "work" these photos , not to only transfer them!

The latest version of macOS is now 13.5.

I have seen a few other users report issues with the built-in SD card reader. They also had better performance when using an external SD card reader. I think you have already found the best solution.

I guess you can try disconnecting all external devices in case one of them is causing a problem.

You can also try booting into Safe Mode to see if the transfer rates improve while running in Safe Mode. Sometimes just rebooting a computer can resolve issues.

You can try providing Apple with product feedback (Apple won't respond)...who know if or when they may do anything about it even if enough people report the issue:

Product Feedback - Apple

emmerlee Said:

"I am a wedding photographer and shoot RAW. Between my photos and the second photographer I can average anywhere from 250gb to 350gb. My new Macbook Pro is almost unusable because the transfer times are so slow. Does anyone have a solution for this?"

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Getting a Fast Connection:

A. Boot in Safe Mode:

In Safe Mode, login items do not load at log in, and only necessary processes are used. If this works, then something may be taking up your processes. See here: Start Up your Mac in Safe Mode - Apple Support

B. How Old is the Mac?:

A 2023 Mac would have USB3.1. So, for a USB 2.0 drive, you would not be able to use the most recent read/write capability.

Our opinion on SD cards use is it's iffy, easy to misplace, unreliable and sloooooow.

My wife suggested we get a portable SSD of transferring data, which we did, leaving the cards for use in cameras only.

SD card Said:

"Painfully slow transfer speeds with built-in SD card reader on M1 MacBook Pro: [...]The result is painfully slow, approximately 30-45 seconds for each 60MB photo. I've got 900 photos to transfer tonight.[...]"

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Photos:

No so certain as to where you got a 60MB photo. The typical largest size is 4MB (based of of high-pixelation, lots of colors, and large-dimentioes). So, 900 40MB photos is about 36000MB (or 36GB). So, you seems to haps plenty of space.

I have the same problem (copying from SD card to external SSD via the internal SD card reader). I tried all USB ports and several cords, but they all had the same speed. I also realised it goes a lot faster to first copy to the internal drive and then to the external SSD. So the problem seems to be when the data has to flow directly from the SD card reader to the SSD connected via USB. I hade almost no space left on my internal drive, so a theory is that the slow transfer speed is due to the computer not being able to use the internal SSD as a buffer and having to bypass it completely.

niklas_ wrote:

I have the same problem (copying from SD card to external SSD via the internal SD card reader). I tried all USB ports and several cords, but they all had the same speed. I also realised it goes a lot faster to first copy to the internal drive and then to the external SSD. So the problem seems to be when the data has to flow directly from the SD card reader to the SSD connected via USB. I hade almost no space left on my internal drive, so a theory is that the slow transfer speed is due to the computer not being able to use the internal SSD as a buffer and having to bypass it completely.

Try connecting the USB drive to the other side of the laptop from the SD card slot since the two ports on the same side of the laptop may be sharing resources which could lower the performance of such a transfer. Also, make sure to connect the USB drive directly to the laptop in case an adapter, dock, or hub is causing a problem when another USB device such as the SD Card slot is also being used simultaneously (I believe the internal SD Card slot is considered a USB device).

I did try connecting the USB SSD to all ports, and I used no adapter. I wish I could try it with a less full internal hard drive to see if that is indeed affecting the performance but it’s a bit of a project to clear the drive. Guess I have to do it at some point though.

not in Windows they aren't. I can transfer 220 GB of photos from an SD card to a windows machine in 40 minutes or less. When I try to transfer 'only' 110 GB of photos from the SD card (the latest and greatest and fastest model) to a folder on my MACBOOK PRO machine, it takes over 5 hours. wtf?

Are you transferring it directly to your mac?

If you were transferring to an external SSD, my solution was using a new USB-C cable. I was transferring from the built-in card reader to an external SSD and it was disgustingly slow...I changed the USB-C cable to a better quality one and that seems to have fixed the issue.

I am a wedding photographer and shoot RAW. Between my photos and the second photographer I can average anywhere from 250gb to 350gb. My new Macbook Pro is almost unusable because the transfer times are so slow. Does anyone have a solution for this?

I also need help. I have a Mac Studio Ultra on the latest OS update. My thunderbolt and SD Card reading speeds have been extremely slow in the passed few months.

I need help.

That's normal. SD cards and flash drives are notoriously very slooooow. It's just their nature.