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Second try then A "lane" is two differential pairs, one for transmit and one for receive. A differential pair is two wires used to transmit one bit at a time, using differential signalling (in which 1 is sent by making one wire a higher voltage than the other, and 0 is sent by reversing that polarity). USB type C has two "superspeed" lanes. Here's ASCII art of how the eight wires of these two lanes are laid out in a type-C connector: Tx1+ Tx1- Rx2- Rx2+ ======================================= Rx1+ Rx1- Tx2- Tx2+ Notice the rotational symmetry? If you rotate 180 degrees, Tx1+/- on the cable will be connected to Tx2+/- on the host, and so forth. The role of who's transmitting and who's receiving on a given differential pair never changes, but the lanes are swapped. The host port is required to recognize this reversal, and un-swap the lanes using internal electronic switching. This still applies even when only one lane is in use. That can happen two ways, type-A to type-C conversion or a type-C device that only uses one lane (which is a fully legal thing).
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Dec 12, 2025 13:30
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What if it was balls on the edge of a cliff
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Dec 12, 2025 13:44
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I recently replaced my computer (thanks to this thread for advice) and I'm looking for a replacement for the SD card drive that my old one had. By which I mean, what would be a good replacement that is NOT an SD card since my new computer doesn't have one? (It's an M4 MacBook Air.) On my previous computer, I put a Transcend SD card into the slot for it and left it in permanently for all of the years I used the computer. I never had any issues with it, and it meant I essentially had two hard drives. I really only used the SD card to store all my music, but it was nice because it took up no external space (it didn't stick out) and it just kind of worked. I was thinking of maybe just using a small USB C stick, but I'm seeing mixed information online about whether or not it's good to leave those plugged in all the time. It seems like a USB stick only should be suffering wear and tear when you write to it, not when you read from it, so for my use case of using it to store my music, it probably would be fine. But I've also seen people saying that USB sticks can get hot when left plugged in, and this is bad for the stick itself, and potentially for the USB C drive it's plugged into. I experimented with plugging a stick into my computer and leaving it, and it did get rather warm after being plugged in for a couple of hours. So is there a better solution?
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Dec 14, 2025 20:47
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There is not a better solution, and people are being far too afraid of a little warmth. If the USB stick isn't so hot it's painful to touch, it's fine. The real trouble, imo, is mechanical. USB-C is too small a port to support ultra low profile drives, so whatever you get is going to have to stick out uncomfortably far if you want to leave it plugged in all the time. When you move the Mac around, put it in a sleeve or notebook bag, and so forth, unless you're incredibly vigilant it's going to hit and snag on things, putting a lot of stress on the connectors.
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Dec 14, 2025 21:30
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Yeah those little usb stub drives back in the A days were definitely preferable to the current C drives for leaving attached. If the laptop is going to have internet connection all the time, I’d probably prefer connecting to a cloud drive or something I had at home rather than extra hardware these days.
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Dec 14, 2025 21:42
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OTOH, if it's hot at all, it's burning battery life.
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Dec 14, 2025 21:44
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It sounds like getting something that doesn't stick out at all might not be possible, though I had kind of resigned myself to that being the case. That's probably fine. I don't move my laptop around that much really, and I would take the stick out if I ever had to put the computer in a bag and take it somewhere. And using extra battery doesn't bother me much either since, again, I don't tote the computer around much, so I don't actually use the battery that much. I hadn't considered the option of having a drive that's connected wirelessly though. I've never done that before, but maybe that would be worth looking into. Honestly, that might be a good option for backups too since I wouldn't have to remember to periodically plug in an external drive.
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Dec 14, 2025 21:58
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Inu posted:It sounds like getting something that doesn't stick out at all might not be possible, though I had kind of resigned myself to that being the case. That's probably fine. I don't move my laptop around that much really, and I would take the stick out if I ever had to put the computer in a bag and take it somewhere. the winds whisper NAS
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Dec 14, 2025 22:15
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I've got a M4 Pro macbook. What's the best way of adding 512GB of storage? Preferably - cheap - acceptable read/write speed (doesn't have to be NVMe-fast but at least a few hundred MB/s ?) - something that doesn't have to be disconnected (I pack up my notebook often and already have three things to plug in) I considered just getting an SD card and leaving it in but they're not too cheap if you want both speed and capacity. Probably still the best option though. I also considered getting a cheap dock and leaving an external plugged into that (I only use one external monitor so it doesn't have to be TB4/5) but it seems like even if the cheap ones can handle the throughput they run into various problems like stuff disconnecting. A dock might be worth it even if it's a bit more expensive though (unplugging stuff every day is annoying)
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Dec 15, 2025 03:26
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What about something like a crucial x10 SSD (they smalllllll) with a stick on pocket on the lid. I use one and it's great. I *do* unplug it when transporting the mac technically, but just leave it in the pocket with the cord hanging out. https://a.co/d/10FfQGG
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Dec 15, 2025 05:23
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My x10 at least seems to be doing better than my x9 which was a nightmare, but I don’t hold a ton of hope for it in the long run as it seems a bunch of people have had issues with them too. Definitely a drive to ensure has a backup if there’s anything important on it. The size is very cool tho (altho kinda looks a bit silly on my Mini, the cable length doesn’t help that)
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Dec 15, 2025 05:46
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Just for fun: We had a big storm and an extended power outage yesterday/today. It turns out that a M3 MacBook "Pro" will last for 24 hours active use (screen off.) 
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Dec 15, 2025 06:47
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Picked up a base Midnight MacBook Air M4 from Best Buy after trading in my launch MBA M1 this weekend for that special them and Amazon had. Helluva machine to get for 500 bucks before tax. I never thought I’d be so happy to have MagSafe back as well. Hope to have this for another 5 years. Tahoe seems fine I suppose. The software ringlight for Facetime/webcam meetings is such a goofy thing. Also since this my first MacBook with a notch, I saw before there some apps that do dynamic island stuff. Any rec’s on that front?
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Dec 15, 2025 07:41
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EL BROMANCE posted:My x10 at least seems to be doing better than my x9 which was a nightmare, but I don’t hold a ton of hope for it in the long run as it seems a bunch of people have had issues with them too. Definitely a drive to ensure has a backup if there’s anything important on it. The size is very cool tho (altho kinda looks a bit silly on my Mini, the cable length doesn’t help that) Huh I didn't realize they had issues. It looks like it's mainly Mac-related from what I can see (and when I used it, I had it on a PC so I never had any issues.) edit: oh wait I have an X9 Pro, not an X10
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Dec 15, 2025 14:26
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If your 9 Pro isn’t exhibiting the major problem by now I’m gonna guess you’re fine at least, for me and others it would be a case of once the data is written to the drive it becomes instantly unreadable, ie video encodes I was doing wouldn’t preview, open, copy etc. RMAd it and they switched to the 10 do me.
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Dec 15, 2025 14:33
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Weird, I have a pair of x9’s and never had that issue.
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Dec 15, 2025 15:35
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Yeah not sure if they had bad batches, but a bunch of people had the exact same issue https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1fqqzwo/crucial_x9_pro_ssds_keep_getting_corrupted_on/ I think you're usually clear if you've had it a while and not had any issues at least.
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Dec 15, 2025 15:52
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8-bit Miniboss posted:Picked up a base Midnight MacBook Air M4 from Best Buy after trading in my launch MBA M1 this weekend for that special them and Amazon had. Helluva machine to get for 500 bucks before tax. I never thought I’d be so happy to have MagSafe back as well. Hope to have this for another 5 years. Welp, that was short lived. It died in the middle of the day and won’t power on, not even 24 hours have I owned it (Bathtub curve  ). Should have realized something was up when it had 0% battery out of the box when I brought it home. Back to Best Buy I go for an exchange. 
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Dec 16, 2025 01:03
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