Review: Transcend JetDrive Lite 360 for Macbook Pro

Recently, my sister brought me the 250GB Transcend JetDrive from the USA for my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015). My current SSD has only 250 Gb of storage which is enough for System Applications along with my professional Software Development but I can not keep oversized File format particularly media files like Video, Images etc. Being a Cross-platform developer I also need to switch to multiple platforms to verify my development on a different platform, for that, I also need to keep Windows and Linux Virtual machines set up on my machine. A single VM requires at least 50 GB so I can not afford it with limited 250 Gb from internal SSD.

I needed to expand my disk Capacity at any cost, My Macbook pro model does not officially support some way to extend the disk capacity so I have to decide b/w external SSD and Transcend JetDrive. I choose Transcend JetDrive because of its small, compact, hidden, and always available or attached media disk Nature.

JetDrive Lite 360 won’t stick out like a normal memory card or external SSDs(Photo Credit Amazon.com)

I know its Read/Write speed nowhere close to the SSD but Transcend claiming it be 90 & 60 MB/s for reading and writing, which is close to 5400 RPM HDD. I know in the real scenario, I will be getting only 60% of what they are claiming, but I am fine with that and below is the real speed I am getting on my device, benchmarked through Blackmagic Disk Speed Test. This is like 90% of what Transcend is claiming. It is good enough for most of the media files.

Speed test benchmarked through BlackMagic Disk speed test

Installations Problem

I was so excited when I get hands on it, I put it directly in the Memory card Slot available in my MacBook pro. I open finder app to see it in file explorer but I did not find it so, I restart my system to make it detectable by the system.

Here is the first problem I faced, My system giving me MacOs boot tone after every few seconds continuously without showing any start-up screen or loading bar, so my system was not able to boot up, I pressed the start button for hard shutdown, waited for few seconds and started it again, now it works like expected and system also working like normal, I have also copied few media files in the card but after few minutes of usage, my system start showing complete black screen although songs were playing normally in the background.

I made the hard shut-down and restarted it, again after few minutes I faced this problem for like 5–6 time finally, I removed the card and started my system it is working normally, a sign of relief but with a disappointment of the card did not work. After 20 minutes of usage, it again starts showing a black screen and it was really a disappointment.

I searched the internet for the specific driver I need to install to make it work, I found there is a jet drive-Toolbox software provided by Transcend, I installed it and also enabled the power save mode setting assuming it will not put the system in sleep mode to avoid black screen, still, I was facing the same issue.

After researching a lot and contacting customer care, I found I need to clear the NVRAM, space which holds booting information like drive to boot, a system resolution to pick, sound to play during bootup etc.

Steps to clear the NVRAM on MacBook pro

1. Turn off the Mac
2. Next, reboot the Mac again and this time hold down Command+Option+P+R keys concurrently for about 20 seconds, this resets the NVRAM

After Clearing NVRAM, it did well but again I faced the black screen issue after 1–2 hours of usage, I cleared the NVRAM multiple times both with Card and Without the card, but I faced this issues multiple times.

At the time of installation, I was on macOS V10.14.2, Update to 10.14.6 was pending at the time of card installation, in hope of fixing this issue on latest OS, I have also updated to the latest version, even after the update I have faced the similar problem

Finally, I start using the card with the black-screen problem because now this is less consistent and I was clearing NVRAM on each restart or system start. After a few days, it is working normally and I have never faced this problem from last 2–3 months so, not sure what could be the cause at my end. For you, I would recommend installing the JetDrive Toolbox first before inserting the card in your system.

Conclusion

After 4 months of usage, I will rate it 4 stars out of 5, I deduct one star only because of the black-screen problem I faced, I have also installed the Virtual box based Windows and Ubuntu OS on this card and they are working like charm without any major performance issue, obviously, these VMs are not my primary development machine but giving good performance required for cross-platform verification only.

Overall - Rating : ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Performance : ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Installation: ⭐ ⭐

Pricing: 💵 💵 💵 💵