From what I can tell, the main downside of the TarDisk Pear is the incredibly unfortunate name. You're willing to forgive that pretty quickly, however, as soon as you see the thing in action. The disk, which is roughly the side of a camera card (well, half the size, actually) slips into a MacBook's SD slot and ups the laptop's capacity by up to 256 GB.
It kind of sounds too good to be true, really—slip it into the slot, go through the steps on the built-in software, and a couple of clicks (and around 5 minutes) later, you've effectively doubled your computer's capacity. Once in, the system merges with the hard drive to create one massive storage system, rather than a partitioned disk.
And, unlike your standard SD card, the disk lays flush with the side of the Mac, meaning it won't stick out and potentially break off. All in all, a pretty dream peripheral for $149 or $399, respectively, for the 128- and 256 GB varieties. Not exactly a steal, but a heck of a lot cheaper than having Apple up your storage.
There are a few downsides that I can see—as someone who frequently uses his SD slot for its intended purpose, I would have to carry around an adapter to read cards. Also, the removal process apparently takes in the neighborhood of an hour and a half (it's also easier signing up for a club than getting out).
Still, it's a pretty tempting deal for Mac owners trying to squeeze everything they can out of those last few gigs.
