- #OWC MEMORY FOR MACBOOK AIR INSTALL#
- #OWC MEMORY FOR MACBOOK AIR DRIVER#
- #OWC MEMORY FOR MACBOOK AIR UPGRADE#
#OWC MEMORY FOR MACBOOK AIR UPGRADE#
That wouldn’t be so bad if there was a way to upgrade the amount of internal storage, but sadly there has been no upgrade solution…until now.īack in early March, OWC made a splash by announcing the very first flash storage upgrade solution the MacBook Pro as far back as the Late-2013 product cycle, and the MacBook Air, as far back as the Mid-2013 product cycle. With only 256 GB of flash storage, space has been hard to come by since day one. The biggest bottleneck that I’ve encountered with this computer is its storage capabilities, and that’s something I’ve been trying to deal with since the day I purchased it. For example, with Final Cut Pro X, it’s not the fastest machine in the world (it lacks dedicated graphics), but it’s still plenty competent when it comes to editing and exporting 4K videos. However, I find that this machine, an i7-powered rig with 16GB of RAM, is still plenty powerful for the applications that I run on a day-to-day basis. We'll detail the process we used, noting a couple caveats along the way.As an owner of a Late 2013 MacBook Pro with Retina Display, it’s slowly beginning to show its age. It's not difficult at all, but it can be more time-consuming than one would hope. OWC told Ars that it plans to offer an external USB enclosure sometime soon, but until then, replacing the SSD means a full backup and restore to an external drive will be needed.
#OWC MEMORY FOR MACBOOK AIR INSTALL#
With standard 2.5" notebook drives, you could put the original in an external case, install the replacement, and clone the external drive to the new drive.
The main hurdle with installation was that there were no external drive cases for the special small-outline SSD modules that Apple uses in the MacBook Air. Depending on your comfort level, you should be able to do it in 15-20 minutes. The installation process for the drive itself is very straightforward: remove some screws, remove the bottom plate, take out the OEM SSD, swap in the OWC SSD, and put the bottom plate back on. Everything else is soldered directly to the logic board, including the RAM. The battery can technically be swapped out too, but so far, the only parts are available directly from Apple, which means a trip to the Genius Bar.
#OWC MEMORY FOR MACBOOK AIR DRIVER#
Installation: pentalobe driver includedĪs we said earlier, the SSD is pretty much the only user-serviceable part inside the latest MacBook Air. So we installed a 240GB Mercury Aura Pro Express that the company lent us into an 11" MacBook Air in order to see how difficult the upgrade process is, and to put the drive through its paces and see what kind of performance gains are possible with the Sandforce-based design. OWC's Mercury Aura Pro Express SSDs (say that three times fast) come in 180GB, 240GB, 360GB, and 480GB capacities. It took a few months, but long-time Mac upgrade source Other World Computing stepped up to offer three upgrade options based on fast Sandforce controllers. The SSDs have so far only been available to OEMs directly from Toshiba, despite the fact that the SSD is the only user-replaceable part in the MacBook Air.
Apple launched updated MacBook Air models in October of 2010, featuring new, compact, and (originally) proprietary form-factor solid state drives (SSDs).
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