Upgrade Gen 2 Macbook Air to SSD?
Does anyone know if it will be possible to upgrade the new Air from the Serial ATA Drive to a solid state drive in the future?
Through Apple... highly unlikely.
I've never seen a program offered by Apple that allows you, after owning one of their machines, pay a difference or "upgrade" fee to get something different replaced into your machine.
Now, through an Apple Authorized Service Provider, if you wish to pay for the approved drive and associated installation costs, then I don't see why not. There's probably some gray on what AppleCare covers and doesn't cover and that would be a question best directed at them.
As far as the machine's capabilities go... absolutely. I personally put a SSD (64GB) in my 1.6GHz 1st rev and it was a very straight forward install. From what I've seen on the new models, the process is nearly identical.
Similar Messages
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Can I upgrade my macbook air's SSD?
I have heard that people have successfully upgraded their MacBook AIr's SSD to a larger capacity. I want to know if its true? If so, can I do it myself or I have to ask technician to help?
I currently have the MacBook Air 13'' 128 G SSD. I'm very satisfied with the blazing speed of SSD. However, I'm a music maker and a photographer. I realized I need more space for putting BIG SOFTWARES such as LOGIC PRO (with upgraded add-on total 50G), Aperture, etc... Apparently, the current 128G SSD cannot satisfy my need.
I DO NOT want to install the software onto my external hard drive because I cannot bring the external hard drive everywhere. So, if any of you can help, please leave opinions.
Thanks!Upgrading a SSD is 99% of the time a bad idea, not only due to costs, but primarily because people do it for the WRONG reasons.
see here:
Your Solid State Drive and having enough space inside your Macbook Air & Pro
Solid State Drive usage premise, or the “more space / upgrade SSD” question
There have been questions posed and positions taken by many people who are trying to use their Macbook Air or Pro’s solid state drive (SSD) as a mass media storage device, for either pictures, videos, massive music collections or all three combined; but this should not be the working premise of a ‘limited’ SSD and its use.
In which, it’s the case of those users with either 128GB, 256GB, or even 512GB of internal SSD space, that have or are running “out of space”, that questions are raised. The immediate premise of some users can sometimes be “(how to / if) upgrading my SSD” when in fact in nearly all instances another approach is the logical and sensible one that needs to be looked into and exercised.
Any Macbook containing a SSD should be idealized as a ‘working platform’ notebook containing all your applications, documents, and weekly or bi-weekly necessary files. All collections of media files such as pictures, music, and videos, unless directly needed should be kept off the notebook and on an external hard drive or likewise. While the ‘working platform’ premise is also the case with larger internal conventional hard drives of 1TB+, its implementation isn't as critical except in terms of data protection.
Realistically, you should at most coordinate roughly 20 to 25% of your total SSD space to all audio-video personal use media (picture / music / video collections), leaving the remaining amount on an external HD.
Nobody should consider any notebook a data storage device at any time under any circumstance, rather a data creation, sending, and manipulation device; and in the case of a SSD, this is more important for purposes of having sufficient working space on the SSD and reducing SSD ‘bloat’ in which cases someone is wrongly attempting to use the SSD space as a large media storage nexus.
The rare exception to the collective usage and premise of SSD use in which a much larger SSD is truly needed are for those in video and photography professions that require both the extremely fast speeds of the SSD and the onboard storage for large and or many video and photography files. However this also falls under the premise of a ‘working platform’ for such peoples rather than the intent of many who are using the SSD as passive and static data storage for media files very infrequently needed or accessed.
All on-notebook data collections should be logically approached as to necessity, and evaluated as to whether it is active or passive data that likely doesn’t need to be on the notebook, allocations of space-percentages to as-needed work and use, apportioning space for your entertainment media, and questioning whether it should it be on the notebook for more than short-term consumption.
Considerations should be made in the mind of any user in differentiating the necessary system data (System hub) comprising the Mac OSX, applications, necessary documents that both must and should be on your internal SSD, and that of the users personal data (Data hub) comprising created files, pictures, music, videos, PDF files, data created or being created and otherwise, that likely unless being used soon or often should be parked on an external hard drive for consumption, or temporarily loading onto the internal SSD.
You both can and should purchase whichever SSD size you need or see fit, but even in the case of the largest of SSD, unless use-considerations are made, and SSD spaces are allocated as should be the case indicated above, one can easily and immediately run into this quandary of “needing more internal SSD space”, in which instance a different approach in usage must then be implemented.
However it is almost always the case, that such large media files are wanted to be stored internally rather than actually needed, in which case the external HD is both prudent as well as necessary. Additionally costs per MB are infinitely less on an external HD than an internal SSD in any consideration of data expansion needs.
A Professional Example
In the case of a Macbook Air or Macbook Pro Retina with ‘limited’ storage on the SSD, this distinction becomes more important in that in an ever rapidly increasing file-size world, you keep vital large media files, pics, video, PDF collections, music off your SSD and archived on external storage, for sake of the necessary room for your system to have free space to operate, store future applications and general workspace.
You should also never be put in the position of considering “deleting things” on your Macbook SSD in order to ‘make space’. This is especially what your external HD is for.
Professionals who create and import very large amounts of data have almost no change in the available space on their notebooks internal SSD because they are constantly archiving data to arrays of external or networked HD.
Or in the case of the consumer this means you keep folders for large imported or created data and you ritually offload and archive this data for safekeeping, not only to safeguard the data in case your Macbook has a SSD crash, or gets stolen, but importantly in keeping the ‘breathing room’ open for your notebook to operate, expand, create files, add applications, for your APPS to create temp files, and for general operation.
Slim USB3 1TB external hard drive
External Hard Drives
External hard drives are both extremely cheap and regardless of the size of your internal SSD (or even internal hard drive if the case), you need an external hard drive with your SSD equipped Macbook for several reasons:
1. Data backup and protection.
2. Redundancy for important data.
3. Necessitated ideal space for large media files for collections of pictures, videos, and music etc.
While ever changing in price, typical portable 2.5” external hard drives in USB3 run roughly $65 for 1TB or $120 for 2TB small portable USB3 hard drives. Such drives range in thickness between 5mm and 15mm, with recent improvements in storage of 500GB drives in 5mm profiles.
There is almost no premise in which a small 12mm thick 1 Terabyte USB hard drive cannot be taken along with any Macbook as an external large storage extension inside any Macbook carry case or pouch. Typically such external HD profiles are not much bigger than a deck of cards.
External hard drives are a foregone necessity for purchase with any Macbook for at the very least Time Machine backups, data redundancies, and ideally for large media storage. -
Is there a way to upgrade my MacBook Air 2012 to a 512Gb SSD?
Is there a way to upgrade my MacBook Air 2012 to a 512Gb SSD?
I have a SSD 128GB and am looking for an aftermarket upgrade.. is this possible?
CheersCheck Other World Computing website.
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Is it possible to upgrade my macbook air 13" from 1.86 GHz 128 gb flash and 2GB memory to the 2.13 GHz 256 and 4GB memory, how much would it cost?
About the only thing that "might" be able to do is upgrade the SSD. OWC sells SSD upgrades for that unit. You would have to contact Apple though to verify that no warranty issues would apply when making the upgrade.
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After upgrading my Macbook Air to OS Yosemite it doesn't recognise the 3G USB modem which was working previously. Any ideas?
Hi ..
Reset the PRAM > About NVRAM and PRAM
Those instructions are for Mavericks but will work on Yosemite as well.
Then try the USB modem. -
Installation hangs - OSX upgrade on MacBook Air
I am attempting to upgrade OSX on my MacBook Air. The installation hangs at "Time remaining: Less than a minute" and eventually cycles off. The error log indicates "missing CoreServices." This has been going on for > 24 hours. Any advice?
Tried to upgrade a Macbook Air with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard to Mavericks from the Apple store. Nothing seemed to happen when clicking on the dowload button and the request APPEARED to hang. The download button changed to a light grey for a few seconds, then came back as a clickable download button. There was no progress bar in the downloads section. This problem is known to Apple but was not solved as of November 1, 2014.
In fact, the upgrade download button did trigger the download. The only indication one gets is in the dock, where the OS X icon will show only "Download... ". There is a minuscule progress bar under the icon and it will take 30 minutes or so before progress starts to show in blue!
If you use an internet wire connection with a router (without other computers connected), rapidly blinking lights on the router will confirm high traffic to the MacBook Air.
The complete download took over 3 hours, via the USB/ethernet port. I also made sure the computer had power supplied by the wall charger. For some reason, the download caused the light on the magnetic plug of the charger cable not to show red or green, and the battery remaining time was not operational on the computer screen.
Installation took more than double the time shown as remaining. You just have to be patient.
After rebooting, the fan was constantly on and the battery remaining time was still not functional on the header bar. It took about an hour for Spotlight to re-index the computer.
All upgrade activities completed, after restarting the computer, the fan was running loudly and the battery remaining time was not working.
I tried the following as recommended for a similar problem reported after installation of Mountain Lion. By pressing Control-Shift-Option and the power button all at once for a second, the computer switched off. Pressing the power button to restart the computer showed everything was back to normal: no fan noise, and the battery remaining time percentage works again. Plugging in the charger also brought again the red charging light. -
Ive bought Apple TV and upgrade my macbook air Os X ver 10.8.2 but i could not see the airplay on the top menu bar . please help! thank you.
The ability to use AirPlay is BOTH an OS requirement(Mountain Lion) AND has hardware requirements. You need to check and see if your 2010 Air will support Airplay.
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Will RAM upgrade on Macbook Air result in a bottleneck?
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Will RAM upgrade on Macbook Air result in a bottleneck?
Hi I am planning to buy a Macbook Air with the base configuration, but was giving the RAM some thought. I was thinking of upgrading it from 4 GB 1600 MHz LPDDR3 SDRAM to 8 GB. With the student discount the upgrade will cost me an additional $90. I will be going to uni for life sci and will be be using it for work assignments, music, and maybe some small-time gaming. I currently don't really game much but maybe sometime in the future I may decide to play games such as LoL or Warcraft maybe? What I was wondering was that is it actually necessary to upgrade the RAM to be able to play these types of games without lag? I am fine with a little bit of low fps, as long as it isn't to noticable and stil fairly smooth. Maybe with like safari with music and a word processor and the game open, would the MBA be able to handle it effectively? Also, would the RAM upgrade be ineffective because of a "bottleneck" where the other specs limit the effectiveness of the increase in RAM? The rest of the specs are: 1.4 GHz dual-core Intel i5, Turbo Boost upto 2.7 GHz Intel HD Graphics 5000 128 GB PCle-based flash storage So overall, is it worth it? Will it make gaming significantly better, and more importantly, will 4 GB just be enough too? Thank you very much for reading that very long question! All answers will be appreciated!Did you get a reply on that site?
Are you comparing 11-inch/13-inch MacBook/Air to 13"-15" MB/Pro?
A better idea would be to get the MacBook/Pro, since it has a better
processor and a higher RAM spec capacity, when or if upgraded.
More RAM will not be a bottleneck; a slow CPU processor & too much
demand could. Including video demand, and gaming is unlikely, too.
Check the specs at the Apple Store to compare MB/Pro w/ MB/Air;
even the basic MacBook Pro 13-inch without Retina has a fair CPU
and OK specs for most things; and you may be able to still upgrade
the RAM in that basic model (also has optical drive built-in) yourself.
See everymac.com and mactracker.ca for sources of specifications.
Good luck & happy computing! -
I recently upgraded my Macbook Air to the mighty "Mountain Lion" and now I cannot seem to find my "notes", regardless of the countless answers given to people with questions similar to me.
Surely Apple wouldn’t make you lose all your important information-or they would be "bad apples".
If someone has a solution, please please please help me find my lovely notes! (Step by step would be most helpful). Cyber high fives and Smiles will be rewarded graciously.I recently upgraded my Macbook Air to the mighty "Mountain Lion" and now I cannot seem to find my "notes", regardless of the countless answers given to people with questions similar to me.
Surely Apple wouldn’t make you lose all your important information-or they would be "bad apples".
If someone has a solution, please please please help me find my lovely notes! (Step by step would be most helpful). Cyber high fives and Smiles will be rewarded graciously. -
IF I upgrade my Macbook Air to OS X Mavericks ,Will I be able to add Windows 8?
Macbook Air If I upgrade my Macbook Air to OS Mavericks ,Will I be able to Add Windows 8?
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht5634
If you have the mid 2011 or newer, you should be able to run Windows 8 -
Has anyone upgraded your MacBook Air SSD? Is it possible?
Just out of curiosity, Can you upgrade your SSD? Have any of you upgraded your SSD in your Mid 2012 MacBook Air? If so, what did you use and how much can the 2012 Air SSD take?
THANKSThis is what I found below on the OWC site. My Macbook Air is 5,2 and it says that it is compatible. I checked the video and looks pretty straight forward. I am just looking for what people's experiences were and what the outcome was... Has anyone upgraded their SSD to 1TB? Good or bad idea?
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MacBook Air 2013 SSD capacity?
Hi all,
I just received my new MacBook Air 13" w/8gb. I was a bit confused when the total size of the Macintosh HD is reported as approx 121gb. My 2009 MacBook Pro was upgraded to a 128gb SSD (OCZ Vertex 4, IIRC) and the system reports it as a full 128gb.
I've read the support article here http://support.apple.com/kb/ts2419. I understand for a few releases of Mac OS they're now reporting the GB size in 1000-byte segments, rather than 1024-bytes. This still wouldn't explain it fully as I'd expect a 128gb drive to appear as ~119gb with 1024 byte units, not 121gb.
Is it expected behaviour that it displays a smaller amount of storage on the SSD? Why didn't the third-party SSD do this?Normal, ....Yes, 120+/- gig Capacity,...
121/120 Free + 6+ gigs plus of OSX files, Applications , drivers,......and dont forget the recovery
Yes, your new in box should show 120 +/- capacity
Here is a picture of my Air in disk utility, showing 87.9 GIg available.., of which Ive already thrown 33gigs of my own APPS and personal files onto the SSD, on top of the resident OSX files, drivers, resident APPs, ...and the recovery.
33my own stuff + 7gig +/- resident already in place new out of box + 88gig available (my Air) = 128Gig -
How do I upgrade my MacBook Air with the same IOS as my iMac without paying twice for it?
Hello! I have a question concerning IOS 7 upgrade for my MacBook Air which I have already on my iMac. Know it must be possible without paying twice for it, but I have forgotten how? Can anyone help?
iOS is the operating system for iPhones, iPads, etc.
Mac OS is the operating system for Mac computers.
Which version of Mac OS are you running on your iMac? (You're not running iOS6 on it.)
If you purchased that OS from the app store, then you can download it to as many computers as you own or control (including your Macbook Air). However, if your iMac came preinstalled with the current OS, then the license is only good for that computer and you must buy it for any other computer. -
Hello
I recently purchased a Macbook Air with 1.7 Ghz Intel Core i5 4 gb Ram 11" with 128 Gb storage.
All is well but I would like to increase the storage in my Mac, to the maximum possible 512, 1 tb what ever possible.
I am in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia right now. No Apple Stores exist here at the moment. But I have noticed several authorized resellers.
Kindly guide me if, first of all this is possible or not, if yes then how can I go about doing this being in the country (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia) that I am.
I also want to purchase an iMac, but the local shops don't seem to have stock and would like to inquire if I could order it online and have it delivered to my home/office here.
Thank you for your time.
AbdullahYou should go back to your Apple Reatiler Store since it is likely under warranty.
If'its not under warranty there e are a number of sites... here is one.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Aura_Pro_Air_2011
Personally I would sell the 128 and buy the one you need.
Cheers -
Can I upgrade my MacBook Air 10.6.8 to Yosemite 10.10 safely and how do I do it?
My MacBook Air is at 10.6.8 and I would like to upgrade the OS to Yosemite 10.10.1. How can I accomplish this and is it safe to do?
Back up your data, check your applications for compatibility, and download Yosemite from the Mac App Store.
It isn’t possible to tell if you’ll have a problem in advance.
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