The article doesn't provide enough specifics. For example, I have a mid-2015 15" MBP with Apple 1TB SSD and I get 2057MB WRITE & 2815MB READ. What would something like the WD Black give me for the same 1TB size?
Obviously, if I ever upgrade my SSD, it's foolish to get a 1TB. 2TB or larger would make logical sense. But again, the benchmarks are lacking! Please provide more info, AppleInsider!
Silly AI writing an article about upgrading computers with too small to function SSDs when the whole thing should have been about your computer without a too small SSD, and about whether or not you personally would see a speed bump or not. Sometimes it's like they don't even realise that their target demographic is you, right?!
Seriously, this is an article that fits great with students heading back to schools; with many of them in need of a "new" computer simply to have a functioning computer. Complaining about how it doesn't include benchmark data for the already functioning maxed out configurations from yesteryears gives of a bad feeling of being out of touch with reality; like, let the broke kids be the focus when your particular situation could be googled in like three minutes, ok?
That remains true despite the present lockdown and study from home, knowing that when the lockdowns end, you will be totting that Mac around with you again.
Toting. Totting means to sum (total) up numbers. Toting is to carry.
I apologize for not having "student" in the headline or lede, and hope you'll forgive me. Buying a used computer is a series of trade-offs: price, availability, and weighing what will have the greater longevity.
If a 2017 MacBook Air has an i5 1.7 GHz processor and 8GB of RAM and a 2015 MacBook Pro has an i5 2.5GHz with 16GB of RAM, and the hypothetical price difference is about $100 between them, it's entirely possible the student will be carrying the extra weight and size, based on the idea that more CPU and RAM will make the computer usable for the duration of the next 3 or 4 years of school. It comes down to what's available at the time.
You owe no apologies. The article was about upgrading the SSD of a MBA. It happened to be for a student - so what? It still applies if it’s not for a student and I don’t see why people are up in a tizzy over the title. Thanks for a good article!
Instead of a generic NVMe drive + adapter + defeating power management (on pre-2015 models), there are dedicated Mac SSD upgrades available from OWC (https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc) and possibly others. We've used OWC successfully on some of our older MacBook Airs.
Instead of a generic NVMe drive + adapter + defeating power management (on pre-2015 models), there are dedicated Mac SSD upgrades available from OWC (https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc) and possibly others. We've used OWC successfully on some of our older MacBook Airs.
The article doesn't provide enough specifics. For example, I have a mid-2015 15" MBP with Apple 1TB SSD and I get 2057MB WRITE & 2815MB READ. What would something like the WD Black give me for the same 1TB size?
Obviously, if I ever upgrade my SSD, it's foolish to get a 1TB. 2TB or larger would make logical sense. But again, the benchmarks are lacking! Please provide more info, AppleInsider!
Silly AI writing an article about upgrading computers with too small to function SSDs when the whole thing should have been about your computer without a too small SSD, and about whether or not you personally would see a speed bump or not. Sometimes it's like they don't even realise that their target demographic is you, right?!
Seriously, this is an article that fits great with students heading back to schools; with many of them in need of a "new" computer simply to have a functioning computer. Complaining about how it doesn't include benchmark data for the already functioning maxed out configurations from yesteryears gives of a bad feeling of being out of touch with reality; like, let the broke kids be the focus when your particular situation could be googled in like three minutes, ok?
That remains true despite the present lockdown and study from home, knowing that when the lockdowns end, you will be totting that Mac around with you again.
Toting. Totting means to sum (total) up numbers. Toting is to carry.
I apologize for not having "student" in the headline or lede, and hope you'll forgive me. Buying a used computer is a series of trade-offs: price, availability, and weighing what will have the greater longevity.
If a 2017 MacBook Air has an i5 1.7 GHz processor and 8GB of RAM and a 2015 MacBook Pro has an i5 2.5GHz with 16GB of RAM, and the hypothetical price difference is about $100 between them, it's entirely possible the student will be carrying the extra weight and size, based on the idea that more CPU and RAM will make the computer usable for the duration of the next 3 or 4 years of school. It comes down to what's available at the time.
True! But then, from what you saved by buying used, you should be able to buy another when that time comes. Unfortunately, when that time comes, none of the used MacBooks available will be upgradeable since anything newer than 2017 is all soldered together.
But then, hardware power is quickly outpacing user needs (unless you're doing video editing and such) -- so by then you may not need to upgrade in order to meet the needs of a student or casual user.
The article doesn't provide enough specifics. For example, I have a mid-2015 15" MBP with Apple 1TB SSD and I get 2057MB WRITE & 2815MB READ. What would something like the WD Black give me for the same 1TB size?
Obviously, if I ever upgrade my SSD, it's foolish to get a 1TB. 2TB or larger would make logical sense. But again, the benchmarks are lacking! Please provide more info, AppleInsider!
I suspect you would see a 500MB/s ± bump in speeds. This image is for the WD Black 1TB drive.
Thank you for very kindly providing that information! WRITE is higher than my stock 1TB Apple SSD, but READ is slower. Then again, you did say that is for a 1TB drive. Finding similar benchmarks on 2TB drives are rather elusive though even after much Googling.
By the way, your article mentions Power Management with regard to hibernation and sleep, but actual power consumption vs. battery life appears to be an even bigger deal. OWC talks about their Power Management here. There's an extensive discussion on tonymacx86 here. And in that discussion I found a link to a Kernel Extension FIX on Github. Curious if you have tried that fix or have thoughts on it.
All said, I think we're all seeking these 4 things:
1. Has more storage than what we have now. 2. Will get just as good battery life as the stock Apple SSD. 3. Won't have sleep or hibernation issues. 4. Will get the same or faster performance as compared with the stock Apple SSD for READ & WRITE
I did it with an intel 660p 1TB SSD and this sintech connector. Cheapest 1TB option at the time. Just make sure it is seated properly and screwed in with the screw sintech provides as opposed to the one that came with the MBA. I cloned an external bootable drive with CCC, then cloned back after formatting the new SSD.
Helpful article for intended audience, but it left out an important step - backing up the original drive, before taking it out, to an external disk (preferably SSD), using either Time Machine or Carbon Copy Cloner, and then restoring that backup to the new drive once it’s installed.
hi , we cant use current adapter which is already present in macbook air ?? and is it possible if can share video process how to do ? it will be really helpful
hi , we cant use current adapter which is already present in macbook air ?? and is it possible if can share video process how to do ? it will be really helpful
The MacBook Air uses a custom Apple connector that must be adapted to NVMe drives, so if you're going to use a standard drive, you need that adapter.
There is no current plan to make a video of this procedure.
hi , we cant use current adapter which is already present in macbook air ?? and is it possible if can share video process how to do ? it will be really helpful
The MacBook Air uses a custom Apple connector that must be adapted to NVMe drives, so if you're going to use a standard drive, you need that adapter.
There is no current plan to make a video of this procedure.
thanks For reply. after upgrading to 1tb is there any harm to macbook air ? for eg battery life is there any side effects?
That's good stuff! But, I took a slightly different route:
This past Christmas I bought my grandson a new, 2017 MacBook Air with 8Gb memory and a 128Gb SSD -- along with 3 years of AppleCare+ from Amazon ($650!). Shortly afterwards he demanded that he be able to run Windows which I decided to install under BootCamp, but realized the SSD was too small to support both Windows 10 and MacOS -- so I had to upgrade.
But the problem came up that, if over the next 3 years the machine needed service, a 3rd party drive would make the Apple technician's heads explode and likely void its warranty.
My solution? I bought a used 512Gb OEM (Apple) SSD on EBay. It cost a little bit more ($143 if I remember correctly), but the machine is essentially still an unmodified stock Apple machine that (hopefully) will not raise any concerns if and when it is brought in for service. (A side benefit was I didn't have to mess around with thumbdrives to reinstall the OS).
Today, my grandson starts his first day of 8th grade Cyberschool with a machine that fully meets the criteria set by his school. (They only allow Windows machines with certain minimum specifications which his MBA (which he loves!) running Windows 10 fully meets.)
A niggling point, but a few weeks ago you said your grandson didn't like using the Mac system, it confused him, and said he would only use it if Windows was installed. Of course that would irritate you considering the nice thing you were doing for him. It would irritate me too. I guess he learned to love it after all?
That's good stuff! But, I took a slightly different route:
This past Christmas I bought my grandson a new, 2017 MacBook Air with 8Gb memory and a 128Gb SSD -- along with 3 years of AppleCare+ from Amazon ($650!). Shortly afterwards he demanded that he be able to run Windows which I decided to install under BootCamp, but realized the SSD was too small to support both Windows 10 and MacOS -- so I had to upgrade.
But the problem came up that, if over the next 3 years the machine needed service, a 3rd party drive would make the Apple technician's heads explode and likely void its warranty.
My solution? I bought a used 512Gb OEM (Apple) SSD on EBay. It cost a little bit more ($143 if I remember correctly), but the machine is essentially still an unmodified stock Apple machine that (hopefully) will not raise any concerns if and when it is brought in for service. (A side benefit was I didn't have to mess around with thumbdrives to reinstall the OS).
Today, my grandson starts his first day of 8th grade Cyberschool with a machine that fully meets the criteria set by his school. (They only allow Windows machines with certain minimum specifications which his MBA (which he loves!) running Windows 10 fully meets.)
A niggling point, but a few weeks ago you said your grandson didn't like using the Mac system, it confused him, and said he would only use it if Windows was installed. Of course that would irritate you considering the nice thing you were doing for him. It would irritate me too. I guess he learned to love it after all?
No, I installed the larger drive so I could install Windows 10 under BootCamp and split the drive in half with 256Gb to each OS. Technically speaking I could have done that with the 128Gb drive but it would have left both OS's without enough usable storage (64Gb each).
And no, I wasn't angry at him. I was disappointed that he hadn't made the effort to learn how to use MacOS and his mom for supporting him. But that's how that family runs: if something doesn't please them immediately they throw it out and buy new.
In the end, it turned out for the best: They both love the machine and, he is using it for Cyberschool where the school mandated a Windows 10 machine. Had I left it as MacOS he would be using a borrowed old crappy machine from his mom or dad.
Obligatory “I did it too” post: I upgraded my late 2013 15 MBP with the WD black. I guess my machine doesn’t have the channels necessary to get past the 1300 or so read write times I am seeing. Apparently Black drives don’t matter (channels do) and I coulda saved a few bucks and gone for a slower drive.
Hopefully someone will see this: Is this, " format the new SSD drive as GUID partition scheme with macOS journaled file system. " correct? Shouldn't it be APFS?
Hi, I wrote this article.
No, format with macOS journaled, which used to be labeled HFS+ Journaled. The macOS installer will take care of converting / reformatting to APFS, you just want the drive visible to the installer as a target drive it can install on.
It's possible you may not need to format the drive at all and the installer will take care of it, but I haven't tested that. I like formatting the drive, it reassures me that it's working correctly.
Just wanted to add a note to say thanks. My 2015 MacBook Air went from 128 GB to 1 TB thanks to your article. It's so much nicer not having to worry about space, such as having to delete stuff in order to do an Xcode upgrade. I never would have upgraded it if it wasn't for your article. Thanks!!!!
Thanks for the article. Have just successfully upgraded a MacBook Air running Catalina. Took a different approach to transfer the old SSD. Bought an enclosure (USB 3.1) for the Crucial 1TB NVMe and used the Superduper! app to clone the old SSD and then installed the Crucial SSD with the Sintech adapter. All running fine.
This is very helpful for me since I'm searching for this answer for so long. Thank you appleinsider. Now is the time for me to upgrade my mid 2013 MBA.
Hello, I have an iMac 27" late 2014 5k. I recently did an internal cleaning and took the opportunity to upgrade to intel i7 4790k, 32gb of ram, ssd sata 3 Samsung 860 evo and Samsung 980 pro (with short green adapter). Unfortunately the 980 pro does not detect it for me but I do not know if it is because I did not format it before placing it or simply because it is not compatible. Has any of you tried this pci express ssd with success on iMac of this generation? a greeting
Comments
https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/Knowledgebase/Article/26/785/NVMe-SSDs-Standby-Mode-Issue
The advantage to buying an OWC drive is OWC's after-sales support. The actual problems are the same.
I should add, it isn't defeating power management. It's modifying one form of power management, standby. The rest works.
True! But then, from what you saved by buying used, you should be able to buy another when that time comes. Unfortunately, when that time comes, none of the used MacBooks available will be upgradeable since anything newer than 2017 is all soldered together.
But then, hardware power is quickly outpacing user needs (unless you're doing video editing and such) -- so by then you may not need to upgrade in order to meet the needs of a student or casual user.
Thank you for very kindly providing that information! WRITE is higher than my stock 1TB Apple SSD, but READ is slower. Then again, you did say that is for a 1TB drive. Finding similar benchmarks on 2TB drives are rather elusive though even after much Googling.
By the way, your article mentions Power Management with regard to hibernation and sleep, but actual power consumption vs. battery life appears to be an even bigger deal. OWC talks about their Power Management here. There's an extensive discussion on tonymacx86 here. And in that discussion I found a link to a Kernel Extension FIX on Github. Curious if you have tried that fix or have thoughts on it.
All said, I think we're all seeking these 4 things:
1. Has more storage than what we have now.
2. Will get just as good battery life as the stock Apple SSD.
3. Won't have sleep or hibernation issues.
4. Will get the same or faster performance as compared with the stock Apple SSD for READ & WRITE
Thanks again!
I cloned an external bootable drive with CCC, then cloned back after formatting the new SSD.
There is no current plan to make a video of this procedure.
also where is this mentioned under this complete specs guide? https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/specs/macbook-air-core-i7-1.7-13-mid-2013-specs.html
Bought an enclosure (USB 3.1) for the Crucial 1TB NVMe and used the Superduper! app to clone the old SSD and then installed the Crucial SSD with the Sintech adapter.
All running fine.
Ian