How to Upgrade Hard Drive on MacBook Air Mid-2011 by John Mueller My boss was running out of space on his Mid-2011 13-Inch MacBook Air so we decided to install OWC’s after-market 480GB SSD upgrade along with their enclosure for the old drive so you can continue to use it as an external drive. The proper way for MacBook Air expand storage is to upgrade MacBook Air SSD to a larger one. That is, you can replace MacBook Air SSD with a new and larger one especially when you want to save.
The trouble with the Apple MacBook Air is that you can run out of storage quickly once you start making home videos and taking lots of photos. The best answer is to do a MacBook Air SSD upgrade at home. Of course, you can store your media on external drives, but who likes their data scattered around? It’s much easier for regular people to handle their photos, video, and documents on one main drive — and that brings us right back to a MacBook Air SSD upgrade.
While the MacBook Air is sealed and slim, you can still open the case and upgrade the solid-state flash storage (basically, a newer type of “hard drive”) with a larger solid-state drive (SSD). Is it easy? Yes and no. If you’re moderately handy — or have a friend who is — you can likely perform a MacBook Air SSD upgrade at home. Here’s how:
Finding the right solid-state flash storage module to fit your MacBook Air is a little harder than finding a new SSD drive for an older MacBook Pro. The 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Airs from different years each require different specs, so you need to figure out which MacBook Air you have. Apple has a handy page that will help you identify your MacBook Air model number, along with the description, which is what you need to know when it comes time to buy your upgrade drive. The description is something like “13-inch, Mid 2012” or “11-inch, Late 2010.”
Basically, you have two good choices of manufacturers now, OWC and Transcend. You can buy direct from OWC or get Transcend’s kits from Amazon. Best windows 10 audio editing software.
Transcend’s new JetDrive 500 and 520 MacBook Air SSD upgrade kits come with the tools you need, including a handy enclosure for your old drive.
OWC’s Aura Pro + Envoy is basically a kit that includes the SSD storage module, the correct Pentalobe and Torx screwdrivers, and a cable and case to help transfer your data to the new MacBook Air SSD upgrade drive. OWC has product pages set up for each MacBook model year and offers MacBook Air SSD upgrade installation videos to help you install your new drive: OWC Aura Pro + Envoy for:
Transcend’s kits also include the SSD, screwdrivers, and case. Transcend’s JetDrive 500 in 240GB or 480GB fits:
Transcend’s JetDrive 520 in 240GB, 480GB, or a whopping 960GB fits:
As of right now, OWC is the only manufacturer who has created a Mid 2013, 2014, or 2015 MacBook Air SSD upgrade option in the form of a traditional internal solid-state drive. This was a pretty cool feat of engineering, and it means that you can upgrade up to 1 TB of storage in your MacBook Air. If you’re backing up your iPhone 7 . . . or a family of iPhones, having more onboard storage on your MacBook Air is a great way to manage all this.
Note:What if you don’t want to open your MacBook Air case? How to clean up your macbook air.
The TarDisk Pear system is a tiny drive that you can combine with your built-in drive to create a single “fused” storage system on your MacBook Air or Pro.
Freeslots video poker. Don’t despair, you have two cool options, both of which are tiny flash-based drives in the shape of camera memory cards. They plug into the SDXC card slot on your 13-inch MacBook Air.
For all intents and purposes, the Transcend JetDrive Liteacts like a little USB thumb drive — but it fits flush into the SDXC card slot instead and appears on your Mac like an external drive that is always on, always available. It appears as a separate storage option to your Mac’s operating system. Quite handy.
The TarDisk Pear system, on the other hand, also uses the SDXC card slot but it combines with your built-in storage to form a single “fused” drive. If you want a near-permanent — but easy storage solution for your MacBook Air — the TarDisk Pear system might be your best bet.
Moving on, How to resize pdf on mac. back to the traditional SSD replacement process. . . .
While I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner, which is a third-party app that you can use to create one-off clones of your drives (with the free trial period) or manage ongoing backups, you can also use Apple’s Time Machine, or boot into recovery mode and use Apple’s built-in Disk Utility to get the job done — the latter of which, by the way, is the method that Transcend recommends. Note: These MacBook Air SSD drives are exposed modules and are a bit more fragile than your average enclosed hard drive. Consequently, you should have a backup of your important data before you get to the point where you open the case and start handling the drives. There are a lot of ways you can back up your data, but the easiest way is to buy an external hard drive and use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone your entire drive as a bootable backup to your external drive. Alternately, you can simply copy over your important photos, videos, and documents. (The key benefit of an external drive is that you can store it somewhere that is not your home — if you face a flood or fire, your important family photos will be safe.)
OWC provides video guides on its website, but the Transcend video below also shows you the basic MacBook Air SSD upgrade process, and it is fast and clear, despite the jaunty soundtrack:
The data cloning process might take a couple of hours, but the actual MacBook Air SSD upgrade installation should take less than 30 minutes, even for newbies. Just make sure that you’re in a relatively stable and clean environment, and if you’re really worried about frying your system with static electricity, consider buying an anti-static mat. Personally, I’ve never bothered. Call me reckless and proceed at your own risk. Last of all, go slow. Place the tiny little screws in a bowl so they don’t roll off your desk and get lost in your carpet. What’s Next? Enjoy your new storage capacity and congratulate yourself on extending the life of your MacBook Air. Plus, now you have a handy external portable hard drive.
My boss was running out of space on his Mid-2011 13-Inch MacBook Air so we decided to install OWC’s after-market 480GB SSD upgrade along with their enclosure for the old drive so you can continue to use it as an external drive. Here’s how to upgrade yours as well.
I recommend OWC and have purchased a lot of after-market Apple hardware from them. Here is a link for the part we purchased. It comes with the tools you’ll need (a proprietary pentalobular screwdriver and Torx head screwdriver) as well as the external case for mounting the old drive.
| Other World Computing Envoy Portable, Bus-powered USB 3.0 storage for the old MacBook Air SSD |
Even though you are not going to be deleting your old data I would still recommend having a backup before you complete such an upgrade. If you are not backing up make sure to buy an external drive and either use the free Apple Time Machine built into OS X or buy something like Carbon Copy Cloner. I use both.
You definitely wouldn’t want the computer running when you did this upgrade.
You cannot hardly beat their tutorials and I always print out a copy of them for using to keep all the different sized screws straight–this is the most helpful tip I can offer on this repair. Here is a link for the tutorial I used for this repair.
Place the MacBook Air upside down on a non-abrasive surface and remove the 10 screws from the bottom of the case. These screws have pentalobular heads on them so do not try to unscrew them with a phillips or torx. The middle two top screws (that bridge the vent) are longer than the others so make sure to keep them straight.
| Mid-2011 MacBook Air case screw locations |
I tape the screws on the printout exactly where they came from so there’s no question what to do when I reassemble:
| My iFixit pdf printed out to tape the screws on their location of the picture |
Refer to the ifixit.com picture above to see where to put your fingernails. Below you can see the SSD outlined in red (excuse my blurry picture, it does the trick though):
| Look how much space the 4 batteries take up! |
I never wear an anti-static wristband but you do want to be careful not to discharge the static on your body onto the electronics of your computer. Once you’ve opened the cover make sure to touch the metal body of the computer to ensure there is not a static charge built up on your body.
To below and left of the SSD there is a battery connector with a clear tab below it. Pull the clear plastic tab straight down. Do not lift up or you could pull the connector off the motherboard. The battery wires will bend to allow you to pull the connector out. You can lay the male end of the battery connector on top of the female slot on the motherboard.
| Pull the clear plastic battery connector tab straight down (parallel with the surface of the motherboard) to disconnect |
| Location of the single T5 torx screw securing the MacBook Air SSD |
You may need to very slightly lift the right end of the SSD up to be able to grab it but do this as little as possible. Pull the SSD to the right straight out of its socket. You can rock it up and down slightly from the right end to get it to come out.
This is what you get in the box (minus the mess on my desk!):
| Pardon my mess–here’s what came in the box. |
One thing to note is that there are two different length screws supplied with this OWC case and the longer one goes on the thick end. The case is wedge shaped to be similar with the wedge shape of the MacBook Air
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