All rights reserved.Apple has today announced a ‘ MacBook Air Flash Storage Replacement Program‘ for ALL MBA systems purchased between June 2012 and June 2013. Information on OWC MacBook Air SSD upgrades -Īll content (including text, design, photos, layout, and graphics) are copyright © 2012 Robert OToole. OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express installation videos Important links

Make sure you use a proper container or at least a strip of tape sticky side up to hold onto the tiny Pentalobe screws that secure the MBA bottom cover. All the necessary tools for the job such as Torx and Pentalobe drivers are supplied by OWC with the SSD purchase. The installation is quick and easy only taking about 15 minutes or so.

OWC Mercury Aura OS X Lion installation instructions Installing the OWC SSD Remember to format the new SSD with the disk utility before you restore the OS. There are two methods to prepare using a new SSD, I used two USB HDDs to back up and restore the OS. Installation notesīecause OS X Lion is preinstalled on the removable Apple factory SSD, you cannot simply remove that drive and replace it with a new SSD. There are no other SSDs suitable for 2010-2011 MBAs, unless you find an original Apple unit on the used parts market. OWC's Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSD should guarantee a significant boost in speed and with the 480 GB model, almost twice the disk space as Apple's largest SSD. This is a great value for someone like me that needs the additional HDD space. The Apple 256 GB upgrade for the 13 inch MBA is $300 or $2.34 per GB, the OWC upgrade is $2.14 per GB and 3X faster and you get to keep the factory SSD for back up or other tasks. The 480 GB SSD upgrade costs right around $1000. The OWC 6G SSDs are about 3x faster than the Apple Samsung factory SSDs. The OWC 480 GB 6G SSD upgrade and 256 GB Apple Samsung 3G SSD side by side. The problem is that the performance difference between the two Apple 3G drives is pretty significant, the Samsung is about 2X or more faster than the Toshiba SSD, see the Anantech's MBA review. A Samsung 256 GB drive will show up as - Apple SSD SM256C. The SM prefix indicates a Samsung drive while the TS indicates Toshiba. You can tell what SSD type you have by looking at the model string in a System Report from your machine. Go to the Apple menu > About this mac > more info > System Report. This doesn't sound like anything to worry and really its not but you should know that the Samsung SSDs are much faster than the Toshiba units and there is no way of knowing which one you get before booting up the machine for the first time. The OWC 480 GB 6G SSD upgrade installed on my 13 inch Macbook air with 1.8GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i7.Īpple uses both Toshiba SSDs and Samsung SSDs on the current 2011 MBA.

Macbook air 2012 replace ssd