Once you’ve lifted its bottom lid away from the rest of the housing, the MacBook Air is easy to figure out: the SSD is in the center, just above the central right battery pack. Similarly, iFixit’s $30 54-Bit Driver Kit may be overkill for this particular project, but it includes all the wacky screwdriver pieces you’ll need for other Apple projects. I personally use a regrettably discontinued version of iFixit’s Pro Magnetic Project Mat (shown below it’s no longer made with these handy cutouts) to hold and organize the screws, but I’d call it completely optional. The JBtek $9 kit shown below includes both screwdrivers. How easy is installation? Except for the older first- and second-generation MacBook Airs, the process is incredibly simple: you generally use a Pentalobe screwdriver to remove 10 screws from the Air’s bottom, then a Torx T5 screwdriver to unscrew one screw on the SSD. Fifth-generation MacBook Airs (11″ and 13″ sold starting early-2013) switched to faster PCIe SSDs, which are not yet being offered by Transcend or OWC for this particular laptop.Fourth-generation MacBook Airs (11″ and 13″, sold starting mid-2012) should go with the 4.8/5-Star reviewed Transcend JetDrive 520 models ( 240GB/$169, 480GB/$299, 960GB/$540), which promise 460-570MB/second speeds. Mixed reviews of OWC’s 240GB Aura Pro ($239) and 1TB Aura 6G ($549) would give me pause.OWC’s Aura/Aura Pro series for this particular MacBook Air has had comparatively poor reviews, but a 1TB OWC drive for the same computer can be had for $549 through Amazon. Third-generation MacBook Airs (11″ and 13″, sold between late 2010 and mid-2011) use blade-style SATA III SSDs that look similar to RAM boards. 9to5Mac’s Seth Weintraub added a $190 240GB Transcend JetDrive 500 SSD to his wife’s 2011 MacBook Air last year the same drive now sells for $170 on Amazon, with a 480GB model at $300, and a 960GB SSD at $540.Other World Computing/OWC’s Mercury Aura Pro comes in 120GB ($134), 240GB ($218), or 480GB ($348) versions with promised read/write speeds in the 275-285MB range. ![]()
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