

Unless you have a new, 2018 MacBook Air, in which case Apple permanently soldered the storage. What Apple doesn’t mention is that the SSD in a MacBook Air can actually be replaced by the user, and it’s a relatively easy procedure. In addition, if it’s a mid-2012 model or earlier, the MacBook Air is on Apple’s “Vintage” list, meaning the company has discontinued support.

Apple has always said the MacBook Air contains no user serviceable parts, so what do you do if the SSD in your laptop fails? What if you need more storage capacity? You can take it to an Apple Store for service, but that can be expensive and leave you without the machine for a few days. SSDs are far faster and tend to be longer lasting than traditional hard disk drives, but they are not infallible. You can see the guide to replacing the SSD is right there.Apple’s MacBook Air has always been a solid and reliable little laptop - even more so when the company ditched the hard drive that was in the original for solid state storage. The one caveat to that is if your Mac is old enough to use standard 2.5″ or 3.5″ HDDs, you can buy them anywhere. While you can find hard drive replacement kits through online retailers just by searching, we recommend iFixit because they only stock parts from reputable suppliers so you know you’re not going to get ripped off.


They have guides for every Mac model and sell all the parts you need. Rather than walk you through every possible hard drive replacement, if you’ve decided to go it alone, I’m going to hand you off to our friends at iFixit. RELATED: Should You Repair Your Own Phone or Laptop? If you’re not sure you have the technical chops to do it right, you should consider asking a more qualified friend to help, or even going to the professionals. The Mac Pro is designed to have its hard drive replaced easily, while an iMac requires you to remove the entire screen. While it is possible to replace the hard drive on any Mac not listed above, how difficult it is varies wildly with the model.
