- #2011 macbook air ssd upgrade mac os
- #2011 macbook air ssd upgrade 720p
- #2011 macbook air ssd upgrade install
- #2011 macbook air ssd upgrade upgrade
OWC Auro Pro Express 480GB SSD informal test results:
The red highlighted numbers are the ones that stood out. Finally, we did a boot speed test timing the number of seconds it took to boot from full off state till the menu bar first appeared on screen. That is mostly a processor task but it can be affected by hard drive write and read speeds.
#2011 macbook air ssd upgrade 720p
Next we encoded a 33 second video using iMovie exporting it to a 720p m4v file. We copied a folder of video files that was 4.84GB both to and from the MacBook Air using a slow external 5400rpm WD USB 2.0 drive. OWC Auro Pro Express 480GB SSD Benchmarks Installation Videoīelow is a video showing you how we installed the OWC Auro Pro Express 480GB SSD: Reboot and it should load OS X from the new OWC drive. Choose the most recent back up and restore it to the new disk and shut down. Then from the same menu choose Restore System From Backup ….
#2011 macbook air ssd upgrade install
We did the second option because it was faster.Īfter selecting your language in the OS X install program, from the menu find the Disk Utility and erase the OWC drive. The benefit of the first option is that it is good to start from scratch about once a year to clean out clutter and old files that are no longer wanted or needed. The benefit of the second option is a faster upgrade. A faster way is to just use Time Machine to restore the previous backup. You can install the OS and reinstall your software and put your files back into place from a backup. Click the USB drive and the arrow below it to boot using the OS X installation disk. Hit the power button and hold down the Option key until you see the boot options for hard drive or USB drive.
#2011 macbook air ssd upgrade mac os
USB ports suck power draining the battery faster.īoot with USB OS install disk and run Disk Utility to erase new driveĪt this point you will be ready to start it up and install Mac OS X.
It also offers a bump over the stock Apple SSD, although we were surprised to find that the speed increase was not as drastic as we hoped.įinally, the upgrade will conserve battery life since the user will not have to plug an external USB drive into their MacBook Air. The OWC drive is much faster than any external drive, even if it is an SSD or a large capacity flash memory stick. Of course that drive did only cost us $100, but it is slow. It is a little annoying to keep up with another drive. We’ve been carrying around a slow 500GB WD external USB drive.
#2011 macbook air ssd upgrade upgrade
Others have 128GB or 256GB of storage, but even that 256GB can get cramped quickly.Īnother reason to perform this upgrade is to avoid carrying around an external drive. Many MacBook Airs only came with 64GB of storage. The first reason is as we said above – space. One might wonder why anyone would bother to open their computer and upgrade. We upgraded a 13.3″ MacBook Air that came with a 256GB SSD to 480GB thanks to the OWC 480GB Mercury Aura Pro Express Solid State Drive. We tested and will demonstrate the upgrade to the 480GB model. The Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs come in capacities of either 240GB or 480GB. This likely will void your warranty with Apple, but they also likely won’t notice if you have to return it and put back the stock SSD. For a pretty penny you can crack open the MacBook Air and upgrade that SSD to one of a higher capacity thanks to OWC and their new SSD upgrades. The drives also limit your storage capacity because solid state storage is much more expensive per gigabyte than traditional optical spinning hard drives. That is what gives you your system’s speed. These computers come with fast SSDs instead of hard drives. They have released an upgrade path for both the 11.6″ and 13.3″ 2010 MacBook Air ultraportables. If your 64GB 11.6″ MacBook Air is filling up with your content and software, OWC has a solution.