Upgrade Macbook Air Hard Drive 2014

Did you purchase a 128gb or 256gb hard drive for your macbook air or macbook pro and now you want to get more storage?  Pretty much the only way to reliably upgrade is to buy a used hard drive on the secondary market.  You can buy new generic drives but I don’t know how reliable they are.  You would have to do your research first, of course.

Changing your hard drive (solid state drive) on a newer macbook air or pro is pretty easy.    My instructions are for a 2014 macbook air but the others that have this same kind of hard drive will be similar (or even identical).  You need a #5 pentalobe (P5) (to open the bottom case) and a T5 torx (to remove the screw holding down the hard drive.

Here is what one of the hard drives look like.  May sure you get the correct one that matches your model mac.

 

Step one is to open up the bottom case and take it off.  One hack is to use a refrigerator magnet to hold your screws while you work.

 

Step two is to disconnect the power source and battery.  Battery connection shown is here:

 

 

Step three is to remove the screw holding down the hard drive.  This is a T5 screw.

 

 

Step four is to gently lift up on the back of the hard drive then grab either side of it to slowly work it out of the connector.

 

 

From this point insert your new hard drive.  It is keyed so you can’t put it in the wrong way.  Put the screw back in, connect battery, and put the bottom case back on.  You’re done!

 

If you want to watch my youtube video of this process, click below: