Chosen Solution
Hi There, I am running out of space on my SSD on a regular basis, despite off-loading tons of stuff to an external drive. It really is time to increase the hard disk space! Two things I was wondering:
- I’ve read in a previous post around here that there are no 4-lane wide 512 GB SSD available for the aftermarket. Apparently these SSDs (2-lane wide) run slower. Has this changed, are there any 4-lane SSDs available in 512 GB size?
- Is there a way to duplicate my 256 GB drive to the 512 GB (via Carbon Copy Cloner, or similar), and then resize the partition to “enlarge” the drive from 256 to 512 GB? I don’t want to start anew with another system. I’ve gotten so much software and configuration on this computer, it would take a year to rebuild it all. Any links to parts that might work for me, or how I might go about the drive thing would be greatly appreciated! Cheers, Dave
Your MacBook only has a 6.0 Gbps AHCI interface for the SSD so the issue of PCIe lanes is moot as you can’t leverage more than 2 lanes. If you had a newer 2015 model, it supports a 8.0 GT/s NVMe PCIe x4. You can’t alter the size of your SSD. Think of it like a liter bottle you can only put into it a liters worth of liquid. Unless you altered the original partition setup: two partitions - Recovery (very small) & the active one, theres nothing you can increase. As to moving your stuff to a larger drive: Sure very easy! You don’t want to use a cloning app. You want to use Apples Migration Assistant. Here’s how you’ll do it once you get the SSD and the SSD case to hold your old drive: Your Guide to the OS X Yosemite Migration Assistant This guide is the same for all of the OS’s. This one gets into using an external drive (Apples guide doesn’t) Here’s the two 3rd party SSD’s that will work in your system: OWC - Aura Pro 6G for MacBook Air 11" & 13" 2012Transcend - JetDrive 520 for MacBook Air 11" & 13" 2012
Mid 2012 macbook Air can use an M.2 SATA based drives (like the Samsung 860 EVO) with the help of a small $10 adapter that changes the SSD connector from apple’s proprietary 7+17pin connector to the standard and PC-part friendly M.2 or mSATA (depending on which you choose). 1TB M.2 drive + adapter will be about $300 while 1TB OWC will be close to $600 (and less reliable in the long run) As long as you use either mSATA drives or SATA based M.2 drives with the proper mSATA or M.2 adapter then you’ll be fine. M.2/mSATA drives cost 2X less than OWC/Transcend/Used Apple drives, and they are also much more reliable than OWC. Apple drives and transcend drives are made by a proper brand name while amongst the repair shop community OWC has a reputation of having unreliable memory-based products. Even speaking from years of experience working for Apple Apthorized and non-Apple repair stores, its not uncommon for OWC drives to come back within a few months while the samsung 2.5" SSD’s havent come back within years. also, do not use NVMe/PCIe based M.2 drives in that macbook! these will not work with the machine since the macbook only spports SATA drives. Use only SATA M.2 drives if you decide to go the M.2 way. for mSATA, just pick any compatible drives from a known brand and you’ll be golden. I recommend the Samsung 860 EVO in either M.2 or mSATA flavors. Works extremely well, gets great performance, and not very expensive.
