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1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.8GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache

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SSD Enlargement - 512 GB SSD for Mid 2012 MacBook Air

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:

1) 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?

2) 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

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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:

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Sir Dan,

That was to the point, and extremely useful. I'll poke around, and let you know how the conversion goes. Thank you!

D

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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.

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I'll be honest I'm not a fan of these adapters.

A few years ago we did some tests and threes different adapters all failed out testing with five different SSD's. While they did appear to work, looking at the low level errors (CRC's) we saw a large error rate.

Lets look at an analogy... Your talking with someone over a crappy connection where you often are asking the other person to repeat every fifth word so the call ends up be overly long and if the person on the other end hangs up before you have a chance to get the last piece of information your message may not be complete. CRC's are the same thing at the hardware level.

Now its possible these adapters are better today than they where before. Sadly, no one has taken up the task of really testing and qualifying them. If someone took that level of effort and stood behind them I would be more willing to give them a try again.

Unlike these adapters OWC as well as Transcend have taken the time to test and qualify their drives as well as stand behind them. These adapter folks don't stand behind there adapter to the same level.

If the adapter didn't effect the storage of your most valuable information I would have less of a problem. But they do so we really can't support them without someone taking ownership and I'm not willing to do that here.

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