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The March 2015 update of Apple's 13" MacBook Air features fifth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, resulting in slightly increased performance and battery life.

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SSD Compatibility? 128GB vs 256GB

I acquired a MacBook Air 13” (early 2015) A1466 that supposedly has some water damage. I am aware that the logic board may need replacing, or that the entire thing might just be worth selling for parts. The SSD was removed when I got it, and so I need to install one to see if it will work.

I know OEM is best. It originally had 128GB, but if it is operable, I would prefer a 256GB SSD. I have two options:

SD6PQ4M-128G-1021 — A SanDisk 128GB SSUBX SSD drive pulled from an early 2015 Apple Macbook Air.

OR

MZ-EPC2560/0A2 — A Samsung 256GB SSD drive said to be OEM and for/from A1466

Which should I get?

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I should also mention that the MacBook Air is currently dismantled and ready for SSD install.

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The second drive you listed doesn’t even fit your machine as it’s for 2012 models only.

You’ll have to stick with 12+16 pins flash drives that are for 2013->2015 Macs.

Being a relatively expensive purchase I would avoid buying the drive until you know you can use it. If you have around a normal 2.5” SATA Hard Disk you can use that one for testing purposes with a simple SATA to USB adapter through the external USB ports.

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Honestly, I would suggest getting a cheap SSD just to see if the thing works. You can get them pretty chap these days and if the machine is not worth fixing, put the SSD in an enclosure and use it as a portable SSD. In my experience, I just replaced the drive in my 2012 MacBook Pro with a SanDisk SSD off the shelf and haven’t had a problem. Of course, you never know what Apple will and will not allow.

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Here's a good writeup on the different custom SSD's The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs. BeetsTech is a good source for the needed custom SSD's if you want what Apple used, or use either OWC or Transcend SSD's which are designed to fit and work in your system.

To test things here's the needed cable to use a standard 2.5" SATA drive StarTech 2.5" SATA to USB adapter cable

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Thanks Dan! I'll check out BeetsTech as I don't believe I've come across it before.

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