So, instead of one SSD, now you have two high speed SSD flash drives - one installed on your Mac, and the other as a portable external drive. You also get a USB 3.0 cable, thus ensuring that you can get faster read-write experience of your existing flash drive, at least to some extent. The sturdy aluminum case converts your original flash storage into a portable USB 3.0 compatible thumb drive. JetDrive comes with an additional external enclosure which keeps your original flash drive (the one that came with your MacBook unit) secure and usable.
It also claims to have faster read-write speeds compared to Apple’s factory installed SSDs on supported MacBook models. JetDrive SSD upgrades are available up to 960 GB of storage capacity depending on your MacBook model.
JetDrive from Transcend is an SSD solution for MacBook models with SATA based flash storage. Below are some of the storage upgrade solutions compatible with your Mac. Most of the 2012 – Early 2013 MacBook Pro models with Retina display uses this type of storage. If your MacBook’s System Report shows the Storage Medium Type as SSD and Protocol as SATA, it includes a SATA based flash storage module. Still, you can upgrade to a higher capacity SSD and use the original one as a secondary storage device with these options. If System Report on your MacBook shows the Storage Medium Type as SSD, it already includes a flash based storage drive.
You can use OS X’s built-in Disk Utility software to clone your original hard drive. Note: Before replacing your internal hard drive, you can consider backing up or cloning your original hard drive to the new one in order to make the upgrade process as seamless as possible. The Medium Type and Protocol attributes describe the type of internal storage implementation. So, before upgrading your internal MacBook storage, you should ensure the type of storage it implements, as none of them are inter-compatible. You can easily find out what internal storage type your Mac implements by accessing the Storage tab in System Report…Ĭlick on the Apple Logo on the top left corner > About This Mac > System Report > Storage (under Hardware), and look at the Physical Volumes (or Physical Drive for some MacBook models) section. Eventually, SATA-based SSDs were replaced with PCIe-based flash storage in later MacBook models, which supports faster data transfers (up to 25 Gbits/s in case of PCIe 3.0). The first of the flash storage based MacBooks implemented SATA interfacing, which supports transfer speeds of up to 6 Gbits/s (in case of SATA III). Most of the earlier MacBook models (before mid 2012) have standard rotational hard drives, while most of the post mid 2012 models (particularly the Retina ones) have SSDs (flash storage).Įven for MacBooks based on flash storage, its implementation varies in different models. Apart from capacity, MacBook drives also differ in technology. 1.2.2 Storage upgrades for PCIe based SSDsĭepending on the specific model, your MacBook might be equipped with a storage disk ranging anywhere between 128 GB to 1 TB.