Looking to upgrade my 2017 MacBook Air for more storage

Reem Ihab wrote:

Hi

I am having a storage problem as i have 128 GB where its mostly cosumed by "others" which I clearly don't know what are these ? only 17 GB free as I uploaded all my files on the drive or on external hardisk..now i think I shall upgrade as I amnot able to even download any application for my own work use.. what do you recommend for me ? as I am not even able to upgrade the software couple of years ago…..

OWC sells internal SSD upgrades for the 2017 MacBook Air – SSDs with capacities of up to 4 TB. (2018 and later MacBook Airs have the SSDs soldered in, and aftermarket upgrades are not possible.)

Other World Computing – OWC Solid State Drives For MacBook Air 11" & 13" (Mid 2013 - Mid 2017)

If you go this route, be sure to install Monterey somewhere before installing the third-party SSD in the Mac. When you run the Monterey installer, it checks whether your firmware is up to date. If it isn't, the installer runs a firmware installer – and if that installer sees a non-Apple internal SSD, it will fail, causing the Monterey installation to fail.

I checked the new MacBook and I canot figure out the difference between M4/M3 along with differenct GPU and CPU...

all I guess I need is 1 TB SSD ..

M4s are newer and probably a bit faster (for a given number of CPU and GPU cores).

With respect to external displays, M4 MacBook Airs have better specifications.

• A M3 MacBook Air can drive one external display with lid open, two with its lid closed.
• A M4 MacBook Air can drive two external displays at the same time as the built-in screen.

"I am having a storage problem as i have 128 GB where its mostly cosumed by "others" which I clearly don't know what are these ?[...]"

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Clearing "Other":

"Other" (called "System Data" in more recent macOS versions) is caches. Caches are created so that applications and settings open and run quicker. You're not gonna clear "Other" 100%. So, from here, clear Other the best you can. Here is what Google Recommends: To clear the other category of storage on Mac. The only ultimate way to clear "Other" in-full, is to back up your Mac using Time Machine Backup, and then format your drive, and then migrate items from the backup using Migration Assistant. Items such as apps will need to be reinstalled, manually. So, contact the Developer, requesting a new license to get it reinstalled.

Note that even if you upgrade the internal SSD, a 2017 MacBook Air cannot update past macOS 12.* (Monterey).