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Hard Drive Upgrade 2018 MacBookAir

I cannot update my MacOS because i don’t have enough space. I have a 2018 MacBookAir 13”. Can I replace the hard drive with a larger one? I’ve been seeing on the Web that in 2018 Apple started soldering the drives to the motherboards, is that correct?

MacBook Air 13″, 11.6

Posted on Oct 31, 2021 1:32 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 31, 2021 1:40 PM

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities.


While you cannot upgrade the internal Apple SSD, you can Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support.


You could also use an external hard drive or SSD to store large files and libraries. Apple sells external storage devices, and any one of these would work well depending on your needs:


Cheers,


Jack

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 31, 2021 1:40 PM in response to NightFlyer80

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities.


While you cannot upgrade the internal Apple SSD, you can Free up storage space on your Mac - Apple Support.


You could also use an external hard drive or SSD to store large files and libraries. Apple sells external storage devices, and any one of these would work well depending on your needs:


Cheers,


Jack

Oct 31, 2021 2:02 PM in response to NightFlyer80

Check out these OWC portable external SSDs. Contact OWCs Customer Support to find out which of their portable SSDs will fit your MBA and needs best. In this case size or lack of size matters.


As for moving files to the external SSD the files that you have control over are located in the Documents, Downloads, Pictures, Music and Movies folders.  You can use either of these two free apps, GrandPerspective  or OmniDiscSweeper, to find the largest files on your drive so you can determine if they can be deleted or moved to an external HD for storage.  


Note: you can empty the Downloads folder after the apps and/or updates that were downloaded have been installed or applied.  Many users have found a couple of Gigabytes of files in their Downloads folder which are no longer needed. 


Hard Drive Upgrade 2018 MacBookAir

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