Can I increase my MacBook Pro SSD size

I have an early 2013 15" MacBook Pro with 512 GB of SSD. While that is enough for now I was wondering if there was any way to replace the 512 GB SSD with 1 TB. I see that Apple is now selling MBPs with 1 TB and I have also seen replacement SSDs for sale on web sites like Crucial.

Has anyone successfully replaced their SSD or hard drive with a large SSD? If so, has Apple done it? Or have people done it themselves? Does it void the warranty?

As far as I know, only Other World Computing (Mac Sales) stocks and sells replacement SSD kits for the MacBook Air and rMBP. The kits are limited to certain models and right now I don't think that includes the 2013 models. However, you can go to their site and look or maybe better yet, give them a call on their 800 customer support line and speak to one of the techs that work there.

Other World Computing

Well, I have an early 2013 MBP (but 13" & 256 GB SSD) - I cannot answer your questions from experience but for starters look at the Every Mac Website for some discussion - you might need to enter your specific model (the link is close).

If you bought Apple Care, then warranty considerations would be an important issue, so check yourself or hopefully a member will 'chime in' w/ the answer - good luck! Dave

Hi Mike,

I replaced my 2012 MBPr 256GB SSD with the Transcend 720 960GB SSD. They have a kit with the tools and a USB box so you can download the stock SSD into the replacement SSD before you remove the stock SSD. Then you replace the stock SSD with a prepared new SSD. The stock SSD can be used as a USB SSD if you place it in the USB box.

The only issue is that some MBPr have a size issue with the 720, I didn't. Transcend has now replaced the 720 with the 725 which is slightly shorter and have no issues with fit anymore. Transcend has a video showing the replacement, it is very easy to do.

I am very impressed with Transcend SSD replacement, its slightly faster than the stock SSD (430/480MB/s on BlackMagic). The price is about $600.

Mike

mawyatt said:

Hi Mike,

I replaced my 2012 MBPr 256GB SSD with the Transcend 720 960GB SSD. They have a kit with the tools and a USB box so you can download the stock SSD into the replacement SSD before you remove the stock SSD. Then you replace the stock SSD with a prepared new SSD. The stock SSD can be used as a USB SSD if you place it in the USB box.

The only issue is that some MBPr have a size issue with the 720, I didn't. Transcend has now replaced the 720 with the 725 which is slightly shorter and have no issues with fit anymore. Transcend has a video showing the replacement, it is very easy to do.

I am very impressed with Transcend SSD replacement, its slightly faster than the stock SSD (430/480MB/s on BlackMagic). The price is about $600.

Mike

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Thank you very much for your reply. This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. As it is I still have more than half of my 512 GB SSD available but that is only because I am ruthless in cleaning out my SSD. I would like to increase the size of my Parallels VM and would like to store my camera raw images on the SSD (instead of on an external drive) but there really is not that much space left.

I will check out the Transcend SSD you mentioned. Thank you again.

I work within the MBPr SSD for my image file processing, then save them to an external drive(s). I have Thunderbolt and USB3 external drives. The USB3 are portable USB powered, so they can travel with the MBPr. Portable USB3 drives are so reasonable now (<$100/TB), this works well for me.

mawyatt said:

I work within the MBPr SSD for my image file processing, then save them to an external drive(s). I have Thunderbolt and USB3 external drives. The USB3 are portable USB powered, so they can travel with the MBPr. Portable USB3 drives are so reasonable now (<$100/TB), this works well for me.

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Yes. And that is the exact same paradigm I use when editing photos. I use my main SSD to (temporarily) store the images while I work on them and then copy the images to an external USB 3 drive (in my case a Transcend 1 TB drive) for creating TV slide shows. I then copy the raw images to two 3 TB external USB 3 drives that I use for backup.

However the last time I did this I found that I ended up having almost 150 GB of space being eaten up by these files and my SSD was reaching serious usage percentages so I wanted to be able to at least be prepared if I need to increase the space. As it is I only have 50 GB allocated to Parallels/Windows and I think I probably will need to increase that because I think I will start having to use Parallels to run Photoshop as an external editor for my photo editing software when I discontinue my CC subscription. I should have kept that OS X version of PS 6 instead of signing up for CC ...

I have a 512 GB SSD and my normal usage, OS X and Windows/Parallels, is about 170 GB leaving me plenty of space but, as I mentioned, I find I have to be utterly ruthless in cleaning my SSD or the space usage just keeps creeping up. I am used to having at least 750 GB of space on the Windows laptops I used to use and I was a bit disappointed that I could only buy a 512 GB SSD when I bought the rMBP. I am just trying to see what I might need to do if push comes to shove.

Thanks for the post.

As noted above, the kit that is available is for the 2012 model. According to your specs, you own the 2013 15" rMBP. I know nothing about the Transcend kit, but from experience if OWC has not yet come out with a kit, it's likely not available. Be careful and do your homework before buying a kit that may not work and in fact the use of may void your Apple care warranty.

MikeFromMesa

Did you ever get this upgrade? If so can you walk me through your steps. Where did you get SSD and how it's working? Thank you.