Storage upgrade options for MacBook Air mid-2013

Hi guys,

I'm sure many variations of this question have been asked before in these forums, so my apologies for any repetition.

I have a mid-2013 MacBook Air 6,2 Core i5 1.3 (128GB storage). It has travelled around the world and been a trusty friend to me for the past 5 years. Although I do often run out of storage (as would probably be expected), I've managed to get around that so far by backing everything up to Google Drive or an external hard drive. I've recently however installed Parallels so I can use my laptop for work (my office only uses Windows-based word processing/account management software). Having the virtual machine is taking up a lot of space, as I understand is usually the case, and I'm still really short on space even after having deleted pretty much everything non-system based from my laptop.

I've done some research into storage options but have received a lot of different advice/feedback, so I'm a bit stumped, especially considering my IT/tech knowledge is really pitiful.

My question is actually two-fold:

1. What would you (anyone) recommend as a decent storage upgrade option - getting an SD card (such as the Transcend JetDrive Lite or Nifty MiniDrive), or getting an internal or external SSD (such as the Transcend Jetdrive 825 - someone recommended that one to me - or an OWC drive that I understand is quite similar);

2. Is it going to be possible for me to run Parallels at an acceptable speed with any of the above options (for me I guess that means a little slower than my usual mac speed, but ideally not a whole lot slower), and without my laptop being under serious strain / freezing / crashing?

From the articles/forums I've read so far, the answer to both of the above is usually "it depends" .... I don't use my computer for gaming or anything like that; just general internet browsing and word processing. The laptop isn't in bad shape and I rarely have problems with it besides the storage issue.

So, if the answer to question 2 above is "yes", then ideally I would try and stick with this laptop for another couple of years at least before upgrading. My financial situation at the moment would make it a bit of challenge to upgrade in the next few months. The $380 (AUD) or similar for an SSD upgrade seems much more appealing, but of course that depends on the answer to question 2 above - if the answer is no, or probably no, because of the limited 4GB RAM my laptop has, then of course I would have to look into upgrading my laptop.

I would really appreciate any advice anyone could provide. Many thanks in advance.

Georgie

Welcome to our forums.

The OWC replacement SSD is probably the best solution and OWC (www.macsales.com) does ship to Australia. Be sure to get the exact replacement SSD for your MacBook Air model. There are many variations and different types but as long as you stick to the OWC recommended replacement you should be OK. As far as the memory is concerned, there's not much you can do about that since the modules are soldered on the logic board and can not be removed. You can struggle along with the 4 GB provided you don't run too many applications at once.

I'm in a similar situation with a 2012 MBA that needs an SSD upgrade. I haven't done it yet, but from the research I've done I think the OWC replacement SSD is the best option. Plus you can buy it with an enclosure for your current one and end up with a larger internal SSD and your current 128GB as an external drive. (I'm not sure if the enclosure OWC sells would be fast enough, but you probably could run windows off of the 128GB drive and keep the new internal drive for the Mac side).

I installed an OWC SSD in my wife’s 2011 MacBook Air 3 years ago when it ran short on storage. Took me about 10 minutes (not including formatting and data transfer) and has been working great.

Hi guys, thanks so much for your replies and advice, I'll look into the OWC replacement SSD. Is it the general consensus that they are overall a better choice than the Transcend replacement SSDs? I'm guessing so from your replies, just wondering what the differences are? A couple of sellers here in Aus have recommended the Transcend option rather than the OWC, but hey, sometimes over here we're a little slow/behind the 8-ball in the latest tech trends!
Thanks.

georgie8711 said:

Hi guys, thanks so much for your replies and advice, I'll look into the OWC replacement SSD. Is it the general consensus that they are overall a better choice than the Transcend replacement SSDs? I'm guessing so from your replies, just wondering what the differences are? A couple of sellers here in Aus have recommended the Transcend option rather than the OWC, but hey, sometimes over here we're a little slow/behind the 8-ball in the latest tech trends!
Thanks.

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I don’t know that they’re necessarily better, but OWC concentrates on Mac hardware and seem to do a good job sorting out system peculiarities that might cause problems in upgrading.
I wouldn’t hesitate to put in a Transcend drive (I have a lot of their photo cards) but if the price is at all close, I would personally opt for OWC