Replacing Hard Drive On MacBook Air?

I had two questions about replacing the hard drive on the 1st generation (rev A) MacBook Air (with the 80GB hard drive):

1. I believe I read somewhere that it uses a not-so-common connector/interface. So, does anyone know where you can get the type of hard drive the rev. A MacBook Air takes?

2. Has anyone ever done this? Is it hard to get inside the case? Hard to swap out the drive?

Thanks for any help.

 

The Macbook Air uses a 1.8" 40-pin ZIF interface hard drive which like you said isn't very common and availability is still very limited.

Check out of the link below for more info:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook-air/macbook-air-faq/macbook-air-how-to-upgrade-the-hard-drive-swap-for-ssd.html

 

Thanks for the link.

I researched some more, and to complicate things even more, there are two different sizes of the 1.8" PATA drive- an 8mm and a 5mm (can you guess which one the MacBook Air takes? )

So, I'm not sure whether or not something like this could be "crammed" into the MacBook Air (it's 8mm):

http://www.compumusic.com/p519721.htm

 

Easier to just buy an external 2.5" enclosure and drive.

 

Easier, yes, but not more portable.

 

I really don't think it's wise to void your warranty for more HDD space. If something goes wrong, then you'll have to pay for whatever Apple has to do. I think the small external is a better choice, although it's worth the loss of portability rather than warranty.

 

The funny thing is though, I upgraded the hard drive in my MacBook Pro (not the unibody model, but the one right before that), which was supposed to void the warranty, but just a few weeks ago the bottom casing started warping, and as it was still under warranty, Apple replaced it for free, without asking any questions.

 

You must have done a darn good job putting it back together. I'd still recommend the external though, just to be on the safe side. Don't want to run into Murphy's Law on this...

 

Does the 2nd gen macbook air have the same zif connector?

 

No, I'm pretty sure it uses a standard SATA connector- one more tick for the 2G- I'm starting to become more and more patient in waiting for the 2G to become available refurbished- by the way, does anyone know when that might be? (approximately)

 

Yeah, the 2nd Generation MBA does infact have the SATA connector, Not the Zif. The 2G is a great choice, with many improvements such as the 9400M, SATA capabilities, bigger HDD, DDR3 RAM, etc. The 2G has been talked about being sold in the refurbished section around April. Just a thought.

 

So it is definitely easier to replace the hard drive on the 2nd gen macbook air? Just remove a few screws and replace with a standard run of the mill 1.8" ssd?

 

Maybe you might want to try out the WD passport since it's only 0.23lb.
To me, carry a 0.23lb external harddrive is better than spend hours on replacing an HD for MBA, and who knows how much the MBA HD going to cost....

 

Yeah, that would be the case.