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Video: Here’s one good reason to break open your MacBook Pro or Air

Published Apr 28th, 2014 11:59PM EDT
How to Upgrade Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air

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One of the “issues” Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air have is the lack of a user-friendly way to upgrade their SSD drives. While buyers may easily purchase an external hard drive or rely on the cloud to have access to more space, Transcend has devised a very easy way to upgrade the internal SSD drive of these Apple laptop models, while turning the built-in drive into a spare, external storage option.

The company’s JetDrive SSD upgrade kits have been specifically crafted for the Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air notebooks, and they come with up to 960GB of storage (depending on the model), installation tools, instructions and a slick USB 3.0 aluminum enclosure that will house the original SSD drive.

Transcend’s JetDrive models are available for a variety of MacBook Pro and MacBook Air versions, and can already be purchased from Amazon, with prices starting at $190 for the 240GB version. The drives have maximum read speeds of 495MB/s and write speeds of 427MB/s. Transcend will also offer users its own JetDrive Toolbox monitoring software, which also brings TRIM support.

While the whole process of upgrading the SSD drive in these laptops is fairly easy, it should be noted that prying open these devices may void their warranties.

A short video that explains how to upgrade the Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air SSD drives with help of Transcend’s JetDrive kits follows below.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.