MacBook – swap the SSD from mid-2013 Macbook Air and mid-2014 Macbook Pro

macbook prossd

I bought a Macbook Air with a 256 GB in mid 2013.

I bought a Macbook Pro with a 128 GB in mid 2014.

I'd like to swap the SSDs if possible. Are the parts compatible?

I'm looking at these two guides on iFixit.

The parts look compatible, but I'd like to a little further confirmation before dissecting both of the laptops.

Additional info

I just did a speed test on each drive.

                  Model      Read        Write       Vendor
Macbook Air 13"   Mid-2013   ~750 MB/s   ~700 MB/s   Samsung/Samsung
Macbook Pro 13"   Mid-2014   ~750 MB/s   ~350 MB/s   Sandisk/Marvell

The Macbook Air's SSD has double the write speed! So if it works, I have even more (than disk capacity) to gain from making the swap.

Makes me really sad that Apple isn't more specific with these details on their website.

Tools required

              Security Bits
Macbook Air   P5 Pentalobe, T5 Torx
Macbook Pro   T5 Torx

I ordered the iFixit 54-Bit Driver Kit which includes the tools I'll need to try this.

I'll post the results here once I attempt the surgery!

Best Answer

It doesn't work

My Pentalobe and Torx bits arrived today and I tried swapping the drives. When I put the 256 GB drive in my Macbook Pro, it doesn't boot and displays this image

cannot boot

I tried holding down opt to boot to a usb drive and do a fresh install of Mavericks on the drive.

When I attempt to boot from the USB drive, the crossed out circle image is displayed again.

I've also tried holding down shift during boot to boot into safe mode. The neutral gray screen displays for a longer time, but eventually the crossed out circle appears again.

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