Experience with blade SSDs on Ebay

[winterlocked]

Hi guys,

I was hoping to find the elusive refurbished 11inch, i5 MBA with a 256gb SSD, but after many missed chances I finally caved, ordered the refurb 128, (for $999: amazing deal - go refurb!) and hoped that I could get by with less storage while waiting for the OWC upgrades to get cheaper.

After poking around on ebay, I found someone selling the original Samsung 256 SSDs for $250, including tools. I picked one up, and managed to turn around and sell my Toshiba 128SSD for 80 bucks, so the storage upgrade only cost me 170.

It was dead simple to install the new one, it works perfectly, and is recognized as a trim-supported Apple SSD. Bonus: This way I knew the brand of SSD I was getting, instead of playing the Toshiba/Samsung lottery with Apple.

Just thought I'd post this in case anyone was in the same predicament. A much cheaper option than ordering a 256 SSD model from Apple, and waaaaaay cheaper than an OWC upgrade.

I'm hoping that if the machine ever has issues, having the official Apple SSD in there will placate the geniuses so they don't have to have a "quickening" to decide if they'll support the warranty or not.

Cheers.

 

[Geekbabe]

Hi guys,

I was hoping to find the elusive refurbished 11inch, i5 MBA with a 256gb SSD, but after many missed chances I finally caved, ordered the refurb 128, (for $999: amazing deal - go refurb!) and hoped that I could get by with less storage while waiting for the OWC upgrades to get cheaper.

After poking around on ebay, I found someone selling the original Samsung 256 SSDs for $250, including tools. I picked one up, and managed to turn around and sell my Toshiba 128SSD for 80 bucks, so the storage upgrade only cost me 170.

It was dead simple to install the new one, it works perfectly, and is recognized as a trim-supported Apple SSD. Bonus: This way I knew the brand of SSD I was getting, instead of playing the Toshiba/Samsung lottery with Apple.

Just thought I'd post this in case anyone was in the same predicament. A much cheaper option than ordering a 256 SSD model from Apple, and waaaaaay cheaper than an OWC upgrade.

I'm hoping that if the machine ever has issues, having the official Apple SSD in there will placate the geniuses so they don't have to have a "quickening" to decide if they'll support the warranty or not.

Cheers.

I would have just kept the original SSD and used it as a second external drive with an enclosure from OWC. You could have had extra space & kept the drive on hand to reinstall into the Air should it ever develop issues requiring warranty service.

 

[lil' brudder]

I would have just kept the original SSD and used it as a second external drive with an enclosure from OWC. You could have had extra space & kept the drive on hand to reinstall into the Air should it ever develop issues requiring warranty service.

Except that the warranty was voided by opening the case in the first place...

 

[flatfoot]

Except that the warranty was voided by opening the case in the first place...

Nope.

 

[bogatyr]

Except that the warranty was voided by opening the case in the first place...

Hard drives are CRUs. They don't void your warranty.

 

[TheRealDamager]

Sounds like a good upgrade. BTW - that CCD brand "lottery" is much ado about nothing.

 

[kyjaotkb]

Got an EUR 238 Samsung blade SSD (256GB) from eBay last week as well.
Works as advertised, it is an OEM SSD pulled out from a chinese laptop - not sure why and how !
Sure it is indeed way cheaper than going the OWC route (especially when ordering from Europe... the SSD shipped from the UK so I didn't have to pay any additional VAT or costly shipping fees or lose some cash in the USD/EUR conversion).

However the pentalobular screwdriver they provided was utter crap - I badly striped a screw with it and broke the screwdriver. Their after sales service is top notch so they sent me 2 additional screwdrivers. Broke them as well! ended up removing the stripped pentalobe screw with a cardboard cutter, slightly damaging the MBA hood. In the meantime I received another screwdriver ordered from a German eBayer - it was perfect, solid (chrome-vanadium) and I'd recommend it to anyone having to deal with pentalobe screws.

I realised in that process that there are tons of stories on the internet about stripped screws in MacBooks so everyone - be careful and only use good, toughened screwdrivers.

Anyway,
- to the OP - enjoy your new, blazing fast SSD !
- to anyone else wanting to take the plunge - go ahead, that eBay laptop parts seller (PM me) is absolutely professional and reliable (use expedited shipping though to get Paypal buyer's protection coverage just in case)

 

[alphaod]

I have the OWC SSD. Simply put, it's much faster. That said if speed doesn't really matter that much to you, then it's worth looking at alternatives.

As with the cheap screwdrivers, my OWC product came with proper screwdrivers.

Hard drives are CRUs. They don't void your warranty.

It's not user serviceable on the MacBook Air, therefore it's possible to void the warranty. Whether or not an Apple repair depot or store will refuse to service the machine under warranty is different matter.