That's a PATA ZIF interface. It might work in a Rev A if the shell were removed as it is 8mm (needs to be under 5mm to fit properly).
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
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MBA rev. B, drive swap mod for 1.8" micro-sata
- Thread starter hybster
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That's a PATA ZIF interface. It might work in a Rev A if the shell were removed as it is 8mm (needs to be under 5mm to fit properly).
I find the link below (in simplified Chinese) showing the procedure and performance of replacing the rev. A 80G HDD with the KingSpec 1.8" ZIF2 SSD 128GB:
http://news.zol.com.cn/133/1338245.html
🙂
67/50 is too slow. I will waiting for 100/100 something.
I heard SanDisk, Photofast will join this battle soon.
The specs are missleading. There is a huge boost in 'performance' with just the stock Samsung SSD which has lower specs.
It's also the multitasking aspect that can bog down the 4200rpm drives and this is virtually gone with the SSDs so you don't ever see beachball (it should perhaps be a skull instead of a playful beachball 😀 )
I never saw a beachball on my rev B MBA with SSD. Was incredibly fast. I would recommend everyone who has the ability to do this upgrade. Too bad a cable doesn't exist to just make it simple. Nice to get double the write speed too with the Samsung drive.
Hi, newly registered user here but I've (somewhat?) slowly upgraded from both original rev.A MBAs and I currently have the MBA revB 120GB HHD.
I'd like to first congratulate the OP for his outstanding thinking and achievement with this mod, and also thank him for inspiring me to try the same. 🙂
I have a Samsung 128Gb en route to me right now + this connector (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...em=&sspagename=STRK:MEWAX:IT&salenotsupported) because I didn't want to risk soldering onto the drive own pins. Hopefully I can succeed in the same way Hybster did!
Now, I just realized today that Apple updated their Macbook line-up quite a bit, so my question is this: has anybody with the new revC SSD Air benchmarked their new system, and if so, does this mod still outwrite (in speed) the shipping drive from Apple like it did the revB SSD?)
With the current major price drops and this mod available, it's made possible and affordable to really only debate which model in CPU speed to get, instead of HD vs SSD. The new top-of-the-line 2.13Ghz has to be quite amazing, blazing fast, don't you think?
I'm currently thinking real hard about upgrading, performance/price ratio between my would-be current 1.6Ghz+128Gb mod versus the 2.13Ghz+original 128Gb, given that I only spent $1500 total for my current config... tough decisions ahead I tell you...🙂
I'd like to first congratulate the OP for his outstanding thinking and achievement with this mod, and also thank him for inspiring me to try the same. 🙂
I have a Samsung 128Gb en route to me right now + this connector (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...em=&sspagename=STRK:MEWAX:IT&salenotsupported) because I didn't want to risk soldering onto the drive own pins. Hopefully I can succeed in the same way Hybster did!
Now, I just realized today that Apple updated their Macbook line-up quite a bit, so my question is this: has anybody with the new revC SSD Air benchmarked their new system, and if so, does this mod still outwrite (in speed) the shipping drive from Apple like it did the revB SSD?)
With the current major price drops and this mod available, it's made possible and affordable to really only debate which model in CPU speed to get, instead of HD vs SSD. The new top-of-the-line 2.13Ghz has to be quite amazing, blazing fast, don't you think?
I'm currently thinking real hard about upgrading, performance/price ratio between my would-be current 1.6Ghz+128Gb mod versus the 2.13Ghz+original 128Gb, given that I only spent $1500 total for my current config... tough decisions ahead I tell you...🙂
Found a converter online
Found this:
http://store.era-ele.com/ziflif-ce-18-hdd-to-serialata-sata-hdd-adapter-p-251.html
Hybster, any opinion whether this would work or make anything easier than the soldering job you did? Or is this thing too big to fit inside the Air?
Found this:
http://store.era-ele.com/ziflif-ce-18-hdd-to-serialata-sata-hdd-adapter-p-251.html
Hybster, any opinion whether this would work or make anything easier than the soldering job you did? Or is this thing too big to fit inside the Air?
Sorry, but the sata LIF and pata ZIF connectors are not the same. Status is still that you need to solder on the ribbon cable or motherboard connector.
Best of luck to all of you!
I'm proud to report success with my mod! I ended up not using the micro-sata connector and had to indeed solder on the drive pins instead, because the drive + added plugged-in connector was a little too long... bummer.
Anyways, soldering on the ribbon was tricky but I followed Hybster's great tips and I managed to pull through, pfff!!!
I wish I had taken pics for posterity though 🙂.
On another note, here's a question to Hybster: does your drive show up in System Preferences > Startup Disk? I don't see mine, and I think that's why it's taking a little longer at boot up to recognize the OS (while screen is gray, before seeing the apple icon, maybe 10-15 secs, then not even 10 secs after seeing the icon to get to desktop with network ready state!). I googled a few answers, and it turns out it's probably because I didn't do a fresh install from Mac OS discs, instead just cloned my previously saved image onto this drive, so it didn't initialize like it would when doing a Mac OS install. I'll probably end up re-doing that when I get a chance, re-initializing my drive with a Mac OS install disc, then re-clone my system image over it again.
Anyways, what a great improvement it has been (I already was using the revA SSD version before after upgrading from a revA HDD so I really missed the solid state of things...)
Thanks again to Hybster for leading the way! Cheers!
Anyways, soldering on the ribbon was tricky but I followed Hybster's great tips and I managed to pull through, pfff!!!
I wish I had taken pics for posterity though 🙂.
On another note, here's a question to Hybster: does your drive show up in System Preferences > Startup Disk? I don't see mine, and I think that's why it's taking a little longer at boot up to recognize the OS (while screen is gray, before seeing the apple icon, maybe 10-15 secs, then not even 10 secs after seeing the icon to get to desktop with network ready state!). I googled a few answers, and it turns out it's probably because I didn't do a fresh install from Mac OS discs, instead just cloned my previously saved image onto this drive, so it didn't initialize like it would when doing a Mac OS install. I'll probably end up re-doing that when I get a chance, re-initializing my drive with a Mac OS install disc, then re-clone my system image over it again.
Anyways, what a great improvement it has been (I already was using the revA SSD version before after upgrading from a revA HDD so I really missed the solid state of things...)
Thanks again to Hybster for leading the way! Cheers!
Oh yeah, forgot to add are my Xbench results, in par with the OP's:
Results 122.04
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.6 (9G55)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model MacBookAir2,1
Drive Type SAMSUNG SSD Thin uSATA 128GB M
-
-
-
Disk Test 104.51
Sequential 95.97
Uncached Write 132.30 81.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 125.39 70.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 48.51 14.20 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 180.77 90.85 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 114.71
Uncached Write 44.19 4.68 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 108.00 34.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1240.27 8.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 459.61 85.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
I've been using the SSD for a week now and really love it, although I'm not sure I'm seeing too much battery improvement yet?
All and all a worthy mod, but in light of the price drops this past week, you might in retrospect be better off upgrading to the revC. 😛
Results 122.04
System Info
Xbench Version 1.3
System Version 10.5.6 (9G55)
Physical RAM 2048 MB
Model MacBookAir2,1
Drive Type SAMSUNG SSD Thin uSATA 128GB M
-
-
-
Disk Test 104.51
Sequential 95.97
Uncached Write 132.30 81.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 125.39 70.95 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 48.51 14.20 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 180.77 90.85 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random 114.71
Uncached Write 44.19 4.68 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write 108.00 34.57 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read 1240.27 8.79 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read 459.61 85.28 MB/sec [256K blocks]
I've been using the SSD for a week now and really love it, although I'm not sure I'm seeing too much battery improvement yet?
All and all a worthy mod, but in light of the price drops this past week, you might in retrospect be better off upgrading to the revC. 😛
I just got a (relatively) cheap refurbished MBA rev. B from Apple, with the intention of eventually performing this hack.
The only problem? I've never soldered anything in my life. I've got very steady hands, and I've taken apart plenty of Mac laptops before, but I really don't know what I'd be getting into in terms of equipment needed and things to watch out for.
What kind of soldering iron should I use? What kind of solder? What kind of wires are those?
Thanks in advance.
The only problem? I've never soldered anything in my life. I've got very steady hands, and I've taken apart plenty of Mac laptops before, but I really don't know what I'd be getting into in terms of equipment needed and things to watch out for.
What kind of soldering iron should I use? What kind of solder? What kind of wires are those?
Thanks in advance.
Muriac,
If you never really soldered much before, I would warn you before attempting to do this mod. The OP's pics are very good macros and can be deceiving, but look at the scale in pics with the ruler again. This is smaller than small. The smallest wire gauge I had was 24 guage, and I still had to "split" the stranded wires to fit them onto the ribbon cable.
Soldering onto the hard drive pins were manageable because although the pins are small, they are fairly far apart. The ribbon cable however is the tricky part and it's easy enough to mess up that I wouldn't recommend trying, especially so when this is the custom part from Apple that you cannot easily replace.
If you've taken apart laptops before, maybe you could get your hands on any generic ribbon cable (ex. cable for an old laptop keyboard) and try to test yourself at soldering onto the individual lines.
As far as equipment, I use a temperature controlled soldering station, but any decent solder iron with a thin tip should do. The more important thing would be good heat transfer from your iron to your components for good solder flow. I suggest soldering paste or soldering liquid/gel of some kind.
Good luck, but as the OP mentioned, this is not easy by any means and you really have to want to do this.
If you never really soldered much before, I would warn you before attempting to do this mod. The OP's pics are very good macros and can be deceiving, but look at the scale in pics with the ruler again. This is smaller than small. The smallest wire gauge I had was 24 guage, and I still had to "split" the stranded wires to fit them onto the ribbon cable.
Soldering onto the hard drive pins were manageable because although the pins are small, they are fairly far apart. The ribbon cable however is the tricky part and it's easy enough to mess up that I wouldn't recommend trying, especially so when this is the custom part from Apple that you cannot easily replace.
If you've taken apart laptops before, maybe you could get your hands on any generic ribbon cable (ex. cable for an old laptop keyboard) and try to test yourself at soldering onto the individual lines.
As far as equipment, I use a temperature controlled soldering station, but any decent solder iron with a thin tip should do. The more important thing would be good heat transfer from your iron to your components for good solder flow. I suggest soldering paste or soldering liquid/gel of some kind.
Good luck, but as the OP mentioned, this is not easy by any means and you really have to want to do this.
INTEL X18-M SSDSA1M080G2GN disk score:204,93
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=435718&doc2=356983
Disk test!!!!:
Overall disk test score:
INTEL SSDSA1M080G2GN 204,93
APPLE SSD SM128 84,86
My 2 cents:
I ordered this the cable part so i could swap the original disk back... (for service) 922-8768 Part Number: 922-8768, 821-0681-02, 632-0740 (MacBook Air (Late 2008), MacBook Air (Mid 2009))
I tried soldering with on a hot air soldering station for 3 hours using paste solder. That is not a good idea if you have several free cables (you would have to blow them all at the same time and thats not easy, maybe you could glue the cables together and solder atonce... but its tricky). So I abandoned the idea and went with a temretured soldering station with a small enough tip. I did mostly the same as seen previousply in the pictures in this thread. I also severed the 3 ground wires on the lif-cable going beseides the data-wires so I could solder using 2 pins. This makes it much easier to solder. It is almost imposible to do it otherwise. or atleast it will take 3-4 times longer. It took about an hour to solder everything together. 4 datacables (thiner, 1 wire), power cables i used only 2 cables smallest multiwire i could find (3,3V +). BUT be carefull that your cables fitt inside. I hade trouble fitting with my intel ssd drive because the power wires i used were thicker and to long at first. One more thing: and there is no room to use and micro-data adapter. This will become too long to fit inside. I also had to solder directly on the drive microsata connector. And be shure to either electrical tape or glue the solderings/cable ends when ready/tested so that it wont break from pressure on installation. Its very delicate with this size of cableing....
http://db.xbench.com/merge.xhtml?doc1=435718&doc2=356983
Disk test!!!!:
Overall disk test score:
INTEL SSDSA1M080G2GN 204,93
APPLE SSD SM128 84,86
My 2 cents:
I ordered this the cable part so i could swap the original disk back... (for service) 922-8768 Part Number: 922-8768, 821-0681-02, 632-0740 (MacBook Air (Late 2008), MacBook Air (Mid 2009))
I tried soldering with on a hot air soldering station for 3 hours using paste solder. That is not a good idea if you have several free cables (you would have to blow them all at the same time and thats not easy, maybe you could glue the cables together and solder atonce... but its tricky). So I abandoned the idea and went with a temretured soldering station with a small enough tip. I did mostly the same as seen previousply in the pictures in this thread. I also severed the 3 ground wires on the lif-cable going beseides the data-wires so I could solder using 2 pins. This makes it much easier to solder. It is almost imposible to do it otherwise. or atleast it will take 3-4 times longer. It took about an hour to solder everything together. 4 datacables (thiner, 1 wire), power cables i used only 2 cables smallest multiwire i could find (3,3V +). BUT be carefull that your cables fitt inside. I hade trouble fitting with my intel ssd drive because the power wires i used were thicker and to long at first. One more thing: and there is no room to use and micro-data adapter. This will become too long to fit inside. I also had to solder directly on the drive microsata connector. And be shure to either electrical tape or glue the solderings/cable ends when ready/tested so that it wont break from pressure on installation. Its very delicate with this size of cableing....
i did it too intel x18-m g2 160 gb in my little baby ( macbook air b revision )
love it
Name Score Detail
Results
220.09
System Info
Xbench Version
1.3
System Version
10.6.3 (10D573)
Physical RAM
2048 MB
Model
MacBookAir2,1
Drive Type
INTEL SSDSA1M160G2GN
Disk Test
220.09
Sequential
136.12
Uncached Write
122.87
75.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
151.55
85.75 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
84.21
24.64 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
360.58>
181.23 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random
574.42>
Uncached Write
594.10>
62.89 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
277.98
88.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
1762.17>
12.49 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
896.47>
166.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
love it
Name Score Detail
Results
220.09
System Info
Xbench Version
1.3
System Version
10.6.3 (10D573)
Physical RAM
2048 MB
Model
MacBookAir2,1
Drive Type
INTEL SSDSA1M160G2GN
Disk Test
220.09
Sequential
136.12
Uncached Write
122.87
75.44 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
151.55
85.75 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
84.21
24.64 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
360.58>
181.23 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random
574.42>
Uncached Write
594.10>
62.89 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
277.98
88.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
1762.17>
12.49 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
896.47>
166.35 MB/sec [256K blocks]
How did you get the interface to work and the drive to fit?
Those results are barely faster than the Runcore???
Hi. How have you managed to do that? Could you draw and desribe the scheme of lif-sata interface in details? Thanks
I know this is an oldish thread, but it's very cool, I have found this device , may be of some intrest to people
http://store.era-ele.com/ziflif-ce-18-hdd-to-serialata-sata-hdd-adapter-p-251.html
http://store.era-ele.com/ziflif-ce-18-hdd-to-serialata-sata-hdd-adapter-p-251.html
5V needed
Even if this is an older thread. I've just done the cable soldering but the drive did not work. The problem was, that the Kingston SSDnow needs additional +5V. You can find +5V very easily on the main board: take a look at iFixit Step 8. There is a capacitor near the ribbon plug that goes to audio and USB below the lower left corner of the red square. The capacitor has a + mark on it, which is the +5V side. Take a voltmeter to be sure!
Even if this is an older thread. I've just done the cable soldering but the drive did not work. The problem was, that the Kingston SSDnow needs additional +5V. You can find +5V very easily on the main board: take a look at iFixit Step 8. There is a capacitor near the ribbon plug that goes to audio and USB below the lower left corner of the red square. The capacitor has a + mark on it, which is the +5V side. Take a voltmeter to be sure!
Pinout for Samsung/Toshiba 256GB SSD in 2011 MBA??
I'm looking for anyone who might know the pinout for the current 256GB SSDS
We provide internal and external removables and need the pinout and connector specs so we know how to wire our products and offer solutions. Any hlep would be great. I know OWC provides an SSD that fits too
Thanks! ~tld
I'm looking for anyone who might know the pinout for the current 256GB SSDS
We provide internal and external removables and need the pinout and connector specs so we know how to wire our products and offer solutions. Any hlep would be great. I know OWC provides an SSD that fits too
Thanks! ~tld
Last edited:
Does anyone know if there's a mass-produced adaptor that accomplishes the same goal? 128GB is just not enough for me these days, so I've been thinking about upgrading to a 256GB or 300GB SSD. Thing is, I do not have the soldering skills to this myself, and I am not willing to practice on $300+ SSDs
Market is too small so you probably won't find anything like that. I was in a similar situation and finally decided to sell the Rev.B and get a 2011 MBA. It's only a little more money than a DIY solution and a lot less hassle PLUS the 2011 will outclass the Rev.B in every aspect. Not to forget that you will have renewed warranty.
Unless you're absolutely keen on the design of Rev.B it makes no sense anymore to upgrade it, imho.
How much would a rev B even sell for? I was under the impression that I'd be lucky to get $1000. A 13" 2011 w/ the 256GB SSD starts at $1600... so by my estimation that'd be a $600+ loss for me. Just more money than I'm willing to spend when this laptop does everything else I need it to just fine (for real work, I use my desktop PC). I suppose I could look outside Apple...