Toshiba Announces Blade-Type SSD Modules

The MacBook Airs released at Apple’s “Back to the Mac” event last month are built on flash-memory, just like the company’s iOS devices. Benefits of this type of storage include increased speed, instant-on capabilities and lower power requirements.

However, many have complained that future upgrades aren’t possible because this component is soldered to the Air’s logic board.

This simply isn’t true. While the RAM is part of the logic board, the Flash storage is not. According to iFixit’s take-apart guide, the storage component is a separate part, built by Toshiba.

Today, Toshiba announced these “blade style” SSD modules are available for sale, opening the possibility of a DIY upgrade for the MacBook Air.  This is great news for tinkerers, but as Mac Rumors points out, there may be one small hiccup:

We should note that we haven’t yet been able to confirm that the 256GB part will actually fit into the 11″ MacBook Air, as the 256GB part is slightly thicker than the 64GB and 128GB parts (3.7mm vs 2.2mm).

The Toshiba parts don’t yet show up for sale on the company’s website, but should be available soon for purchase. Pricing hasn’t been announced.

Article Via Mac Rumors

Photo Credit: iFixIt

Stephen Hackett, formerly a Lead Mac Genius at Apple, now spends his days running the IT department of a large non-profit in Memphis, TN. He writes about Apple, design and journalism at forkbombr.net. Like all twenty-somethings, you can find him on Twitter. Oh, and he has a dogcow tattoo.