How to expand MacBook Pro Retina Storage and MacBook Air Storage

There are many variations of the question "How do I increase my MacBook Air's storage?" I hear a lot of "How can I increase the storage space on my MacBook Air?" and "I have no room on my MacBook Pro Retina". Up until recently, we were limited to deleting files from the hard drive in order to free up disk space. We now have other options.

Option 1: Transcend JetDrive Light

All MacBook Pro Retinas and MacBook Airs have an SDXC card slot. This slot allows you to take your SDXC card from your camera and insert it into your laptop to transfer photos to the Mac. It turns out that almost no one uses this slot so it sits there indefinitely.TranscendThe product is called theJetDrive LiteYou can choose from 64 GB, 128GB and 256GB sizes. All you have to do is insert it into the unused SDXC slot and instantly increase the storage capacity.

The JetDrive Lite is made to fit flush with your computer, rather than sticking out a bit like a standard SDXC card. Also, different Apple laptop models have different SDXC slots, so it's important to choose the right card for you. It's easy: go to the Apple menu and select About This Mac. Then, click on More Info. There you'll find the official name of your model.

Transcend will help you choose the right model for your laptop by providing the model number. JetDrive Lites are available for MacBook Airs 2010-2015, and MacBook Pro Retinas 2012-2015. This is it!

Notice:The JetDrive Lite provides a lot of space.SeparateFrom the space on your original Solid State Drive (SSD). If you have a 256 GB SSD and add a 128 JetDrive Lite to it, the space will be doubled.Don'tYou'll end up with 384 GB of storage. Instead, you will have aSecondHard drive (128 GB) added to original 256.

Do not drag a file from one drive to the other. It will duplicate it. If you don't want duplicates, do not drag files onto your JetDrive Lite Card.

Advanced users who are looking for thrills can backup their entire hard drives and use Disk Utility to create one partition from the JetDrive Lite. After that, you can use Disk Utility again to copy back everything. However, this makes it impossible to use any other SDXC slot since the card must remain in order to make the machine work correctly.

I recommend that you keep the card on a separate disc.This way, you can pull out the card and still use the slot to import photos from your camera. The card is also slower than the SSD so it makes sense not to keep the application and often-used files on your SSD.

Option 2: Transcend JetDrive

It is very simple to upgrade MacBook Air storage and MacBook Pro Retina storage by inserting a card into the SDXC slots. This was the "JetDrive Lite" mentioned above. The less-easy way, but perhaps better-for-you-in-the-long-run way, is to take out the original too-small SSD and replace it with something bigger- namely, the "JetDrive" (without the "Lite"). Transcend offers a great video showing you how to open the case.

There are three models of the JetDrive: 240 GB, 480 GB and 960 GB. You will need to choose the right one, just like the Lite cards. Transcend's website will help you determine which one is right for you.