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The March 2015 update of Apple's 13" MacBook Air features fifth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors, resulting in slightly increased performance and battery life.

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Transplant the SSD to another MacBook

So I’ve been trying to recover a liquid damaged MacBook Air, and it looks like the cost of replacing the parts has exceeded the cost of purchasing a refurbished MacBook Air of the same generation.

If I took the SSD out of the damaged system, can I simply plug it into the new Mac and expect it to play as if there were no changes at all?

At first, I imagine the SSD will most likely detect that it’s in a new device, but will the OS still load and my data still be available?

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I’ve done this before, after my 2014 Mac Air did not turn on. Repair was not economical, and I had a spare 2015 available. Both had the same OS version, so that probably helped, but the only thing I remember really having to do was confirming licenses for a few of the apps I had installed, and confirming my Apple ID details.

I’m actually about to try this again, as my Mac air has 4GB, and we have an 8GB version that would suit me better. 4GB is plenty for our staff that really just use Google Office. I have, of course, backed everything up before starting, and have all my license keys saved.

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Consider getting an OWC Envoy Pro enclosure, then you would be able to access it on another Mac plus have a fast external drive for backup or utility purposes.

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MAU3...

A lot of people buy these to use to transfer data for an old machine and then sell them on eBay.

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If you had High Sierra on your liquid damaged system you may encounter a problem trying to swap out the SSD. During the OS update your systems firmware was upgraded as well so it can handle the new APFS formatted drives. So you’ll need to first make sure your new system is running High Sierra before you try.

I still think getting the OWC Envoy Pro case @mayer recommends is a better answer! Then you can leverage the SSD as a backup drive or offer a large transfer drive if you have a iMac system as well.

Here’s a good reference on the Apple SSD’s The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs (Gen4)

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