MacBook Storage Types
Find the era your machine belongs to.
Mechanical hard drive
MacBook and MacBook Pro Non-Retina models. Standard 2.5" drives that can be removed and worked on directly.
Read more 2012 – 2018 Removable SSDProprietary SSD modules
MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air. Apple used several different connectors and form factors across these years.
Read more Post 2018 Soldered NANDMonolithic SIP NAND
No removable drive at all. Storage is part of the logic board, so recovery becomes a board-level repair.
Read moreearlier
MacBook & MacBook Pro with spinning hard drives
MacBook and MacBook Pros Non-Retina, 2012 and earlier, have spinning hard drives — so the procedure is the same as hard drive data recovery.
That means the full range of options is available: head replacement, PCB repair, firmware work and sector-by-sector imaging, all on a drive that lifts straight out of the machine.
- 2.5" SATA
- Removable
- Cleanroom work possible
- Donor drives available
– 2018
SSD drives in MacBook, Pro and Air
The SSD drives in MacBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops varied considerably across this period. Apple changed connector, pin count and form factor more than once, which is why a drive from one year will not fit a machine from the next.
The drive is still a separate module in most of these, so it can usually be removed and read on the bench with the right adapter.
- Proprietary connectors
- Multiple form factors
- Usually removable
- Adapter required
2018
Monolithic SIP NAND
There is no longer an embedded SSD drive, but rather a monolithic SIP NAND drive which integrates the controller, DDR cache and NAND into a single package. It operates through the same PCI-E interface and essentially stems from the iPhone / iPad architecture.
Because everything is in one package on the board, there is nothing to unplug. The data cannot be reached without working on the logic board itself.
- Controller + DDR + NAND in one
- PCI-E interface
- iPhone / iPad lineage
- Soldered to the board
Later MacBooks need logic board repair
In general the SSDs on later MacBook computers have the solid state drive soldered onto the motherboard, so that data recovery requires repair of the MacBook logic board.
Here at Data Recovery Perth we are familiar with all of the storage technologies used in MacBook computers and can recover your data quickly and efficiently.
Symptoms that bring a MacBook in
If your MacBook is doing any of these, stop using it and call before the drive degrades further.
- Flashing question mark at start up
- Unmountable volume errors
- −127 disk errors
- Clicking noises from the computer
- Prompts asking to initialize a disk
- Slow or inaccessible folders
- Corrupted user profile
MacBook not booting?
We do not charge to quote and there is no fee if your data is not recovered.