shamino

Ummm… Isn’t the port-to-nowhere on the other side of the board, next to the right-side cooling fan? Looks like it to me in the photos presented here.

@John Chadwick: That MacBook is definitely not zero-worthy. You can open the case and swap the motherboard with just screwdrivers. Yes, the battery is glued to the case, but this still means you can replace a battery (even if you’re going to have to buy a replacement case-half to go with it.) Comapred with this Surface where you can’t do anything at all without causing permanent damage.

According to comments from iFixit on the teardown (MacBook Pro 17" Unibody Teardown), they don’t consider the upper case assembly to be repairable. See comments on step 23 of the teardown.

If anyone has been able to open and close the upper case without damaging it, please share the procedure with the rest of us!

Of course, since there is no SSD controller (see below), you can’t really call these “NVMe SSSDs”. They are flash storage devices, but they only form an “SSD” when connected to the controller, which is part of the T2. And that PCIe bus (assuming it is PCIe), is carrying data between the flash chips and the SSD controller, which means it is definitely not NVMe.

Looks like this is a new and unique Apple-designed flash memory storage system.

But one where upgrades could theoretically cost a bit less than normal, since replacement flash boards won’t require SSD controllers (assuming that custom Apple chip isn’t too horribly expensive to reverse engineer, of course).

When replacing the SSD, be careful about the connector orientation. Replacement boards look almost the same if they are upside-down. Note that the connector is not reversible - there is a notch that will only line up if the board is right-side up. If it doesn't seem to line up, flip the board over.

It worked fine for me, but as others mentioned, you need to be careful to remove the battery connector from the motherboard connector and not accidentally remove the motherboard connector from the motherboard itself.

Additionally, on reassembly, I found that quit a bit of pressure was needed to get the new battery's connector to snap in place. More than I was comfortable applying, but it was necessary and it worked without a problem.

Two points: 1: If you want upgradable storage in a Mac laptop, you can't get a TouchBar. You have to get the Function-Key model or an older generation.

2: If you keep your laptop for a long time, replacing/upgrading the storage can become important. Especially if you can't afford to shell out for the biggest SSD at the time you bought the computer.

I concur. Although I haven't worked on my nano yet, I have done fine-scale soldering like this before. I've never been comfortable working with braid. I prefer to heat the solder and suck it with a vacuum bulb. That won't get all of it, but it will get enough that you can pull the wires from the other side while applying heat and when they come out, the hole should be clear. (Use of a "helping hands" base that can hold the board in place while you use both hands to pull wires and position the soldering iron will help enormously!)

But I also agree that desoldering the wires from the board, although cleaner, is also far more difficult. Better to cut the wires near the battery and then solder the new batter to the cut leads. Use some small diameter heat shrink tubing (or electrical tape) to insulate the wires so it doesn't short when you put it all back together.

I think you may have been reading the wrong guide by mistake.

Looking at the various MacBook Air battery replacement guides, all of the 13" models show the connector depicted in this guide. All of the 11" models (e.g. MacBook Air 11" Mid 2012 Battery Replacement) show a connector like the one in your photos.

I'm wondering if you may be seeing a calibration issue. Batteries in Apple products can (generally) be recalibrated by draining them as much as possible (e.g. start playing a video or doing something else that will draw a lot of power and prevent it from going to sleep, letting it run until the OS does a battery-empty shutdown) then charge it to 100% without using the computer (e.g. leave the lid closed and the charger attached until the charger's light changes from orange to green.) Maybe repeat the cycle one or two times if you think it will help (although it should only be necessary to do this once.)

It wouldn't surprise me if a new battery needs recalibration after installation.