MacBook Air Rev A with RunCore 1.8" Pro IV PATA ZIF Drive *ZIF PROBLEMS*

[tibobo]

Re: MacBook Air Rev A with RunCore 1.8" Pro IV PATA ZIF Drive *ZIF PROBLEMS*

The post title say that the problem is solved. It's absolutely wrong.

I bought a RCP-IV-ZA1864-C in june 2010, and it doesn't work with my macbook air rev a.

It's a shame there is no clear information on how to make this drive work on the computer for which it is designed (It's in the title of the item !!!)

Don't buy it !!!!!!!!!! Don't do the same mistake as we did.

Boris

[adrianwi]

Re: MacBook Air Rev A with RunCore 1.8" Pro IV PATA ZIF Drive *ZIF PROBLEMS*

I've been getting frustrated with my MBA for some time now, and while it might be a fantastic looking bit of kit, it's pretty underpowered for many day-to-day applications.

I'd usually look to replace a machine after 3 years, and as the MBA is now over 2.5 years old started to look at a replacement MBP. Torn between the 13" portability (but lower spec. processors) and 15" power started me thinking about the performance of a SSD drive.

As my old Windows laptop (Sony Vaio) was making some strange noises, and swapping out the HDD is just a case of removing a few screws I decided to try a SSD drive in that (a WD Blue 128GB drive). Wow! It's like a new machine and Windows hibernate almost works like it does on the Mac!

So where to get a SSD drive for the MBA? A slightly limited choice, but the Runcore looked good and the set-up sounded pretty straight forward using the USB cloning, and the instructions found at iFixIt made the job look pretty straight forward.

Ordered one from MemoryC which took a few weeks as they were out of stock, but it arrived yesterday so connected up and started the clone using the supplied software (SuperDuper!)

Whilst it was copying thought I'd have a look at the Runcore website and stumbled across the forums. As you can imagine, I became a little worried reading through the previous 27 pages of people experiences installing and using this drive in their MBA!

Didn't have time last night to start taking my MBA apart, but the drive cloned without problems so I woke this morning ready to start the operation.

Less than an hour later, and only a minor issue with one of the battery screws that I couldn't get out and cracked some of the plastic, and I'm typing this on my "new" MBA!

Machine booted without any problems, a few system pop-up messages on start-up, and everything looks to be working. I shut-down and replaced all the screws and case, and remembered to replaced the battery connector, and restarted again without any drama. Have closed and open the lid several times and it behaves just like it used to, but a little quicker! I've also got a 80GB USB drive thanks to the excellent little case supplied in the pack!

I haven't really checked out the performance, but it's undoubtedly quicker given the limitations of the MBA processor and RAM. If it's anything like the performance of the WD drive in the Vaio I won't be upgrading until next years MBPs are released, and hopefully then the 13" will have a iCore processor. I suspect I won't be looking at any replacements unless I can spec. a SSD drive.

Conclusions? If you have a MBA Rev. A get one of these in there now! You'll have a faster machine, with more disk space, an external 80GB HDD all for a few hours work! A pretty good value upgrade in my opinion.

For information, my SSD had the following details:

RCP-IV-Z1828-MCAV
P/N 3915024826
SN 281008110026