Teardown Reveals New MacBook Pro Without Touch Bar Has Removable SSD

The new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar has only been available for a day and just made its way into Apple retail stores, but OWC has already managed to take apart one of the machines to get a glimpse inside.

The teardown is still underway, but OWC can confirm that the new MacBook Pro has a removable SSD, meaning it is replaceable and can potentially be upgraded after purchase. Previous MacBook Pro models have also featured a removable SSD, but the MacBook SSD is soldered to the logic board, so it was unclear if the new MacBook Pro would continue to offer a removable SSD due to its thinner body.

2016macbookproteardown
OWC has noted a number of other observations about the new MacBook Pro:

- Solid State Drive module is removable
- Bottom was more difficult to remove than previous generations, but it was not glued
- Speaker module needs to be removed to pull SSD back
- SSD had very strong tape covering the interface port
- Laptop automatically turns on when you open it regardless of pressing power button

OWC's discoveries only apply to the 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar. It's likely models with a Touch Bar have a similar build, but the internal hardware is different because it incorporates a new component. We'll need to wait a few more weeks to see what's inside the higher-end 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro machines, as they won't be available until mid-November.

Related Forum: MacBook Pro

Top Rated Comments

Max Portakabin Avatar
98 months ago
SHOCKING! something not glued or screwed or welded on!
It's only because they sniffed all the glue before deciding on prices.
Score: 109 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Macneck Avatar
98 months ago
Removable, but a master in neurosurgery is advised
Score: 28 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kagio Avatar
98 months ago
We can say all we want but I think we have to agree: THAT. LOOKS. GORGEOUS.
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
blacktape242 Avatar
98 months ago
SHOCKING! something not glued or screwed or welded on!
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bobdobalina Avatar
98 months ago
edit
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Kobayagi Avatar
98 months ago
After reading lots of these comments since that lame keynote: guys, make me CEO of Apple and I promise, within 1 year, everyone will be happy! :p

We will all have thicker (yes, you read that right) MacBooks with useful ports, magsafe and sd-card slots. They'll have powerful gpus and 64gb ram for those who need it. And hey, we'll throw in a extension cable and make the Apple logo glow again.

We'll make a new Thunderbolt display and new Mac Pros and iMacs for you to connect them with. iPhones will lose the lightning port, because who needs that when there's usb-c and we'll include 2 of those on every Mac, just in case if you ever need one next to usb-a. Most importantly, we'll keep the prices lower so people can actually buy them. Less money but more volume is I believe better than less volume with more money.

But seriously, how freaking hard can it be to just give your customers what they'll actually want. Just for once don't be so extremely cheap. It's not like you're close to bankruptcy.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

maxresdefault

Apple Announces 'Let Loose' Event on May 7 Amid Rumors of New iPads

Tuesday April 23, 2024 7:11 am PDT by
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Apple Vision Pro Dual Loop Band Orange Feature 2

Apple Cuts Vision Pro Shipments as Demand Falls 'Sharply Beyond Expectations'

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:44 am PDT by
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
iPad And Calculator App Feature

Apple Finally Plans to Release a Calculator App for iPad Later This Year

Tuesday April 23, 2024 9:08 am PDT by
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
iOS 17 All New Features Thumb

iOS 17.5 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Sunday April 21, 2024 3:00 am PDT by
The upcoming iOS 17.5 update for the iPhone includes only a few new user-facing features, but hidden code changes reveal some additional possibilities. Below, we have recapped everything new in the iOS 17.5 and iPadOS 17.5 beta so far. Web Distribution Starting with the second beta of iOS 17.5, eligible developers are able to distribute their iOS apps to iPhone users located in the EU...
Apple Silicon AI Optimized Feature Siri

Apple Releases Open Source AI Models That Run On-Device

Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...