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Apple Drops Prices on MacBook Air and Mac Mini SSD Upgrades, Lowers Cost of 64GB Mac Pro RAM Price

Tuesday March 19, 2019 10:36 am PDT by Juli Clover
As we reported this morning, Apple today cut the prices of higher-end MacBook Pro SSD upgrades by up to $400, and as it turns out, there have been pricing changes to components in other Mac machines as well.

For the MacBook Air, released in 2018, upgrading to a 1.5TB SSD on either base model is now $100 cheaper, with the SSD upgrade pricing options listed below.


Entry-level MacBook Air SSD options:
  • 256GB SSD - +$200 (No change)
  • 512GB SSD - +$400 (No change)
  • 1.5TB SSD - +$1,100 ($100 off)
Higher-end MacBook Air SSD options:
  • 512GB SSD - +$200 (No change)
  • 1.5TB SSD - +$900 ($100 off)
Apple has also dropped the price of the 2TB SSD upgrade option in the Mac mini by $200, with the new SSD upgrade pricing options listed below.

Entry-level Mac mini SSD options:
  • 256GB SSD - +$200 (No change)
  • 512GB SSD - +$400 (No change)
  • 1TB SSD - +$800 (No change)
  • 2TB SSD - +$1,400 ($200 off)
Higher-end Mac mini SSD options
  • 512GB SSD - +$200 (No change)
  • 1TB SSD - +$600 (No change)
  • 2TB SSD - +$1,200 ($200 off)
Apple has also quietly dropped the price of the 64GB RAM upgrade in the Mac Pro, which is the 2013 model that has not seen an update in many years.

Prior to today's update, upgrading the base Mac Pro configurations from 16GB RAM to 64GB Ram cost $1,200, but Apple has dropped the price by $400. It now costs $800 to upgrade from 16GB RAM to 64GB RAM. Upgrading to 32GB RAM continues to cost $400 over the base 16GB option.

Related Roundups: Mac Pro, Mac mini, MacBook Air
Buyer's Guide: Mac Pro (Don't Buy), Mac Mini (Buy Now), MacBook Air (Neutral)
[ 166 comments ]


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dannyyankou
5 weeks ago
You can buy a Crucial 1TB SSD for $135 and replace it yourself. But Apple solders their SSDs in, so nope, you can’t do that. Gotta pay $800 if you want it.
Rating: 70 Votes
Avatar
keysofanxiety
5 weeks ago

You can buy a Crucial 1TB SSD for $135 and replace it yourself. But Apple solders their SSDs in, so nope, you can’t do that. Gotta pay $800 if you want it.


A 1TB SATA SSD, bottlenecked at 6Gb/s. If you're comparing apples to apples, at least use the NVMe 970 Pros which have comparative performance.
Rating: 47 Votes
Avatar
predation
5 weeks ago
This is laughable.
Rating: 44 Votes
Avatar
keysofanxiety
5 weeks ago

Well that’s still substantially cheaper buying on its own, you get my point lol.


Yeah! Apple's markup is ridiculous. More than double the cost of the equivalently performing NVMe storage.

Massive RAM prices I can understand as that's just a historical meme at this point. But the storage markup is painful to swallow.
Rating: 37 Votes
Avatar
macduke
5 weeks ago
Not sure why anyone would even consider the trashcan Mac Pro (even with this price reduction for RAM) when even the current 5K iMac comes with a 9th generation Intel Core i9-9900K 8-core CPU that smokes it. Even the Vega 48 should destroy whatever GPU it has (don't care to check).
Rating: 30 Votes
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mpuk
5 weeks ago
Oh Jesus. This is not a price drop. This is somebody in Operations performing a tidy-up on the BOM.
Rating: 28 Votes
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majkom
5 weeks ago

Crucials SSD are nowhere near as fast as Apples.

But do really consumers need those fast and expensive ssds? In macbook air, doubt it
Rating: 24 Votes
Avatar
dannyyankou
5 weeks ago

A 1TB SATA SSD, bottlenecked at 6Gb/s. If you're comparing apples to apples, at least use the NVMe 970 Pros which have comparative performance.

Well that’s still substantially cheaper buying on its own, you get my point lol.
Rating: 21 Votes
Avatar
Sethal
5 weeks ago
So the price of the upgrades that people would actually buy remain unchanged. Got it.
Rating: 20 Votes
Avatar
adamw
5 weeks ago
Price drops are always welcome...
Rating: 18 Votes

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