Can I update the 2017 MacBook Pro 15" SSD?

You could add an external SSD drive in an enclosure so small, you could tape it to the cover of your MacBook and maintain its portability.

Or you could use a somewhat larger "regular"drive on your bench at home, and just keep stuff that does not need to be completely portable on there.

OWC is an excellent company with a great reputation. Their extensive tear down video library is a godsend allowing many of us to do advanced upgrades with confidence. Their DataDoubler brackets for Minis and iMacs are ingenious.

SFCityHost wrote:

OWC is an excellent company with a great reputation. Their extensive tear down video library is a godsend allowing many of us to do advanced upgrades with confidence. Their DataDoubler brackets for Minis and iMacs are ingenious.

I don't know if they actually design much other than perhaps give specifications to a manufacturer. The Data Doubler isn't much different than the OptiBay or any number of different generic slimline optical drive to 2.5" SATA drive caddies. It's just a caddy with a passive slimline-SATA to 2.5" SATA adapter.

These aren't my listings, but just an example (some under $3)

New Universal Caddy SATA 2nd HDD SSD Hard Drive CD DVD ROM Optical Bay Adapter | eBay

Not that I don't agree that OWC provides excellent service. However, I'm not sure how they're going to move ahead given that there are so few upgrades that can be applied to the latest Macs.

That is an interesting query.

If you have any of those, OR a problem with Wi-Fi (which is no longer on a separate card either), then the only option is to replace the entire motherboard.

An interesting side effect is that Apple's total cost of inventory for spares for this model may not be strongly different from previous models. Yes the part required is more expensive, but you can use that one part to cover many more problems. A mainboard problem, a RAM problem, an SSD problem, or a Wi-Fi problem can all be covered with the same spare part.

send the old device back to the manufacturer for refurbishing. Apple's contract manufacturers have workers who are very good at it.

Interesting. When did Apple change policy and no longer refurbish themselves (in California)?

Thanks for the Answer. was about to buy one (Special deal) but only has 256Gb SSD. So if it can't be upgraded I guess it is a nogo for me. Unless Apple has an upgrade Service for the SSD. I still can't wrap my head around why it is not exchangeable. Ram and SSD are the most likely components to break down. So in this respect Apple needs to listen more to the customer needs, as Mr. Cook recently said in an Interview. Hope to see this in future Equipment again.

There are two competing forces at work here. One is Reliability, the other is Serviceability.

Reliabilty suggests you solder everything, because sockets are not very reliable when you can put a multi-G forces on your MacBook just by moving it around "normally".

Serviceability requires that the components, RAM DIMMs and SSD drives must have attained a certain level of innate reliability, such that the likelihood of having to replace them is so low, they could be considered essentially permanent. RAMs have finally gotten to that point, and Apple has decided that the SSD components they are using have reached that level as well.

The good news is that Apple is using components that are so solid, they will never need replacement (over a large sample).

OWC SSDs are not recognized as such by Apple and APFS could not be restored from TimeMachine backups to the "rotational" target.

No idea what you mean with "not recognized". I have/had OWC SSDs in all of my MBP's and haven't had a problem at all. Clearly you appear to have a problem with OWC - just not sure what that might be.

This will be my last reply as I'm not into discussing fruitlessly and endlessly.

I will still recommend them. If you're going to bash someone, you'll need to include all the other SSD makers. There is no urgent need to have APFS - the world won't end if it's not on my external drive.

incanter wrote:

My point exactly -- OWC has rotational parts in their SSDs 😁

Then they are not Solid State Drives, are they.

But there is no SSD with rotating parts, not from OWC and not from anyone else. Your statement is utter nonsense.

Sigh... let me restate what I said one last time: if you are using OWC SSD to upgrade *internal* SSD in your MacBook Pro (for the model's that still have removable SSD) you will not be able to restore TimeMachine backup because you could not install High Sierra (10.13.x) on HFS+ and Apple considers OWC Aura SSD "rotational" drive. You have been warned.

Csound1 wrote:

As Apple have publicly said APFS is not supported on rotational drives or external drives of any type, it is for internal SSD's. The problem you speak of is exactly what is expected.

Huh? I've formatted an external hard drive in APFS. Back when my HD failed at the end of last year I decided to get a WD Black 750 GB drive and formatted it in APFS, then cloned from a backup (in HFS+). I did it in an external USB enclosure, booted from it externally, and transferred it to my mid-2012 MBP. I also reformatted my backup external drive in APFS and then did backups to it.

It's not necessarily recommended, but I've used APFS both on an external and a rotational drive.

https://www.macworld.com/article/3230498/storage/apple-file-system-apfs-faq.html

Should I upgrade my external volumes to APFS?

You can upgrade external drives that use either SSDs or hard drives, but not Fusion drives. However, there are no advantages for hard drives, so I would recommend against it.

If you have an external SSD that is only used for storage, the advantage is likely not high enough to give up compatibility if you ever think you would want to remove that external SSD and use it with a pre-Sierra Mac. See our instructions on using Disk Utility to upgrade an external SSD.

This is what Apple says:

How to choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended when formatting a disk for Mac - Apple Support

Which format should you choose?

When you install macOS High Sierra on the Mac volume of a solid-state drive (SSD) or other all-flash storage device, that volume is automatically converted to APFS. Fusion Drives, traditional hard disk drives (HDDs), and non-Mac volumes aren't converted.

Disk Utility in macOS High Sierra can format most storage devices using either file system.

Huh? I've formatted an external hard drive in APFS.

That does not change the fact that it is unsupported by Apple.

It is the reason why Apple don't automatically convert it, you can of course do anything you want with your drive. I just don't tell people to ignore Apples instruction not to.

How to choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended when formatting a disk for Mac - Apple Support

Csound1 wrote:

Huh? I've formatted an external hard drive in APFS.

That does not change the fact that it is unsupported by Apple.

It is the reason why Apple don't automatically convert it, you can of course do anything you want with your drive. I just don't tell people to ignore Apples instruction not to.

How to choose between APFS and Mac OS Extended when formatting a disk for Mac - Apple Support

But how is that "unsupported"? They note that hard drives, non-Mac, and Fusion drives aren't automatically converted, one needs High Sierra and that APFS is optimized for SSDs. It does suggest that HFS+ might be a more universal choice. They say nothing about external drives. It's obviously supported, or else APFS would be locked out as a format for external and/or hard drives. Whether or not it's recommend is another matter.

Actually... do not "buy the fastest you can" -- USB 3.0 theoretical limit is 5Gbit/s (~640 Mbytes/s) and is much lower in practice -- any modern SSD from reputable manufacturer should be able to sustain that. And, certainly, do not "[b]uy an external SSD 2GB or 4GB", not that anybody is making SSD that small...