Can the SSD in iPad be changed out for a larger capacity SSD?

[Sowellca]

Has anyone tried this yet? I'd love to be able to put a 128G SSD in and have it work correctly. I understand it might be soldered to the board, but I think I'd try it if I knew someone else had succeeded in changing one out.

Any thoughts?

 

[Tim SPRACKLEN]

Has anyone tried this yet? I'd love to be able to put a 128G SSD in and have it work correctly. I understand it might be soldered to the board, but I think I'd try it if I knew someone else had succeeded in changing one out.

Any thoughts?

I'm afraid it's absolutely impossible. Yes the (Samsung) NAND Flash chips used (in the 64 GB version, other makes in those iPads with smaller capacity) are soldered to the processor board (see the iFixit teardown for a picture) but these are SMT (surface mount technology) devices that cannot be easily removed - if at all (you need a special heat gun to remove them or, some companies use an infra-red removal tool). Even if you were successful, the larger capacity devices that you're looking to install are incompatible with the pinout of the Samsung devices.

You might suggest the often used 'bodge' of 'piggybacking' additional devices on top of the existing chips (not even sure how you'd do that) however there's no provision for so-called 'chip select', so the iPad would have no way of routing data to either the first or second 64 GB bank of Flash. And the existing iPad processor board with its SMT chips is a tight fit in the case, so it would be physically impossible - even if you solved the previous problem - for them to be accommodated in the case.

Bottom line - forget it!!

There are, however, external SSDs and HDDs that connect via the iPad's dock connector that can be used to store photos and movies...and since are usually the items that take up most memory in the iPad that might be a better and certainly easier solution.

Tim
Scotland