Apple has made it somewhat difficult to add extra storage to a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. To do so, you would have to crack open your MacBook and install a drive using lots of elbow grease and a screwdriver or two. Not only can you risk messing up your laptop for good, but you can bet that Apple won’t stand behind any kind of warranty once a laptop has been cracked. A new startup called Nifty has invented the Nifty MiniDrive, which is, essentially, a housing for a microSD card that you can simply slip into the side of your Apple laptop’s SD drive.

The Nifty MiniDrive acts as both extra storage for your laptop and a way to keep all of those important files safe forever. Nifty is currently in the process of raising funds through the crowdfunding site Kickstarter, and the company has already gained more than it bargained for from eager Apple laptop owners. Right now, the Nifty MiniDrive is not in stores, but it will be the one product (and startup) to watch as soon as the prototype process is complete.

How The Nifty MiniDrive Works

If you look at the side of your Apple laptop right now (Air and Pro), you will see a SD card slot. This slot was designed for a microSD card. But, there’s just one problem with inserting a microSD card into that slot – the SD card that you choose will not be flush with the side of your laptop. So, if you try to carry your laptop around with a SD card sticking out, you might encounter some snagging issues. The Nifty MiniDrive fixes this problem by acting as a case for a microSD card. You would simply slip the card into the Nifty MiniDrive, and then insert the drive into the microSD port on your laptop.

From there, you would be able to access the storage drive through your laptop’s Mission Control center. The Nifty MiniDrive can accommodate microSD cards up to 64GB, which allows for a decent amount of storage. Storage, really, is the name of the game here, and it’s the main reason why Nifty has gained so much seed funding so quickly through Kickstarter.

Backing Up To Your Nifty MiniDrive

If you think about all the things that could damage your laptop (water, spilt coffee, dropping your laptop, and all kinds of other possibilities), you’d realize that your laptop is not indestructible. Unless you don’t care about any of the files that are currently on your system, it’s a good idea to always back up every file that you have at the end of each day – photos, videos, and text files included. You can use the Cloud to accomplish this task, but if you go over a certain limit you might wind up paying, and Cloud storage depends on the speed of your current Internet connection.

A better, or additional, option then would be to opt for something like the Nifty MiniDrive. As Nifty points out in their Kickstarter pledge video, a microSD card is virtually indestructible, so all of your files will be safe no matter what may happen to your system. You can find out more about Nifty MiniDrive here, and you can even help fund this startup if you have some extra cash to spare.