Apple’s 2018 MacBook Pro can’t recover data if the logic board fails

If you buy one of the new 2018 MacBook Pros, you’d best back up your data, since recovery will be much harder than it was before if your logic board fails.

It turns out Apple removed a data-recovery port from the logic board in the latest iteration of the MacBook Pro, according to MacRumors. On previous models, the port served as a last resort for data recovery when backups and other recovery methods had failed.

Why would Apple remove such a potentially life-saving feature? Probably for stronger security. The new T2 chip, which handles many secondary functions of the machine, including hardware encryption. The way the T2 does this was probably incompatible with having the existing port.

A logic board failing is unlikely, but it can happen, so it’s doubly important that you figure out a backup solution for the data on your 2018 MacBook Pro. Of course, Apple always recommends that customers back up their data to an external drive, either via Time Machine or another service.

Previously, if a Logic Board failed, a Genius Bar technician at an Apple Store could plug in a proprietary tool that connects the failed board to a new MacBook Pro. From there, you can use Apple’s Migration Assistant on the working MacBook Pro to pull the data from the SSD connected to the failed logic board.

Without the port, though, the proprietary tool won’t work with the 2018 MacBook Pro, which means data recovery will be an uphill battle if the logic board fails and you don’t have a backup. 

So the lesson here is if you’re spending upwards of $1,799+ for a 13-inch or $2,499+ for a 15-inch MacBook Pro, you should also pony up for an external hard drive for those (frequent) backups.