A much needed recap for the SSD stick conundrum and a question

[giggles]

Hi, first of all a quick recap

Macs before June 2013: don't care, couple of different stick connectors

Every Mac (rMBP, iMac, MP, Mini) released between June 2013 and March 2015: apple proprietary pcie connector "BobbyMid2013" (made up name), xp941-based pcie SSD stick

March 2015 rMBP 13": same "BobbyMid2013" connector, faster sm951-based SSD stick, not NVMe but still AHCI

April 2015 rMB 12": not an actual STICK, just NAND chips soldered directly to the motherboard and an apple-developed SSD controller supporting NVMe (together with a NVMe-supporting motherboard, NVMe-supporting firmware and NVMe-supporting OSX from 10.10.3 on)

Future 2015 Macs (new rMBP 15", new iMacs and Minis, new Mac Pro): probably like the 2015 rMBP 13", sticking to the samsung-based not-NVMe stick with sm951. NVMe stays a rMB 12"-exclusive for 2015. Then in 2016 either Samsung provides apple with a NVMe consumer solution or Apple makes sticks based on its own custom controller (as seen on 12" rMB).

Now the question: has anybody thought of scavenging a sm951 from a 2015 rMBP 13" and putting it in an older Mac? I would guess they will start to pop-up on ebay just like the xp941-based ones are now. Would that even work? The "BobbyMid2013" connector appears to be unchanged in pictures.

 

[giggles]

This is how "BobbyMid2013" looks like

Looks completely unchanged in the last 2 years.

If you've bought a new Mac with Fusion or SSD-only from June2013 on, you support "Bobby".

eBay is full of 1TB "Bobby" SSDs (just search for "apple pcie SSD 1TB"), but currently they likely all are the old xp941-based ones. It would be annoying to drop 700$ on one of them and then discover you could have gone for a new sm951-based one.

 

[GregoryOrme]

This is how "BobbyMid2013" looks like

ImageImage

Looks completely unchanged in the last 2 years.

If you've bought a new Mac with Fusion or SSD-only from June2013 on, you support "Bobby".

eBay is full of 1TB "Bobby" SSDs (just search for "apple pcie SSD 1TB"), but currently they likely all are the old xp941-based ones. It would be annoying to drop 700$ on one of them and then discover you could have gone for a new sm951-based one.

There are Samsung SM951s available, but they go only to 512GB. These are going on eBay for $500+, and some recently as high as $680. The Apple variant of the SM951 is still a bit of a rarity. The Apple variants need a different adapter than the Samsung versions when using them in the Classic Mac Pro. The Samsung versions tend to be slightly faster. The larger sizes (512) are faster than the smaller sizes (128, 256). There is no native TRIM for the Samsung versions, but this can be worked around.

 

[giggles]

Yes I'm aware of that, but of course standard sm951 SSDs without apple "Bobby" connector are of little interest to the discussion. (except for Classic Mac Pro users, who have the option of using pcie adatpers)

As you said we have to wait for the Bobby-ed sm951 SSDs (and those do go up to 1TB: it's a CTO option on the 2015 rMPB13") to stop being a rarity.