Trying to Avoid Paying $400 for an OWC SSD

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I can’t find an “affordable” compatible 1TB SSD for a 2010/2011 MacBook Air #A1370 other than on OWC for a pricey $400. I don’t want to spend this kind of coin on it so I’ve been looking for a workaround, which I think I did but wondering if someone here has done the same thing that I’m about to do?

I have been doing a lot of research and I found a Sintech adapter that fits a M.2 mSATA triple prong 1TB SSD (many priced around $150) into a 6/12 Pin mSata connector.

My concerns here now is that the Sintech PCB is longer and if the length of that adapter will overlap or obstruct other components on the board? And the added thickness of the PCB adapter now holding the new SSD PCB chip may make it too thick for the bottom pan to close perhaps?

Lastly the Apple controller has to fully handshake the new SSD’s controller to get true 6gb speeds. If the new SSD controller is not that compatible as in the case of OWC’s Sandforce controller which I heard throttles speeds down to 3gb then I won’t get the true potential capable speeds.

Does anyone here know which controllers WD, Samsung and Crucial use on their SSD’s? Has anyone on this forum attempted to do this approach and save the $250 or I would assume most just pay the exorbitant OWC $400 price tag?
 
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That is too old of a computer to spend that much money on, in my opinion. Especially for only an internal drive. And it will not run any newer of an OS.
 

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I'm with Bob here. You should take the $400 and put that against the purchase of the new machine.
 
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Trying to Avoid Paying $400 for an OWC SSD


Heck, for that Mac, why not just buy a self powered external 1TB SSD and stick it onto the MacBook Air with some good quality double sided foam mounting tape???

Some are quite stylish and could look quite good and would sure be a heck of a lot cheaper!!!





- Patrick
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That is too old of a computer to spend that much money on, in my opinion. Especially for only an internal drive. And it will not run any newer of an OS.

Well actually it can run the latest version of any OSX going forwards until they legacy it ...it has High Sierra installed on it now, but I just bought this MBA last week to specifically run OSX 10.6.8 because I think it's their best OP yet, and I've used all subsequent ones thereafter.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm with Bob here. You should take the $400 and put that against the purchase of the new machine.

that's $400 for an OWC SSD but I'm looking to get away with it for less than $200 for my adapter approach as described above.
 
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Well, macOS High Sierra, is the last supported version for the MBA, as Mojave requires 2012 or newer.
 

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Why not just go with an external drive which will end up being fairly cheap? While you might like Snow Leopard 10.6.8, virtually no recent software supports that OS anymore, almost all of them require 10.10 Yosemite to work. So unless you're also using legacy software with that legacy OS, your machine is really stuck in the past.
 
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Well I'm buying 2 of them one for internal installation and the other for external backup with carbon copy cloner. I haven't had any problems yet really with Snow Leopard so far, that may change though ofcourse. I keep a very small partition with Yosemite for iPhone-iTunes syncing.
 
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Does anyone know the controller for the 2011 MBA and the controller for a WD or Samsung or Crucial SSD?
 
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Does anyone know the controller for the 2011 MBA and the controller for a WD or Samsung or Crucial SSD?


Sorry, but I am not understanding your questions.

And as there are no other replies or posts from others, maybe they don't either and you may want to rephrase your questions.






- Patrick
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Patrick, I think what he's asking is for data on the internal controller in the MBA, and for the on-drive controllers on those drives. The former may be available somewhere, but the latter may well be proprietary and vendor controlled, so not available. I do know that those specific on-drive controllers work at the lowest level and normally cannot be replaced without having to do a low-level reformat of the drive (even lower level than what the operating system does). The head movements and track definitions are controlled in those controllers, for example. And I have no idea what the control circuits on an SSD would do--maybe control the constant maintenance on the drive as data flows in and out?

I have no idea why he's asking for that, either, as it isn't going to do much good, unless he plans to build his own SSD from memory chips and a controller chip (plus all the support chips and components). And that would most likely cost a lot more than the $400 he wants to avoid.

So, I'm totally lost as to what the goal is any more.
 

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I think he's trying to determine if what he wants to do by using the adapter and less expensive SSD will work in place of an exact replacement that would cost him the $400 from OWC. Actually, what Ashwin suggest is probably the best solution. I recently picked up a Samsung 512GB T5 SSD from B&H Photo in NY for $99 and free shipping. They also had the 1TB model on sale for $149.95.
 
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So, I'm totally lost as to what the goal is any more.
Okay, that makes two of us!!! :Smirk:


Actually, what Ashwin suggest is probably the best solution.
I like my #2 post better and taping it to the Mac's lid!!! ;D





- Patrick
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Do you really need to have ALL 1tb of data on your MacBook Air(!) at all times? Try researching more efficient data management and external drives. That's what I would do...that's actually what I do with all computers. Pumping $400 for an SSD into a MBA that's probably not even worth that much is not a sound choice. And from my experience of manipulating sata controllers on Apple desktops/laptops, adapters are NOT reliable for a drive that's moving a lot of data. I fully support OWC products, as well as their support, but I would go with an external drive for anything that relates to media and documents. I have a Mac Pro and still keep its internal SSD stock with only OSX and programs. Everything else is stored externally.
 
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Good to see some responses on this thread. I bought the MBA 11" to miniaturize and be very mobile so I don't want to carry around many extra peripherals yet I already will be carrying 1 extra 1 TB external drive for CCC backups. I'm not looking to build anything as some said, I'm only looking to purchase the best possible and most compatible SSD for the MBA and it is not an OWC.

But from what I'm told, the MBA has its own controller (with no hard drive in it) so I guess the controller is on the motherboard, and an SSD has it's own controller built into its own PCB and if those 2 controllers aren't compatible with each other and don't handshake each other well then I won't be getting full 6 GB speeds but instead throttled-down half speeds of 3 GB or 1.5 GB.

So I'm asking which controllers are on Samsung, Crucial and Western Digital SSD's so I can make the right choice in my purchase. I don't want to choose an OWC for instance and use their terrible SandForce controller which gives me reduced 3 GB speeds and not the expected 6 GB speeds. I would like to use the full potential speed of the hard drive ofcourse, but this is only due to compatible controllers. I hope this made sense and we're on the same page.

Does anyone know the names of the controllers per aftermarket SSD so I can research their compatibility and speeds with the MBA?
 
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Sorry, but I am not understanding your questions.

And as there are no other replies or posts from others, maybe they don't either and you may want to rephrase your questions.






- Patrick
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I think you are right, I don't think anyone here knows what I'm talking about? ...especially with a very important topic like controllers as in this instance, I'm quite surprised actually. The speed of any and all hard drives depends upon its controller chip. If you don't have a compatible controller chip on your new hard drive purchase to your computer, then you won't get the full speed potential of that hard drive. I had thought that atleast someone here on this forum would have known and had copious amounts of performance data on this incredibly important subject.
 
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The speed of any and all hard drives depends upon its controller chip. If you don't have a compatible controller chip on your new hard drive purchase to your computer, then you won't get the full speed potential of that hard drive.


I would suggest you are quite right, but I imagine most reputable companies would be using the best driver and chip that they can afford and design.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, I would suspect most people at best would use them go by the speed graphs and charts supplied by many, and choose their drive accordingly as well as paying attention to the price.

I would also suspect that the data for chips and controllers are kept private by the companies as it is a very competitive business.

So why not just look up some other charts for the rated and tested speeds and make your choice from that.




- Patrick
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So I couldn't wait any longer for controller advice to buy the SSD. I'll trial and error my own findings but I think it will work, atleast theoretically it can. I bought a $140 1TB WD SSD that has a different key setup with a $10 adapter.

This is a much cheaper approach than the ridiculous $400 1TB OWC SSD with what has already been proven to have poor controller performance with their crap Sandforce controller. So I think this setup is much cheaper, faster and a better, more reputable brand.

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...cm_re=wd_blue_nand_1tb-_-20-250-092-_-Product

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00QAE5FVO/?tag=macforums0e4-20

M.2(NGFF) SSD adapter as SSD of 2010-2011 MACBOOK Air [ST-M2A2011] - $9.99 : sintech adapter shop

and I bought this one...

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...wdFLDckZFcPhcenDjD0aAt8dEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
 
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yeah I know it said the Asus thing before i bought it but its still just an adapter and I suspect that they are saying "not compatible" because the key setup is different than Apple's but its still a 6/12 key setup yet who knows until I trial and error it.

If it really does not work then it was only a $10.00 gamble experiment while I still have the other Simtech adapter coming which does work. If they both work then I will need a 2nd adapter anyways for the external back up SSD so I won't loose out, we'll see.
 

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