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Some tinkering: Inexpensive boot SSD RAID0 with native TRIM

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May 26, 2010
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Motherboard
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3
CPU
i7-6700K OC @ 4.5GHz
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GTX 760
Mac
  1. MacBook
Mobile Phone
  1. iOS
My latest tinkering project is done.

After upgrading my MBA from 64GB to 128GB (out of warranty anyway), I thought that instead of selling the 64GB for ridiculously little money it would make more sense to buy another 64GB blade and two SATA adapters for them.

So I dug around a bit on eBay and got a 64GB blade for ~€30 plus two adapters for ~€30, both including shipping.

Just threw them into my hack, created a RAID0 from them using Disk Utility and applied neilhart's guide, except that I used 10.7.4 and Chimera 1.10.
This RAID is way faster than the Intel 320 80GB SSD I used before (see attachments).

Nice side effect: Since they're original MBA SSDs, they have native TRIM support.

PMG5i7 [email protected] - 8GB RAM @1600MHz - Intel 320 80GB SSD.png
PMG5i7 [email protected] - 8GB RAM @1600MHz - 2x64GB MBA SSD RAID0.png
 

Attachments

  • PMG5i7 i7-870@3.52GHz - 8GB RAM @1600MHz - Intel 320 80GB SSD.png
    PMG5i7 [email protected] - 8GB RAM @1600MHz - Intel 320 80GB SSD.png
    53.3 KB · Views: 283
  • PMG5i7 i7-870@3.52GHz - 8GB RAM @1600MHz - 2x64GB MBA SSD RAID0.png
    PMG5i7 [email protected] - 8GB RAM @1600MHz - 2x64GB MBA SSD RAID0.png
    53.8 KB · Views: 303
Great project. I am not up to speed on the MBA SSD connector form factor. What form is it and would you share what adapter cards you used?

As you know, I love RAID 0 for the performance.

neil
 
Hi neilhart,

thanks again for your RAID-guide. Ignoring all the replies to your post I followed your guide to the letter, albeit using 10.7.4 and Chimera 1.10. As I posted in the thread, iCloud and App Store work for me.

Now to your imminent question:
The MBA 2010 and 2011 share the same connector and are both SATA2. For the 2011 there are some made by Samsung, which are a bit faster than all the others (2010 & 2011) made by Toshiba.
The Mercury Aurora Pro Series by OWC share the same connector (part of the series is even SATA3 since the 2011 MBA actually supports that). These are also the reason why there are MBA SSDs on eBay at all, because people upgrade to them and sell their original blades.

The connector is a mini PCIe/mSATA connector, but wired in a non-standard way (That's Apple...), so you can't just use any mini PCIe/mSATA adapter.

That's why you need an adaptor specifically made for the MBA 2010/2011 blade SSDs. I searched eBay for "air ssd adapter" which gave me some results from Hong Kong and China.
I highly recommend the seller of this adapter.
As I said, I ordered two, one of which unfortunately was DOA. So I contacted the seller and he sent me a replacement right away. I had to send the dead one back, but the seller paid for the postage. He was really quick and I can't recommend him enough.

BTW: In the 2012 MBA (and the rMBP) Apple uses something completely proprietary, but OWC are working on replacement parts for those, too, so adapters for those are bound to come up at some point in time.
 
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