I never said it was a software block. While I suppose that's a possibility, I don't know how Apple actually blocks others from making third-party modules, whether it's a special firmware code or special hardware. Insted, I've repeatedly focused on the end result, which is that, regardless of how Apple does it, it is a de facto economic block, as evidence by the fact that others, like OWC, haven't been able to reverse-engineer them—as you should have understood perfectly well, since you've quoted the very posts in which I said just that (see below).
I even quoted an interchange with OWC tech support in which they confirmed they weren't able to produce the slotted SSD modules!
But the other poster here is reverse engineering them and is apparently ready to produce samples:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ge.2370048/page-3?post=32921772#post-32921772
At least that's how I read it. Perhaps I'm wrong about what it is that I am reading, but from my reading of your posts you were posting as though Apple had made it
impossible to do so - ie that they'd blocked it completely - and they haven't. If I misread you fair enough. In fact, I argue that while they've tried to make it an economic impracticality, hence economic block, it would be impossible for them to make it impossible, to block it entirely. For me, circling back to our larger conversation, this divergence between what is
impossible and what is merely
difficult leads to some divergent conclusions and that's why I mentioned it. But I also kept trying to say that this was very minor point, more on that below.
So given that you've agreed with me all along (i.e., that you, like me, ALSO believed "it's an economic block on these slotted SSDs by making it difficult to reverse engineer and get the necessary components") why were you repeatedly, and maddenlingly, arguing against me at every turn? That's just wasting both your time and mine.
Recall I tried to end this conversation agreeing to disagree,
you wanted to continue. Criticizing me for wasting your time is more than a little unfair given that. But in the interest of explaining myself and why I have not simply agreed with you all along: this was part of a larger conversation about if Apple implemented a secondary RAM pool (for the Mac Pro) that could user upgraded, would Apple try to lock it down and make it
impossible for 3rd party sellers? My contention was that they would not and that even if they tried, were the market to be big enough, whatever modular RAM system they developed would be reverse engineered and 3rd party sellers would eventually emerge as appears to be happening for builtin hard drives. Apple could only slow that process down. This particular part of how Apple treats builtin hard drives was merely an exemplar of this that we got invested beyond the usefulness of it as an example - especially since my main point was that even if we treated the builtin hard drives as completely locked down, then the analogy to them was the builtin RAM, not the hypothetical secondary user upgradeable RAM pool which would be more analogous to PCIe storage than to builtin storage, especially for CXL-like PCIe RAM. Thus it was more likely for Apple to use standard RAM sticks/CXL than to develop some custom DRAM module even treating the builtin storage as completely locked down. Truthfully I think the possibility of a user upgradeable secondary RAM pool specifically for the Mac Pro, especially a custom one but any of the proposed solutions really, is pretty remote for the foreseeable future, but I think it is an interesting idea and worth discussing the contours of how it might work from both a technical and business perspective.
Look I don't intend to stress you out. If what I'm saying above makes no sense to you and/or you think it's completely wrong headed then let's just drop it and agree to disagree? I like having discussions on interesting topics, I absolutely have respect for you as a poster and for your arguments here even if I disagree with them, and I don't intend to have a forum fight with you over this. When I originally posted, I was coming at this highly, highly speculative topic from a different viewpoint that I thought was worth sharing. But if the resulting conversation is maddeningly frustrating instead of fun and interesting, then we should stop having it.
