Replacing SSD

[daniel3083]

Hi Gurus,

I have 2 MBA one has 128GB (MBA early 2015) and the other with 256GB (MBA 2013). I exchange the SSD from one to another.., its become 128GB in MBA 2013 and 256GB in MBA early 2015.

MBA with 256GB (MBA early 2015) success on El Capitan re-installing, but in MBA 2013 has grey problem and blinking question mark.

I already search in any forums and websites, they talk about cabling or connection problem (on MBP), but no information for MBA. Already re-insert the SSD, but no effect.

Reinstalling using USB boot drive with El Capitan, result with grey screen and blinking question mark.
When re-install using internet, its download Maverick. Maverick cannot detect my SSD.

Anyone can share how to fix this problem...
Thank you.

 

[daniel3083]

Hi,

finally I found the answer that (could be) caused the problem my MBA 2013 cannot detect MBA's 2015 SSD. In the protocol of the SSD interface is different. In MBA 2013 the SSD's interface protocol is PCI, in MBA 2015 the SSD's protocol interface is PCIe.
When SSD's MBA 2015 put in MBA 2013, its not detect because the protocol is PCIe. I attached the screen capture from the OSX.

Now I turn back the SSD as before.

 

[NoBoMac]

Odd. Might be off here, but I seem to recall that 2013 is PCIe 2.0 vs. 2015 being PCIe 3.0, and that should be backward compatible.

Additionally, PCIe is supposed to be backward compatible with PCI.

That said, Apple has their own connector for PCIe SSDs, so, maybe a difference between the connectors between the two, just being different enough to throw things off.