Who Made This SSD?

[BigMcGuire]

2017 MacBook Pro 13' TB. 1TB SSD.

APPLE SSD AP1024J

I did some reading and it looks like the first two characters determine the manufacturer - http://osxdaily.com/2012/06/21/determine-manufacturer-of-mac-ssd/ -- TS = Toshiba. SM = Samsung. I guess AP = Apple? So Apple makes its own 1TB SSDs?

Does anyone know if Apple hires a company or did they really make their own 1TB SSD?

Thanks!

 

[Audit13]

Apple doesn't manufacture any components AFAIK.

Are you able to look at the chips used on the SSD?

 

[BigMcGuire]

Apple doesn't manufacture any components AFAIK.

Are you able to look at the chips used on the SSD?

The apps I've used don't show anything at all about the SSD to tell its manufacturer - hence my interest.

 

[Audit13]

I think you'll have to look at the actual chips on the ssd.

 

[treekram]

With the MBP generation previous to the current one, at least for the Samsung SSD's, they took a Samsung PCIe AHCI SSD, changed the connector and perhaps made other minor changes and put it in the MBP. The current MBP uses SSD's that nobody but Apple uses (as far as I know). They get the NAND chips from probably Samsung or Toshiba (or a mix of the two), they bought a company that designs SSD controllers some years ago and it's believed that they are now using these controllers and it's probably produced at some chip foundry (TSMC, etc.). Who actually puts this all together? Probably some company in China. While the SSD or it's components probably aren't produced at an Apple factory (versus the Toshiba or Samsung SSD's which had a high manufacturing content from their respective companies), they are more Apple from the design perspective than previous SSD's used by Apple.

 

[BigMcGuire]

With the MBP generation previous to the current one, at least for the Samsung SSD's, they took a Samsung PCIe AHCI SSD, changed the connector and perhaps made other minor changes and put it in the MBP. The current MBP uses SSD's that nobody but Apple uses (as far as I know). They get the NAND chips from probably Samsung or Toshiba (or a mix of the two), they bought a company that designs SSD controllers some years ago and it's believed that they are now using these controllers and it's probably produced at some chip foundry (TSMC, etc.). Who actually puts this all together? Probably some company in China. While the SSD or it's components probably aren't produced at an Apple factory (versus the Toshiba or Samsung SSD's which had a high manufacturing content from their respective companies), they are more Apple from the design perspective than previous SSD's used by Apple.

Awesome, thanks!

 

[treekram]

Some links:

The Retina MacBook was the first to use an Apple-designed SSD controller (they believe it is TSMC that produced the controller).
https://appleinsider.com/articles/1...book-bears-first-fruits-of-anobit-acquisition

In step 11 of this iFixit teardown of the 2016 nTB MBP, they have a picture of the Apple SSD controller (3rd picture). It has a different part # than the MacBook (338S00199 for the MBP vs 338S00055 for the MB).
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Function+Keys+Late+2016+Teardown/72415#s144820

In step 8 of this iFixit teardown of the 2016 TB MBP, they show Samsung NAND chips with the Apple controller hidden under the RAM used by the SSD.
https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/MacBook+Pro+15-Inch+Touch+Bar+Teardown/73395

In the 3rd picture down on this link, they have a picture of the removable SSD used in the 2016 nTB MBP and it says it's made in China.
https://9to5mac.com/2016/10/28/owc-...entry-level-13-macbook-pro-without-touch-bar/

In this and other articles I've seen, there is some hope expressed that a 3rd-party SSD will someday be able to work in the nTB MBP's. To me that's pretty ridiculous - I'm pretty sure a big reason they bought their own SSD controller design company was to make sure no 3rd party could make SSD's for Macs going forward.

 

[hallux]

Who actually puts this all together? Probably some company in China. While the SSD or it's components probably aren't produced at an Apple factory (versus the Toshiba or Samsung SSD's which had a high manufacturing content from their respective companies), they are more Apple from the design perspective than previous SSD's used by Apple.

Actually, APPLE puts it all together. the 2017 TB MBP's have soldered-on SSD's. No, it's not as simple soldering the blade to the board, the chips are actually integrted into the PCB design for the logic board, much as is done for the RAM. In the case of the 128 GB model ifixit tore down, the chips were made by Sandisk, then soldered to the board.