Apple Appears to Use Its Own SSD, Controller in New 12” MacBook

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After tearing down the thin new 2015 12” MacBook, we found an interesting tidbit in System Profiler under “NVMExpress” category.

The MacBook’s SSD is named “Apple SSD” with a part number of AP0256H. Typically the SSDs in Macs have a label of “SM” for Samsung or “SD” for SanDisk, for example. The “AP” prefix would certainly seem to point to the SSD being Apple designed.

This, of course, would be a logical next step after Apple bought Israeli semiconductor startup Anobit Technologies in the late 2011/early 2012 timeframe.

And of course, as we noted earlier this week on the Rocket Yard, Apple has also shifted its SSD interface from AHCI protocol to support for the NVM Express SSD Interface (also known as NVMe) in Mac OS X 10.10.3, which is optimized for PCIe-based SSDs. The change should provide faster SSD performance than is possible with current AHCI implementations.

So, is Apple using its own NAND controller for first time in a laptop with the new 12” MacBook? This evidence would certainly seem to point in that direction.

2 Comments

Hello says:

July 15, 2016 at 8:17 am

My 11″ MacBook Air also had it the AP0256H
MaX says:

April 20, 2015 at 11:36 am

Not necessarily. I mean, manufacturers like LaCie have hidden the real manufacturer of the disk mechanism inside for years. Disk Utility reports LaCie, but LaCie is not a manufacturer of mechanisms. Now os part of Seagate, but it was the same before such purchase.