Thanks Joost - they've promised me an email when they are 100% sure... still waiting for that though!

I've typed up my conclusions here: http://martin.cleaver.org/2011/02/apple-...

In addition to Emyr's point (that the machine iFixit toredown has the revised PCH Hub), check out http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.p... which further discusses the point.

Context, as relating to Sandy Bridge issue: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Cougar-...

Thanks Emyr - I had read your comment yesterday but it didn't click that it addressed the Intel Sandy Bridge bug.

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudden_Moti... , the MacBook Pro has in the past featured a Kionix three-axis accelerometer chip, (KXM52-1050), for protecting its HDD. That said, I couldn't see a KXM chip on the teardown photos (but didn't find them on past models either.)

My conclusion / assumption on this is that the SSD models are all build-to-order vs, ready made for the HDDs. The drive is considered user replaceable - such that users can swap either HDD for SSD or (less likely) SSD for HDD - meaning the motherboards must be identical and include the Sudden Motion Sensor.

I suppose that shifting the SSD to the OptiBay and adding a HDD would necessitate changing a PRAM / NVRAM setting.

I've an outstanding request with MCE Technologies asking them to verify http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?st... - they've emailed to say they will know within a few days their official opinions. That link shows people have already fitted exiting OptiBay models.

Paul - thanks for the heads up on this. So I did some digging - the best assurance I can find is on http://www.macworld.com/article/158134/2... : "Earlier this year, Intel discovered problems in the chipset of Sandy Bridge processors that were shipping, but Apple vice president of worldwide Mac hardware marketing David Moody told Macworld that the company was using the latest updated versions, which corrected the flaw."

From http://forum.ableton.com/viewtopic.php?p... I understand that as delivered, the motherboard is designed to work with an optical drive on the optical drive port (3gb/s) & a SSD or HDD on the main 6gb port.

Open questions for me:

1) Where's the actual quote of what David Moody said?

2) What might "corrected" mean?

3) Given that he is a hardware executive, is it reasonable that they did a hardware correction, (rather than a software patch)

4) Can we trust that Intel's budget for the recall replaces for full HDD support on the optical drive port?

@mrjcleaver

Your teardown is of a HDD based machine. If I bought a SSD 128gb & added HDD via MCE Optibay, I'd seek to move the SDD into the OptiBay, because http://www.ehmac.ca/anything-mac/84938-d... "regular hdd slot has the sudden motion sensor which hdds should have and the optical bay doesn't have the sudden motion sensor which for an ssd doesn't matter anyway"

My thoughts exactly! I asked MCE about Optibay here: http://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?st...