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ZIF is quite a standard format, a
http://www.google.co.uk/products?q=ZIF+connector&aq=f
Though not to be confused with theZIF connector of the old mac CPU upgrades
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/encore.html
oh the memories 
Just an observation, as I don't see this as particularly bad considering the type of device... But if it is ZIF it is a PATA interface, at best UDMA mode 5 - with a maximum transfer rate of 100MBps.
Like I said, considering where these things top out performance wise, that isn't too bad - but the flash storage is likely quite a bit slower than what we are used to with modern SATA SSDs, at least when it comes to sustained throughput. Of course for flash the main benefit is random access, and thats (hopefully) descent - by that I mean the interface isn't necessarily a bottleneck. It all depends on the flash controller...
It could just be shaped the same and use a completely different electrical connection.
Much as Dell did with the Mini 9 which has a Mini-PCIe-shaped custom SATA(?) connector/SSD setup.
Is they want to go back to a prietary PROM(though EFI is arguably just that...), that's not too horrible. It's what people have been dealing with forever: a bloated, annoying BIOS.
This one at least kind of _has_ to get out of the way when you start a real OS...
Turns out its sata... So it may look like a ZIF connector, but it is definitely something else (probably mSATA)
http://twitter.com/jsnell/status/28033014779





Member since:
2005-11-10
http://images.apple.com/macbookair/images/design_power1_20101020.jp...
That doesn’t look soldered on. In the presentation you could see it had a ZIF connector. It wouldn’t make sense to solder the flash on for BTO. It’s using a simple metal clip over the pins and a rubber plug on the other end.