The car can run on either, but would be limited on how fast on the dirt road and would pickup a lot of dust in the process. Think like how a car runs on a dirt road Vs a paved highway. If you had both cables you would see some design differences between the two cables (thickness) the extra effort was due to the higher data rate the SSD drives can put through I use the 2012 model's cable in the 2010 & 11 systems as it's the same part but a better design.
