Apple - Do MacBooks support NVMe SSD drives via the use of a Sintech adapter?

a little update here...

macOS High Sierra beta 9 (and GM) brings us a BootRom update for ALL Macs supported by HighSierra, so that they can boot from APFS drives.

The very, very good news about this is that this update ALSO brings NVMe boot ability on every mac back to the Mac Pro 6.1 (Late 2013) upwards...

So every Mac which have an Apple 12+16 PCIe connector now owe the ability to boot from any NVMe drive, once they have been at least upgraded to High Sierra (and their BootRom updated).

Put it simply :

  • take a MacBook Pro retina 13" Late 2013
  • upgrade it to High Sierra
  • clone the OS to an external USB drive with CCC
  • power it off
  • change the stock Apple AHCI SSD to a brand new Samsung 960 Evo (for example) use a sintech (or other) M.2 ngff to Apple 12+16 adapter (and protect the pin with kapton tape)
  • boot from your USB backup of High Sierra
  • copy back your OS and data to the new SSD

everything works (TRIM, SMART status, deepsleep etc.)

So since the beta of High Sierra and the BootRom update, the new results are following :

As for Apple NVMe drives:

  • Mac Pro late 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (at PCIe 3.0 4x speed)
  • MacBook Air 11" & 13" mid 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 13" late 2013 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 15" late 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
  • MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2014 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 13" mid 2014 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2014 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
  • MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2015 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 13" early 2015 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2015 : works from 10.10.3 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)

As for non-Apple NVMe drives, (Samsung 960 evo/pro etc) :

  • Mac Pro late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)
  • MacBook Air 11" & 13" mid 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 13" late 2013 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 15" late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
  • MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2014 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 13" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
  • MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2015 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 13" early 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
  • MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)

PCIe 2.0 speed is around 350 MB/sec by lane so :

  • with 2x lanes of PCIe 2.0 expect up to 700 MB/sec
  • with 4x lanes 1400 MB/sec

PCIe 3.0 speed is around 750 MB/sec by lane so :

  • with 4x lanes of PCIe 3.0 expect nearly 3000MB/sec

The short answer is Yes and No, it depends on the Mac model.

Thanks to @gillesaurejac who made the tests with the Sintech adapter and a lot of Mac models running macOS High Sierra.

His results are:

So, as for AHCI PCIe drives, (like the lite-on LGT-512B1P), they work in every 2013-2014-2015-2017 mac, but sleep is a concern with the 2014-2015 macs.

As for Apple NVMe drives, (like the Apple SSD SM2024L as found in the 2017 iMacs, or the 24GB fusion drive of the 2015 iMacs), to this date the tests I have done are :

  • Mac Pro late 2013 : doesn't work
  • MacBook Air early 2014 : doesn't work
  • Macmini Late 2014 : works
  • MacBook Air early 2015 : works
  • MacBook Pro 15" early 2015 : works

As for non-Apple NVMe drives, (Samsung), to this date the tests I have done are:

  • Mac Pro late 2013 : doesn't work
  • MacBook Air early 2014 : doesn't work
  • MacBook Air early 2015 : works
  • MacBook Pro 15" early 2015 : doesn't work

Please note there's an excellent guide on the MacRumors forum by user Cmd+Q which details how to upgrade your SSD step-by-step. Additionally there is an overview of different Apple SSD connectors as well, which helped me to better understand the different models.

Summary (from the guide):

  • 2013-2014 MacBooks use a non-standard connector (12+16 pins) for the stock SSD that uses PCIe AHCI (OEM drives supposedly based on the Samsung XP941 or SM951)
  • Fortunately, there are a number of M.2 NVMe drives and an adapter available that allow for SSD upgrades in these MacBooks
  • macOS 10.13 “High Sierra” introduced boot support for NVMe drives that use 512 byte sectors (or LBAs) which opens up a variety of NVMe SSD upgrade options (Samsung, Intel, etc)
  • Unfortunately, the stock EFI firmware (or system ROM) in these MacBook comes with an NVMe driver that prevents the MacBook from waking up from hibernation (or deep sleep)
  • To address this hibernation issue, the system ROM can either be modified, or hibernation can be disabled on the MacBook by executing “pmset -a standby 0”
  • 2015 MacBooks can also be upgraded using this guide and do not require firmware modifications or other changes as they presumably all use PCIe NVMe SSDs (like the Samsung PM951 and newer)
  • This guide has been successfully tested with a 13” MacBook Pro Late-2013 and an 11” MacBook Air Mid-2013

Tags:

Hardware

Driver

Ssd

Macbook Pro

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