Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter Card for Upgrade 2013-2015 Year Macs(Not Fit Early 2013 MacBook Pro)

Ordered two a while ago.. and Amazon didn't ship both. Vendor responded quickly to my complaint and shipped out missing adapter quickly. I couldn't ask for better service. I'm also pretty sure they've added more guidance to the product listing (this Amazon listing) about supported hardware and troubleshooting since my original purchase, so nice to see them continuing to add to their support documentation. I'll waste some of my plentiful shelter-at-home time with installation tips and my detailed experience with these adapters below.. but I'll wrap up the short-version of my review by saying... Bought two already and I'm ordering more to upgrade additional 'retired' iMacs that have come into my office (University IT Support). There's plenty of usefulness in a 2015 17" iMac after it's got a new NVMe drive in it. Long Version... Installation is not trivial, but that's because of how iMacs are designed and assembled. Read a tear-down webpage, take your time and don't force the screen. They're not that hard to crack (I've done it.. and I'm a professional ;-P ). I find, in addition to a plastic cards (old gift card or similar works well).. I like to use an Exacto Knife so carefully slice through the adhesive foam gasket (slowly slice down into gasket in increasingly deep passes, don't jam blade between glass and case). I also like using increasingly thick guitar picks as shims as I work around from top->down sides.. and look for pull-away tabs at outside of bottom gasket section on newer iMacs. Even thought you have to completely gut the iMac's insides to get to the SSD interface on the back of the board, the actual installation of this adapter is easy so I gave it 5-stars. Oh yea, if you don't want to buy a replacement gasket kit.. don't use double-sided tape instead. It's not thick enough to make contact with screen and case. just wrap some tape around outside edge of glass and case. As for how will it works... Pick a supported SSD, avoid the Samsung drives that they warn against using.. and it just works. You can't ask for more. My own results are mixed so far. .but I don't blame Sintech.. and I believe they recently posted a fix for the one issue I'm still having (I'll try today). - 2017 27" iMac: Even though this isn't listed as a supported Model, the adapter works fine in my 2017 iMac. Before upgrade, it was unstable and I noticed some serious errors with the Fusion Drive B-Tree structure, so I pulled both the disk & Apple SSD and upgraded to a FireCuda NVMe drive. Instability persisted but cleared up after I also pulled a pair of 3rd party SO-DIMMs. I suspect both Fusion Drive issues (which Crash Logs pointed to) and a bad pair of SODIMMs both contributed to original problems. iMac runs better than new now (though still short some RAM). - 2015 27" iMac: Again, I replaced a fusion set that was causing problems in this iMac. This iMac also seemed to be having problems with it's Fusion Drive setup prior to upgrading. Installation and clean-install on new drive went flawlessly and iMac worked great.. except it then started crashing when going to sleep. I've since seen new info here on a possible fix so I'll give that a try.. though it'll take me a while to confirm the issue is gone since it was an intermittent problem. No indication that there's a problem with the adapter/drive while the computer is in use though. One thing to note if you plan to replace a Fusion drive set with this... If you use CarbonCopy Cloner (or presumably Disk Utility too) to clone your Fusion drive Volume to a disk image or to your new NVMe drive, it clones the 2-drive Fusion formatting too. You'll end up with two partitions on your single NVMe.. with one staging new & frequently-used data.. and older data getting migrated to the 2nd partition. It'll look like one Drive from the Finder, but I have suspicions that Apple's data staging code is introducing corruption into Fusion Drive's directory B-Tree so best to not introduce this un-needed complexity. Better options... 1. If you've got.an up-to-date TimeMachine backup.. do a clean Mac OS install onto new drive and a data migration from your TimeMachine backup.. or... 2. Get an external USB NVMe adapter or NVMe USB case.. Do an internet recovery (boot w/ Command-R pressed) and install a clean version of MacOS onto the new NVMe drive (usb-connected).. Boot off the NVMe drive and update to latest OS if you need to (I've seen Internet recovery install latest Mac OS release on some Macs, and older versions on others).. Now, do a Data Migration from the Fusion Drive set to the new NVMe. When it's all setup.. then pull the iMac apart and swap the drives. Good luck.. Steve.

Works as designed. Got a WD Blue 2TB SN580 installed on my 2015 15” MacBook Pro. Runs at full speed of PCIe 3.0 x4 of what the drive can do. Easy to install, mounting screw lines up perfectly with screw post. No flex on the drive.

This adapter fit and worked PERFECTLY! I used it in a “mid-2014” MacBook Pro 13” Retina, version “MacBookPro 11,1”, model number A1502. It was relatively easy. - at least compared to any later MacBook. Take the bottom plate off the computer (10 tiny proprietary pentalobe screws, IIRC). Take the old, slow, small capacity (in my case, a 128GB) out (one T5 screw). I placed a new 1TB Crucial P2 NVMe SSD in the adapter, firmly clicked the adapter in the slot in the computer, replaced the screw, and screwed the bottom plate back in place. Hardware upgrade complete! The trickier part in some ways is re-initializing the new drive and reinstalling a fresh new operating system. I had planned ahead. I booted from an external USB-3 SSD loaded with various macOS installers - in this case, macOS 11 “Big Sur” is the highest one can install on said machine (without hacks, but that’s another story). After correctly choosing the default (and required) APFS to format the drive, Big Sur installed without a hitch in a few minutes. A few security updates should install after rebooting. Set your preferences and Boom, done! Bottom line: Easy to install if you have patience, steady hands, and some experience working on computers with tiny tools; an external SSD; and basic knowledge of installing operating systems. HUGE savings over an Apple proprietary drive or questionable Chinese knockoff drives using the old interface. P.S. Note that there is at least one brand of competing adapter on Amazon for a couple bucks less. I bought one - it didn’t work and it was visibly poorer quality.

Works with crucial p310 1tb on a 2017 Air

There are a few guides out there for installing a PCIe SSD in 2013 vintage 27" iMacs but here's December 2019 report and review that future buyers may find helpful. I successfully installed this adapter on a Late 2013 27" iMac: - iMac 4,2 - 3.4ghz i5 processor; - Standard SATA HDD stock storage (later replaced with a SATA SSD). This iMac never had a PCIe or Fusion drive installed. - Samsung Evo 970 (not Plus) 1TB. Installation requires a full teardown to get to the empty PCIe slot, which is a drag (or a great procrastination project, depending on your attitude). iFixit's guides were invaluable for the job. So was Jon Jacobi's Macworld review from May 6 2019. Read those first. Once I got the iMac fully gutted, the adapter slid right in to the open slot without hassle. The SSD itself comfortably slipped right in to the adapter. FWIW, I didn't experience the slight mis-fit Jacobi reported in his Macworld piece. Once re-assembled, MacOS Mojave immediately recognized the presence of an uninitialized disk and formatted it normally with DiskUtility. Then I used stalwart CarbonCopyCloner to clone my old primary drive SATA drive to the PCIe SSD. I was going to complain that this adapter was missing the necessary screw to hold down the adapter (and SSD) because I had to supply one of my own. But, upon closer inspection post-installation, I see that there *was* actually a screw provided in the anti-static bag and I had simply overlooked it. Argh - my bad. This being a 2013 iMac, I had been warned to keep my performance expectations in check since the 2013 implementation of PCIe only provided 2 or 4 'lanes' with a max of 900mbps or 1.5gpbs, far less than the modern theoretical maximums for PCIe/NVMe drives. This meant I didn't feel compelled to buy the newest or most expensive SSD out there (currently the WD Black drive). But, my super-quick initial testing shows that reads and writes are 2-10X what my SATA SSD was giving, so I'm satisfied. (I realize some performance benefit may also come from the larger capacity of the 1TB PCIe SSD vs my SATA SSD... but still). I don't tinker with Macs for a living, but have a decent toolkit at my disposal and have popped open a Macbook or two in my day. The install procedure took me a total of about 40 minutes. YMMV. Anyway, I can now shove a monster 8TB HDD into the hard drive slot for bulk storage and run the OS and apps from my PCIe SSD without cumbersome external drive enclosures. I won't get full SSD silence, but a good performance/capacity setup all around

The adapter seems to fit well once I reseated a few times to get the full screen hole exposed on the logic board. However, when I tighten the included new screw to secure both the new NVME drive and the adapter to the logic board, the adapter bows downward and the SSD starts bowing upward. I had to just barely screw down the provided screw to prevent the parts from bowing. Not sure how to have prevented this, other than the adapter may still be slightly too long? I believe it is inserted as far as possible. That said, I closed it up, booted to Internet Recover on my 13" MacBook Pro (Early 2015) successfully. Yes, Internet Recovery works fine (Command + Option + R) and went to Disk Utility, formatted / erased the drive (GUID Partition Map) and then migrated my time machine backup to the new drive without any trouble. Working great so far. Disk Magic shows ~1250 MBps Write and ~1475MBps Read speads with the new drive. (ADATA XPG 512GB XS8200 Pro)

I combined this $16 Sintech card adapter with a 2TB SDD from TopMore for $215... and wow, the upgraded performance results are impressive. No glitches or side effects of any kind. The installation process was straight forward: 1. Make USB install drive from latest MacOS 2. Manual back up original SSD via Time Machine 3. Power down 4. Remove bottom tray with T5 driver/bit 5. Disconnect battery from logic board 6. Remove original SSD* with T5 driver/bit 7. Insert new SSD into Sintech adapter, and install into logic board with Phillips driver/bit 8. Reconnect battery 9. Restore bottom tray with T5 driver/bit 10. Boot from USB to format new SSD and install MacOS 11. Login and use Migration Assistant to restore apps and files from Time Machine It's a relatively simply process that can be done by anyone with any computer experience or even the slightest willingness to learn. There are all kinds of videos on YouTube which show the basics of opening up the laptop for upgrading various components, so you'll have some idea what you're getting into... and you'll see that while it requires great care, it is not difficult. (*In my particular case, I hit a huge problem when I discovered the original SSD was held in by a stripped screw which I could not remove with a driver/bit. After a little trial and error, the only workable solution was to grab a power drill and drill it out. Obviously, I had to take great care with that process, given the consequence of any mistake, but it ultimately removed the stripped screw and allowed me to complete the upgrade. You won't have the problem I encountered, but the story serves the purpose of demonstrating that if I can overcome the disaster of finding a stripped screw inside the machine, then you'll be able to workaround any unexpected hiccups too. Just take your time.)

Good adapter if you want to upgrade the NVMe inside the iMac 27" 2017. The GOOD: - Fits like a glove in the iMac NVMe slot (needs to be pushed slowly until it stops) - Didn't use any tape or insulation to cover the pins - The adapter PCB doesn't have any chips or circuits; it is long just to stay aligned to the screw as the screw will be fixing the NVMe drive The Not-So: - The PCB is too flexible - The included screw will not be used at all (for my iMac, I used the original screw) The speed is not full for the Crucial P3 Plus I am using, but this might be the iMac fault as it is a Gen3 interface and CPU is 7600K. All in all, a perfect upgrade if you plan to give a new life for your iMac.