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.

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

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.

helped me fix 2 MacBooks and was compatible with most laptops and was a bang for my buck perfect fit

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.)

I had a WD SN550 500GB drive around which I first tried...The OS install was a breeze and the machine ran a bit faster than with the OEM Samsung 250GB drive which was actually a SATA-based drive. I couldn't get more than 800MB/sec with Black Magic's test tool, but I did get about 1450 with the WD. If the machine went to sleep for any length of time, it wouldn't wake up (MacOS error/Sad Mac). Before throwing in the towel I went ahead and ordered a Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB and it works perfectly. No problems even sleeping overnight, so it matters which drive you use for one reason or the other with MacOS. Am currently running Big Sur 12.6 on a MacBook Pro 13" Retina. No increase in speed with the Samsung in this machine vs. the WD, even though the Samsung supports more throughput (shows the limitation of the logic board itself in this 6 year old machine). Getting four times the space and twice the speed breathing some new life into an old machine before I take out a second mortgage on the cost of the new machines is the way to go. Doesn't protrude into the case either, but cuts it very close. Not sure if clearing PRAM is a must when installing the OS from scratch with the new drive, but I did it anyway.

I used this to add a 2TB Intel 670p to my late 2013 27” iMac (14,2) and after erasing/formatting it with Disk Utility in APFS with GUID partition map, it was fully operational. OWC has the best videos for this and it was an absolute cakewalk. The only mistake I made was trying to scrap the old adhesive off the back of the display bezel. Do not do this! There was one strip that I just couldn’t scrape off with my fingernails. Not even Goo Gone could get it off. So I tried carefully using a razor blade to slowly scrape away the adhesive. I should have just left it and applied the new adhesive strips because now I have small scratches along the bezel where the glass is clear instead of black (the plastic tool I used also scratched the black off). My OCD is devastated at my otherwise flawless upgrade. Finally, I was concerned when reading some of the reviews that this adapter was too long for the motherboard and obstructed the stand-off screw (I even saw an install video online where this mistake was made). This is not so. If your drive seems too long, it’s not plugged in all the way. When I initially plugged it in, I had the same issue. You meet resistance when it’s plugged about half way in and it feels as if that’s as far as it will go. Of course, you won’t be able to get the screw in if you stop there. Just carefully apply more pressure and it’ll slide the rest of the way. The screw should go in easily.

I was impressed how well this adapter works. Here are the important points. Yes sleep mode and hiberantion works flawless . I found an excellent deal on a new WD SN720 256GB NVME (aka enterprise/OEM version of a WD Black drive) for $32! Black magic shows 1600MB/s read and 1400 MB/s write. Im running OSX Catalina 10.15.3 on Mac Air 13.3 2017, made a Bootable USB after downloading Catalina 10.15.2 from the Mac App Store. Remember to shutdown your mac and unplug your battery. The old SSD slides out sideways, the Sintech adapter will accept your new NVME sideways but then likes an angle like a RAM slot. Use the screw that came with the Sintech adapter not the OEM screw to secure it in.. Remember you just want it snug only. Overall performance is 2x fast, temps are the same. I don't see any improvement or loss in battery life. Also, I used this as an excuse to repaste my CPU with MX4 thermal paste. As you can see, the Apple factory did a horrible job. If you are an advanced Mac person, consider replacing it. You may save your Macbook from dying way too early.