Do MacBooks support NVMe SSD drives via the use of a Sintech adapter? My question: 

Can anyone confirm or disprove the support of NVMe drives (like the Samsung 960) by the Sintech M.2 PCIe SSD MacBook adapters for macOS Sierra and High Sierra, or would you have any information that could help me confirm or disprove this support?

Below are the results of my research so far.



SSDs comparison

"Official" MacBook SSDs

Officially supported MacBook SSDs are really expensive. For example, with the Macbook Air/Pro 2013, 2014 and 2015 models:


OWC Aura: $299 for 240GB, $399 for 480GB, $649 for 1TB
IFIXIT: $524 for 256GB, $649 for 512GB, $949 for 1TB.


Equivalent PC SSDs

Globally, an officially supported MacBook SSD (PCIe M.2 AHCI with a proprietary 12+16pin connector) cost from about $1 to $2 per GB, while equivalent PC SSD (PCIe M.2 AHCI and NVMe with a key M connector) cost from about $0.4 to $1 per GB.

NVMe:


Intel 600p: $196 for 512GB (low quality)
Samsung SSD 960 EVO: $219 for 500GB
Corsair Force Series MP500: $316 for 480GB


AHCI:


Kingston Digital HyperX Predator: $300 for 480GB
Samsung SM951: $450 for 512GB


So standard PCIe M.2 devices seems to be up to 3x cheaper than the MacBook PCIe M.2 SSD. Plus, NVMe SSD are globally way faster.



NVMe SSD compatibility?

Connector adapter

At first for the connector, I often seen the  Sintech adapter recommended to use the AHCI SSD above in a MacBook Air/Pro. The product page clearly stipules only compatible with a limited set of AHCI SSDs, but I do not see any reason for these "incompatibilities", as there is no other software/hardware standards for the PCIe M.2 AHCI models. It seems they simply give as compatible the list of the AHCI SSDs they've tested, and as incompatible the most known NVMe SSD models.

Interface compatibility

Then for the interface, what I understand from AHCI/NVMe is that it is only a controller interface, depending on the system drivers on the MacBook and not on the hardware itself.

Which seems to be consistant with:


  I emailed the store which sell that adapter and problem is that macOS doesn't support 3rd party NVMe SSDs, but Windows 10 and Linux do.
  
  -- From a Youtube comment on a upgrade video with a AHCI SSD and the Sintech adapter.


So Sintech may have given these NVMe SSD as incompatible not because of the adapter incompatibility, but because of the destination OS incompatibility.

System support

Finally for the system, macOS now support NVMe SSDs, from unofficially OSX El Capitan (with a patch to boot) and natively macOS High Sierra (even as boot, see an article about the NVME support and a confirmation from the Hackintosh community).

I sent an email to Sintech to get more informations on their adapter. I got a reply with some references (added to this post), but no answer since.

Edit (23/06):


  Unfortunately, we are busy in other projects, and still can't get new system to test it.




Similar researches

After I created this post, I seen there is some people with the same question in other communities, waiting at the same step. I share the links there in case of some of them got a return from a test with the Sintech adapter or an other one.

On IFIXIT - MBP early 2015 SSD can upgrade with Samsung 950 pro?


Por Chumjan (02/27/2016):


  I think about to upgrade. Samsung 950 pro is interesting. But i'm not sure it can use for this model.

trumanhw (12/21/2016):


  You can buy an adapter from M.2 to MBPr or Air for about $20... (...) The REAL question is if the NVMe protocol will be a hiccup (as in, I don't personally know that answer) ... and if it'll get the full speed of the 950. In principle, I don't see why it wouldn't. And I WILL be testing this out.

Fabio (06/10/2017):


  [ About the patch ]. It is meant to be used on hackintosh but I think it might work on a macbook pro from 2015 with the adapter and a nvme ssd like the samsung 960/950 evo/pro. If someone tries or has tried it please let me know.
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" &amp; 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" &amp; 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" &amp; 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" &amp; 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" &amp; 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" &amp; 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