M.2 adapter for mid-2012 rMBP?

I was researching the possibility of making an M.2 adapter to the 2012 rMBPs, and while doing that I came across this: Mini PCI-E 2 Lane M.2 NGFF 30mm 42mm SSD to Apple 2012 Macbook Retina SSD. Looks like someone beat me to it

Don't be fooled by the PCI-E in the name and description, this appears to just be a passive (only a connector and PCB) adapter that can hold an M.2 SSD up to size 2260 (length 60mm). The availability of SATA M.2 2260 SSDs is starting to look good, the prices are not that bad, and the sizes are bound to go up as flash densities grow.

The only thing I'm wondering, is if there's enough space for this in the rMBP? This adapter should fit in an iMac without any issues, but is there enough clearance between the rMBP bottom plate and the SSD area? Guess I'll have to take out the bottom plate again, and make some measurements

Edit: Well, I ordered one, so we'll find out in a couple if weeks if it fits.

alex0002 said:

I suspect this could work. We can see the size of the 2012 rMBP SSD from the Transcend site here:
http://www.transcendusa.com/Apple/jetdrive/

It looks like a total length of about 110mm, so we'd need something a little smaller than that to be able to fit on that card. But it seems that adapter can't take the 2280 size such as Intel 530 here:
http://www.intel.com/content/dam/ww...t-specifications/ssd-530-m2-specification.pdf

The Crucial M500 M.2 (up to 480 GB) and M550 (up to 512 GB) are also 2280 format...
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-M500-480GB-6Gbps-Internal/dp/B00HBKM6UO
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-512GB-Internal-Solid-CT512M550SSD4/dp/B00ITFZTHC

Here is a page of the different sizes on the market:
http://www.ramcity.com.au/blog/m.2-ngff-ssd-compatibility-list/189

Support for the 2280 format would give a lot more options. If nothing else it would be an interesting experiment. Please post an update when you install it into your rMBP.

Click to expand...

I agree that 2280 would really give more options, but 2260 is still better than nothing

The smallest distance from the original SSDs PCB surface to the bottom cover seems to be just under 3mm. That's on the PCB end right next to the speaker, on the connector end there's slightly more space. This might be an issue, since the only 512GB 2260 module I could find seems to be rather thick: TS512GMTS600 is listed as 3.5mm, which might not fit.

The product listing of the adapter had no info what the height of the connector on it is, so thicker M.2 SSDs might not even fit the adapter, let alone the rMBP.

But the adapter is rather cheap, so not much harm in trying.

Edit: From the images on the eBay listing, it looks like the connector on the adapter is a 3.2mm variant, meaning it should fit both single- and double-sided boards, up to D3 or D4. In theory M.2 3042 boards should also fit, but there are currently no products with that specification available.