[MacBookPro6,1] Is it possible to use two NVMe PCIe in RAID-0?

[profinite]

A friend has a Mid-2010 17-inch MacBook Pro (MacBookPro6,1). Four years ago, he swapped the OEM mechanical drive with a 1TB SSD and was very happy. Now, he wants to push its performance further. I have some questions if you could help me.

Q1. Would this MacBookPro6,1 actually boot from an NVMe PCIe?
Q2. If so, can this MacBook Pro have two NVMe PCIe's; one in the original hard drive location and another in the optical drive bay with an adapter such as OWC's DataDoubler?
Q3. If YES to Q1 & Q2, then can the two NVMe PCIe's be configured as RAID-0?

Please advise. Thank you!!

 

[robvas]

No - there aren’t any NVMe slots on that MacBook Pro

 

[justashooter]

The best you can do is use the OWC Data Doubler and install a second SSD and then RAID the two drives. That model of MBP has SATA 2 (3G) so make sure your SSD is backwards compatible to sata 2 or buy one of the OWC 3G SSD drives. https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro/2010

 

[profinite]

Thank you, robvas, for your verdict. I had thought that probably it would be too good to be true.

And, justashooter, I had completely overlooked the SATA 2 (3G) requirement. And, thanks for the OWC link. That would be a safest approach to achieve RAID-0. But, if I was to shop for a 1TB SSD at places like Amazon, how would I know whether or not the SSD is backward-compatible to SATA 2?

 

[justashooter]

You would have to do a little research. Get the exact model number and go to the manufacturer web site, somewhere in the specs it should specify.

 

[robvas]

SATA is backwards compatible

however the MCP Nvidia chipset on that MacBook has bugs and incompatibilities with many SSD’s, the main one being autonegotiating of speeds. Lots of drives would clock all the way down to SATA1 speeds (1.5gbs)!

other issues would include sleep mode or just locking up. some vendors at the time offered firmware updates, like OCZ, and Sandforce drives often had the problem so some vendors like OWC made fixes

I dont know how well modern drives work in those older Macs (Samsung 860, Crucial MX500, etc)

 

[profinite]

robvas - Thanks a million for your precious advice. I was not aware of the bugs you cited. So, instead of helping my friend, I could have driven him into a hell with my careless choice of SSDs.

OWC drives a bit more expensive than what I find on Amazon. But, I am going to recommend OWC's 1TB drives to my friend. It appears to be the safest approach. Thanks again!!