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SSD Enclosure Question

Sully

Sully

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Oct 27, 2007
279
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With external drives being so cheap, is there any benefit to buying an enclosure and using an SSD that I have in an old MacBook Pro that I'm disposing of? I'm looking at an OWC enclosure that costs around $55 and supports USB C.
 
Thanks for this. That's a much better better price. I didn't know if there was anything to look out for and OWC guarantees it will work.
 
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What year is the Macbook Pro from?

If it's unibody then the above link will work just fine. It's a standard SSD drive.
If it's Retina or above you'll need a specific, Apple to USB C / Thunderbolt enclosure. Those have NVMe drives as opposed to standard drives.

I would say it's worth it. The (relatively) newer Macbook Pros' SSDs are pretty fast.


Edit: Here are links
[1] Apple SSD -> USB 3.0 (500MB/s limit)
[2+3] Apple SSD -> PCIE NVME + SSD Adapter -> USB C (1,250MB/s limit)

[1] https://www.amazon.com/OWC-Portable...enclosure&qid=1562775564&s=electronics&sr=1-3
[2] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07Q6YCLP...&pd_rd_r=8594df4b-a32e-11e9-9331-ed4485755cdc
[3] (will have to do some more digging, couldn't find an Apple SSD -> NVME adapter)
 
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Sully said:
Thanks for this. That's a much better better price. I didn't know if there was anything to look out for and OWC guarantees it will work.
Click to expand...
If its a bog standard 2.5" ssd, pretty much any enclosure should work. For NVME drives, you may want to check to see what other users say about heat dissipation since the NVME drives can get a bit toasty and then tend to throttle!
 
If I may piggyback on Sully’s thread, I have a 2012 rMBP that I destroyed (backing over one’s computer bag with a truck can do that!), but the SSD seems to function fine. It’s only a 256GB, so is that worth utilizing by buying an enclosure?

I haven’t ordered a replacement MBP yet, but I did a Time Machine backup of the computer before I ruined the computer.
 
Broadus said:
If I may piggyback on Sully’s thread, I have a 2012 rMBP that I destroyed (backing over one’s computer bag with a truck can do that!), but the SSD seems to function fine. It’s only a 256GB, so is that worth utilizing by buying the enclosure that Weaselboy linked?

I haven’t ordered a replacement MBP yet, but I did a Time Machine backup of the computer before I ruined the computer.
Click to expand...

That enclosure won't work with the rMBP's drive. Instead of standard drives the rMBP's have something that looks like this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=ret...XukOAKHYs9C90Q_AUIESgC&biw=1649&bih=916&dpr=2
 
Broadus said:
If I may piggyback on Sully’s thread, I have a 2012 rMBP that I destroyed (backing over one’s computer bag with a truck can do that!), but the SSD seems to function fine. It’s only a 256GB, so is that worth utilizing by buying the enclosure that Weaselboy linked?

I haven’t ordered a replacement MBP yet, but I did a Time Machine backup of the computer before I ruined the computer.
Click to expand...
The newer rMBPs like that use a non-standard flash drive and not the old standard 2.5" SSD like it sounds like @Sully has... so you would need an enclosure that works with that drive. I know OWC sells some that work. I want to say it is called Envoy.
 
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Mine is 2007 non retina of course 15 inch. I replaced the spinning hard drive with an OWC ssd and got a few more years out of it. Now I'm dumping the computer and am trying to reuse the SSD. Sounds like the cheap one will work for me.

Thanks everyone!!
 
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