Did you succeed in the end? I'm trying to upgrade an A1425 MBP10,2 (13") with a 1TB Samsung 980. I got hold of a cheap adapter, but the MBP neither recognizes the Samsung nor a Crucial P1. Any hints, which adapter would work?I found this adapter that will work with the 2012-Early 2013 MacBook Pro Retinas although I have not yet used them.
Sintech M.2(NGFF) SATA Card,for Upgrade 2012-Early 2013 MacBook PRO Retina SSD | eBay
Fit the following models 2012-early 2013 Year MACBOOK PRO laptop and IMAC The storage space is optional,support 4 sizes: type 2230,2242,2260,22 80. Rate (item arrived). Canada Rate (item arrived) 0.0% 47.www.ebay.com
It's a Sintech M.2(NGFF) SATA Card upgrade for 2012-Early 2013 MacBook PRO Retina SSD. This card should work with a SAMSUNG 860 EVO Series M.2 2280 1TB SATA
SAMSUNG 860 EVO Series M.2 2280 1TB SATA III V-NAND 3-bit MLC Internal Solid Sta 887276246710 | eBay
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I am picking up a used Early 2013 15 inch MBP soon and plan to get this adapter and storage drive once I have the laptop in my hands. I will report the results once I have everything.
I'm not sure if the 980 series storage drive is compatible with MBP 10,2. As for the adapter card, I stayed with the short Sintech adapter.
Ok, I've ordered one more adapter. If that doesn't work, I'll sell the 980 and buy OEM... Thanks.
If you're looking to get more of a performance boost then going with OEM Apple storage drives is not the answer. Yes for compatibility reasons you can go this route but you'll be limited with slower drive performance somewhere in the 400mb/sec range for read and write speeds. With NVMe M.2 storage drives, depending on the brand/model of storage drive, you can far exceed Apple's drive speeds by seeing as much as 1200/1400 mb/sec read write speeds... this is what I am seeing on my Early 2015 AIR and 13-inch Pro laptops using Samsung 970 EVO/PRO NVMe storage drives.
Before ordering any storage drives to replace your 980, I suggest you go to this thread and review it carefully to see what drives would be compatible with your laptop...
forums.macrumors.com
Looks like your MBP (2012) is limited to SATA drives which is what I'm using in my Early 2013 15-inch MBP. The one I got is a Samsung SSD 860 EVO M.2 1TB SATA drive and it works perfectly in my Mac. Read speeds using this drive is around 500 mb/sec and write speed is around 475 mb/sec. That's about the best you will get with your 2012 MBP in drive performance. Unless you upgrade your laptop to a 2013/2014/2015, you won't see faster drive performance as the newer laptop supports PCIe NVMe M.2 storage drives. There are discussions as to what is the best storage drive to use on these computers vs performance and/or battery life. I tend to favor performance over battery life (hence Samsung drives) because I'm never too far away from a receptacle to charge my Mac if I need to. If you have any question feel free to message me.
Before you answered I had already bought a Samsung SSD 860 EVO M.2 1TB on eBay - based on the information you gave me, that seemed a good choice.
And yes: Performance is more important - I use another MB when traveling.
I assume the 860 is SATA? I bought a 970 EVO Plus NVMe and I'm a bit screwed. Is that right, that there is no adapter in existence that can solve the compatibility problem between NVMe and SATA in the Early 2013 MacBook Pro?Thanks again for your help. The cheapest adapter, I could get, and a Samsung SSD 860 EVO M.2 1TB do the job.
Yes, that's right. Those early Retina MacBooks don't support NVMe/PCIe. You'd have to get hold of a SATA drive.
