Chosen Solution
I found an SSD Adapter for the 2016 and 2017 Macbook Pros a1708. Do you think this will work?
It works! No issues yet (sleep/wakeup/reboot normal) Battery discarges very fast - 54% of battery after 16 hours of sleep
Interesting! I hadn’t seen this adapter. I’m curious on how it performs against the Apple unit. The Apple interface was designed with the idea of creating wider I/O than 4 PCI lanes (x4). The M.2 interface currently are limited to four. Apple also has some special sauce in there SSD’s that the M.2 drives don’t have. So while the M.2 drive will likely work, over time the adapter/drive combo tend to fail. There is also some issues with sleep mode as the signal it uses is not present in the M.2 SSD’s. I was hoping OWC would have offered a SSD which was pin compatible. They and Transcend figured out how to make a direct Apple compatible drive and support it on the older models! While there are lots of people who swear by M.2 SSD’s in MacBook Pro’s, I’ve needed to take out quite a lot of adapter/SSD setups at least the MacBook Pro’s are easy enough to take out, the iMac’s are a different story. I’ve had people crying when I tell them the news. Between the costs of the correct drive and what went down the drain and then the labor to put the proper drive in. Also review this: The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs So… Is it worth trying? Given the fact there are no alternatives you are between a rock and a hard place with no way out (thanks Apple!) I guess if you need more storage and are unable to get the correct drive for your system you’ll need to give it a try. Just keep in mind there are a lot snake oil sales folks online. So don’t depend on it (backup often!)
So i managed to install a new SSD to A1708 2017 MacBook Pro using this adapter. The catch is, just like i mentioned before, u need 2230 or 2242 SSD for a perfect fit. If you really like to bet, 2280 is actually work as well, but you gonna need to insulate it with either kepton tape or insulation tape so that it wont touch any other components directly on the motherboard. Procedure is quite straight forward, you open up the bottom cover, disconnect battery, take off left speaker (it blocking the way to slide out the original ssd), unscrew the original ssd, take it out and put the new one inside. In my case, i already preinstalled the OS using an NVME to USB C adapter, so i just need to hold ALT on boot to speed up the macbook in finding OS drive. But if you can’t do preinstallation, you can simpky use USB installer. Of course at least Mojave is recommended. The SSD i tried is BC511 512GB from SK Hynix with 2230 form factor. Speed wise, it’s not bad, hitting 2Gigs per sec on sequential. If i were to use pro level SSD, i think it might able to hit 3,5Gigs, but thats all i can find in my country. And i didnt dare to use 2280 on my first try. For you who live in countries with better parts availability, people said Toshiba and Sabrent work fine. As you can see in screenshot, it detected properly as NVME drive
I bought this and am having an issue. The adapter came with a bolt and a screw. If I only plug in the ssd into the adapter it will pop up diagonally. I assume I need to screw it on the adapter to keep it in place. On the videos it shows that the adapter has the but that fits in the hole on the left. But in my case I was given a separate little packet with screw and nut. Any suggestions
There’s tons of such adapters lately on the wild, I also see lots of 2nd-hand 512GB SSDs taken out from Dell laptops, having such an adapter fitted and being sold (https://www.ebay.com/itm/512GB-Toshiba-S…) as compatible with MacBook Pros. It’s definitely worth it a few tests, I recon.
