The Ultimate Guide to Apple’s Proprietary SSDs
Remember the good ol’ days of carrying a spare battery, upgrading your own RAM, maybe even adding a second hard drive? If you’re an Apple user, those luxuries may be behind us, but upgrading your own solid state drive is still a privilege the Apple overlords allow us to have, for now that is.
Despite retaining the ability to upgrade your own SSD, ever since Apple introduced their proprietary “blade” SSDs in 2010, the task hasn’t been as simple as it once was. Apple talks up read and write speeds, but they rarely dive into the nitty gritty details of the technology behind the SSDs they use — drives specially designed only for Apple computers.
After countless questions, both from customers and our own staff, we decided to start our own investigation into the hardware involved. You have to be a bit of a private eye to uncover the secrets behind these drives, and the deeper we looked, the more surprises we found.
Table of Contents
SSD Interfaces Compared
Every hard drive or solid state drive you’ve used in the past ten years is likely to have used either a SATA interface, or more recently a PCI Express interface. If you’re into vintage computers and you think patience is a virtue that can only be honed by waiting for programs to respond, maybe you’re still rocking a drive with a PATA interface. If you are, it’s time to get up to speed!
Ever faster drive technology, brought about by faster spinning disks, increased cache, advances in controller architecture, and a host of other factors keeps pushing the host interface to become the bottleneck for read and write speeds. Luckily, advances in host interfaces invariably stay ahead of the pace of drive technologies, always allowing room to push speeds a bit farther.
What is SATA?
SATA (Serial Advanced Technology Attachment) refers to the technology standard for connecting hard drives, solid state drive, and optical drives to the computer’s motherboard. The SATA standard’s been in use for many years and is still the most prevalent interface for connecting internal storage drives.
The SATA standard has now undergone three major revisions, resulting in connectors that are identical in appearance (hurray for backwards compatibility), but with bandwidth doubling each time. This can cause some confusion in the event that you connect a hard drive that supports the SATA III standard into a SATA II connector, creating a bottleneck at the SATA II interface that will limit the potential bandwidth of the drive. But as it applies to SSDs, if you’re not using a SATA III connection, it’s safe to assume you’re limiting the potential of your drive. And even if you’re using a SATA III interface, you’re still probably limiting your SSD. In short, SATA just wasn’t made for solid state drives.
Interface | Raw Transfer Rate | Encoding | Effective Data Rate | Effective Data Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|
SATA I | 1.5Gb/s | 8b/10b | 1.2Gb/s | 0.15GB/s |
SATA II | 3Gb/s | 8b/10b | 2.4Gb/s | 0.30GB/s |
SATA III | 6Gb/s | 8b/10b | 4.8Gb/s | 0.60GB/s |
What is PCIe?
Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) is a computer bus standard with incredibly high bandwidth potential, and is the fastest bus option that most computers have available. It’s no wonder that manufacturers moved towards PCIe technology for their bandwidth hungry SSDs. Like the SATA bus standard, PCIe has undergone multiple revisions over the years and is still evolving at breakneck speeds. PCIe 2.0 (which is likely to be the most common PCIe revision found inside in-use computers) maxes out at ~500MB/s with a single channel of throughput. Those speeds may sound a bit slower than SATA III, but PCIe has the advantage of utilizing multiple channels of throughput to accommodate the needs of the connected peripheral.
Two channels of throughput (~1GB/s) not enough for you? Double the number of channels to four and you’ll realize double the data transfer rates, if the connected device can make use of it that is. PCIe bandwidth can be scaled up to 16 and even 32 lanes for a single device, but that’s uncommon in SSDs and primarily reserved for devices like graphics cards which have larger data transfer requirements. Most PCIe SSDs will have either 2, or more recently, 4 channels of throughput.
In 2011 the PCIe 3.0 revision was released, and finally brings more to the table than just the ability to add additional channels. PCIe 1.0 and 2.0 both use 8b/10b encoding to transmit data (the same as SATA), meaning that for every 8 bits of data sent, the data is sent via a 10 bit line code. In other words, 2 of the 10 bits are just overhead necessary to transmit the rest of the data. That 20% overhead eats into the potential bandwidth of an interface, resulting real world bandwidth that’s 20% lower.
PCIe 3.0 introduced the much more efficient 128b/130b encoding, resulting in only only ~1.5% overhead to eat into the potential bandwidth.
PCIe Speed Comparison Chart
Interface | Raw Data Rate | Encoding | Effective Data Rate | Channels | Total Effective Data Rate |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
PCIe 1.x | 2.5GT/s | 8b/10b | 2.0Gb/s | 2 | 500MB/s |
PCIe 1.x | 2.5GT/s | 8b/10b | 2.0Gb/s | 4 | 1.0GB/s |
PCIe 1.x | 2.5GT/s | 8b/10b | 2.0Gb/s | 8 | 2.0GB/s |
PCIe 1.x | 2.5GT/s | 8b/10b | 2.0Gb/s | 16 | 4.0GB/s |
PCIe 1.x | 2.5GT/s | 8b/10b | 2.0Gb/s | 32 | 8.0GB/s |
PCIe 2.x | 5GT/s | 8b/10b | 4.0Gb/s | 2 | 1.0GB/s |
PCIe 2.x | 5GT/s | 8b/10b | 4.0Gb/s | 4 | 2.0GB/s |
PCIe 2.x | 5GT/s | 8b/10b | 4.0Gb/s | 8 | 4.0GB/s |
PCIe 2.x | 5GT/s | 8b/10b | 4.0Gb/s | 16 | 8.0GB/s |
PCIe 2.x | 5GT/s | 8b/10b | 4.0Gb/s | 32 | 16.0GB/s |
PCIe 3.x | 8GT/s | 128b/130b | 7.9Gb/s | 2 | 1.98GB/s |
PCIe 3.x | 8GT/s | 128b/130b | 7.9Gb/s | 4 | 3.95GB/s |
PCIe 3.x | 8GT/s | 128b/130b | 7.9Gb/s | 8 | 7.90GB/s |
PCIe 3.x | 8GT/s | 128b/130b | 7.9Gb/s | 16 | 15.80GB/s |
PCIe 3.x | 8GT/s | 128b/130b | 7.9Gb/s | 32 | 31.60GB/s |
AHCI vs NVMe
Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) was originally created when storage devices still used spinning magnetic disks to store data. and communicated data based on the speeds and needs of those devices. AHCI was versatile enough to work with SSDs while SSDs were still in their infancy, but it’s been a hindrance to transfer rates for a few years now.
Enter NVMe, or Non-Volatile Memory Express. NVMe was created specifically to work with SSDs, reducing the latency and allowing for larger amounts of data to be transferred at a single time, making better use of modern multi-core processors. NVMe becomes especially important with PCIe SSDs, where AHCI starts to bottleneck the speeds. By the time the PCIe 3.0 revision came out, NVMe became essential to reach the full potential throughput of the drives.
Apple's Proprietary Connectors
When Apple released their first “blade” solid state drive in the Late 2010 release of the MacBook Air, they still used established mSATA interface technology, but ditched the traditional SATA and mSATA form factors found in most laptops at that time, instead opting for a custom connector that’s never been used by another manufacturer before or since. With the 2010 MacBook Air, Apple began a new trend of developing proprietary connectors and form factors that eventually pervaded the entire Apple lineup and ushered in an era of drives that, while easily replaceable, were not so easy to find.
Many people incorrectly assume the connectors are one of the M.2 variants found in many PCs, but to date, Apple has still never used a standard M.2 connector. And unlike M.2 pin arrangements, Apple’s connectors were never given distinguishing names, so from this point on I’ll just refer to the connectors by their pin arrangements as described in the image below.
Comparison of proprietary SSD connectors.A History of Apple SSD Releases
Generation 1: MacBook Air (Late 2010 - Mid 2011)
For the Late 2010 and Mid 2011 releases of the MacBook Air 11″ (Model A1370) and MacBook Air 13″ (Model A1369), Apple’s desire to shave down the height of the already thin original MacBook Air necessitated a switch to a thinner drive. Rather than use a 2.5″ SATA SSD as seen in the rest of Apple’s product lines, or even the 1.8″ SSD found in the original MacBook Air, Apple switched to an even thinner, custom drive. This “Generation 1” drive utilized a proprietary 6+12 pin connector, but still used an mSATA III interface limited to 6Gb/s; the same limitation as the other product lines released during this period.
Both Samsung and Toshiba manufactured Apple’s Generation 1 SSDs, but rather notoriously, the Toshiba drives performed significantly worse than their Samsung counterparts. Both drives performed up to Apple’s advertised specs, mind you, but MacBook Air customers were subject to an SSD lottery, with Samsung drives performing reads and writes at ~1.5x-2.0x the speed of their Toshiba counterparts. Apple seems to have learned from this oversight and later generations of SSDs never again saw such a large distinction between the drives of different manufacturers.
Generation 2
The second generation of Apple SSDs saw the expansion of the blade style drives into the MacBook Pro laptops and iMac desktops. The Gen. 2 drives were faster than than the previous generation but still used the mSATA III interface — finally approaching the maximum throughput capable of the SATA III specification.
The Gen. 2 drives were characterized by their use of two distinctly different drives; the shorter, wider Gen. 2A drive used in the MacBook Pro and iMac computers, and the taller, thinner Gen. 2B drive used in the MacBook Airs. Both Gen. 2A and 2B drives use the same mSATA 3 interface and the same 7+17 Pin connector type. Despite the use of identical connectors and interfaces, the drives aren’t truly compatible because the space allotted in each computer simply isn’t designed to fit the other drive type.
MacBook Pro (Mid 2012 - Early 2013)
With the release of the first MacBook Pro with “Retina” screen, Apple began including SSDs standard in the MacBook Pro line, and in fact the only storage device interface is the single 7+17 Pin SSD connector. The Gen. 2A SSDs used by these MacBook Pro laptops were offered in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 768GB capacities, and manufactured again by Samsung, but also by SanDisk.
Both the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro laptops use the same drives, and either MBP can have any of the four SSD capacities installed.
iMac (Late 2012 - Early 2013)
The Late 2012 and Early 2013 iMacs had a rather different arrangement, with a traditional 3.5″ SATA III HDD standard, but the Late 2012 release also unveiled the Fusion Drive. Apple’s Fusion Drive pairs a larger capacity traditional hard drive with a smaller capacity solid state drive, offering much of the performance benefits of an SSD, but in a more cost-effective package. The operating system displays the two drives as a single drive to the user, but behind the scenes optimizes file storage so that files requiring more frequent access and files that see the most benefits from quick read times are stored on the SSD, while the majority of the files are stored on the HDD.
In order to utilize Apple’s fastest SSDs in the Fusion Drive setup, the iMac logic boards now included Apple’s proprietary 7+17 Pin SSD connector, in addition to one of the two SATA III connectors found in previous iMacs, allowing you to install any combination of SATA and Apple SSDs. It’s not necessary to use the SSD in the Fusion Drive arrangement, and the two drives can act independently of each other if desired. The SSD connector can use any of the Gen. 2A options (128GB, 256GB, 512GB or 768GB), while the SATA connector can accommodate any 3.5″ SATA HDD or SSD, or a 2.5″ SATA drive when using a 2.5″ to 3.5″ adapter.
Regardless of how the iMac was originally configured, both the iMac 21.5″ and iMac 27″ always had the 7+17 Pin connector present on the logic board, opening the door to later upgrade with a blade SSD. For anyone planning to upgrade their iMac that was not originally configured with a blade SSD, it should be noted that while the connector is present, the single screw that secures the SSD is missing. It’s a pretty uniquely shaped screw and you’re not likely to find it at your local hardware store, so make sure to purchase one before you go to the hassle opening up the iMac.
MacBook Air (Mid 2012)
As mentioned above, the Gen. 2B drives have a different form factor, but use the same interface and connector as their Gen. 2A counterparts. The 2B read/write speeds are noticeably slower, likely due to engineering constraints from the smaller footprint of the 2B drives.
Another likely result of the engineering constraints is the absence of a 768GB option. Samsung and Toshiba manufactured the Gen. 2B drives, which came in 64GB, 128GB, 256GB and 512GB options, all of which are interchangeable in the Mid 2012 releases of the MBA 11″ (model A1465) and MBA 13″ (model A1466).
Generation 3
It was clear with the Gen. 2 drives that mSATA’s 600MB/s limitation would not allow for further speed increases, so Apple’s next generation of drives began using a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface, bringing about the most substantial performance increases to date. Performance varies wildly depending on the combination of device, capacity, and manufacturer but the fastest Gen. 3 configurations can perform at more than double the speeds of the fastest Gen. 2 drives.
Generation 3 also saw a consolidation of the connector used, with almost all Gen. 3 drives compatible with all Mid 2013 through Mid 2015 releases of Apple computers. Of course, a few exceptions apply; notably the MacBook Air and iMac 21.5″.
Not only are the SSDs cross-compatible between the different devices, but the different computers do in fact share the exact same drives. The SSDs were manufactured by Samsung, SanDisk, and Toshiba, and the same manufacturer part numbers have been found on drives retrieved from all of the different computers. Samsung seems to have appended unique endings (/0A2, /0A4, /0A6, etc.) to drives used in different devices, but the drives all use the same flash controller and our testing has shown zero performance difference between them.
The Gen. 3 solid state drives are all the same form factor (which I’ll refer to as Gen. 3A), except for the 1TB SSD (Gen. 3B) which is the same length, but roughly twice as wide. All Gen. 3 drives use the same 12+16 Pin connector and all share a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface, except for the 1TB Gen. 3B SSD which has a PCIe 2.0 x4 interface, likely due to the larger physical size of the drive which allows for less engineering constraints.
There is one more drive that’s worth mentioning, more as a bit of trivia than anything, but there was also an extremely rare 768GB SSD included in some iMacs during this time. It shares the same Gen. 3B form factor and PCIe 2.0 x4 interface as the 1TB SSD and has comparable read and write speeds. This drive seems to have been phased out not long after Samsung began manufacturing it though, and you’re unlikely to find one unless you’re hunting for it.
All the Gen. 3 drives use AHCI technology, but many of the computers that shipped with Gen. 3 drives support NVMe SSDs as well, allowing for upgrades to later generation NVMe drives.
MacBook Air (Mid 2013 - Early 2014)
As with previous MacBook Air laptops, both the 11″ and 13″ laptops use all the same drives, which included 128GB, 256GB and 512GB capacities, leaving behind the 64GB option found in earlier MacBook Airs.
Interestingly, while the drives are all limited to a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface, the MacBook Air logic boards all support PCIe 2.0 x4, opening up the possibility to upgrade to the faster four channel drives found in Gen. 4.
Mac Pro (Late 2013)
The big revision to the Mac Pro desktop saw big changes to its storage devices as well. The Late 2013 Mac Pro was the first Mac Pro to have a solid state drive standard, the first to natively use PCIe storage, and to the dismay of many power users, the first to support only a single internal storage device.
The Mac Pro supports all capacities (128GB – 1TB) of Gen. 3 SSDs, but originally included drives with heatsinks that are attached with an extremely strong thermally conductive adhesive. It’s generally a safe bet that if Apple’s engineers decided it was necessary, it’s probably necessary, but it’s worth mentioning that the Mac Pros can use the heatsink-less SSDs found in other devices, and our internal testing showed absolutely no difference in SSD temperature when using drives with and without heatsinks, even under stress test conditions.
The Mac Pro’s logic board has the same limitations as the MacBook Air laptops, supporting a PCIe 2.0 x4 connection, allowing for improved performance with later four channel drives. The nMP also supports NVMe SSDs and can upgrade to some of the Gen. 5 drives when running macOS 10.10.3 or later.
MacBook Pro (Late 2013 - Mid 2014)
The Late 2013 and Mid 2014 MacBook Pro laptops both support all generation 3 drive options, and as with the MacBook Airs, while the included drives were PCIe 2.0 x2, the logic boards all support four channel PCIe connections.
The MacBook Pros also support the NVMe protocol, and like the Mac Pro, require macOS 10.10.3 or later.
iMac (Late 2013 - Late 2015)
The 21.5″ iMac originally shipped with either a 1TB SATA HDD, a 1TB Fusion drive (128GB SSD and 1TB SATA 3.5″ HDD), or a 256GB standalone SSD. The 27″ iMac offered the same 1TB Fusion Drive as the standard option, with optional upgrades to a 3TB Fusion Drive (128GB SSD and 3TB SATA 3.5″ HDD), or a standalone SSD in either 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB capacities.
Given that the iMacs have relatively ample free space inside, at least compared the rest of Apple’s product lines, it should come as no surprise that all drive capacities are supported in both the 21.5″ and 27″ iMacs. As with the previous generation, the 27″ iMac always included the PCIe connector on the logic board, but breaking with the previous iMac releases, the 21.5″ iMac only included the PCIe connector if originally configured with a Fusion Drive or standalone SSD when ordered. If a Fusion Drive was not selected at the time of purchase, there’s only an empty space where the PCIe connector would have been, and there’s no way to add the connector to the board, short of replacing the entire logic board.
The 21.5″ iMacs and the 27″ from 2013/2014 only support PCIe 2.0 x2 connections. All iMacs of this era support NVMe, but the speed increase is more limited in the 21.5″ iMacs and the 2013/2014 27″ iMacs, where the two channel interface acts as a bottleneck.
Mac mini (Late 2014)
Late 2014 was the first Mac mini to support Apple’s blade solid state drives, but it’s extremely limited internal space required a unique solution in order to connect the drive to the logic board. Rather than a 12+16 pin PCIe connector on the logic board where the SSD would connect directly, the Mac mini positioned the SSD on the rear of the plastic hard drive carrier, off to the side of the board, and required a flex cable to connect the SSD.
The flex cable has the 12+16 pin female connector on one side and a female 40 pin mezzanine connector which attaches to the 40 pin male connector on the motherboard. This was the first and last time Apple used this smaller connector for PCIe connections in any of their product lines.
PCIe connector on the Late 2014 Mac miniThe connector is present on the board regardless of which storage configuration was initially ordered, so it’s possible to add a PCIe SSD to all Late 2014 Mac minis. If the Mac mini wasn’t originally configured with a Fusion Drive or standalone SSD from the factory, the flex cable will need to be purchased in order to add an SSD afterwards.
The Mac mini motherboard only supports a PCIe 2.0 x2 interface, but does support an upgrade to NVMe SSDs, but like the 21.5″ iMac, the speed increase is a modest 10-15% due to the two channel PCIe bottleneck.
Generation 4
With the release of the first Early 2015 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops, Apple unveiled its fourth generation of blade SSDs. Gen. 4 included a few variations, but for the most part was again used across all the product lines of the time, and even stuck with the same 12+16 Pin connector found in the Gen. 3 drives, making the Gen. 4 drives a great option for upgrading earlier devices.
The Gen. 4 drives all used a PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, with the exception of the drive used in the MacBook Air 11″ which used a newer version (Gen. 4C) of the PCIe 2.0 x4 drives found in the previous generation. I’ll be referring to the 128GB, 256GB and 512GB Gen. 4 drives as Gen. 4A, and the larger 1TB drive as Gen. 4B, similar to the Gen. 3B 1TB drive from the previous generation.
Generation 4 brought massive increases in speeds when compared to their Gen. 3 counterparts, with read and write speeds that are roughly twice that of the previous generation. All the laptops and desktops released during this period could make use of the four channel PCIe connection, but only a few select models could reap the benefits of the PCIe 3.0 technology. For devices that did support a PCIe 3.0 connection to the SSD, read and write speeds were more than doubled. All in all, the fourth generation of solid state drives represented another monumental leap in drive technology.
Then SSDs were manufactured exclusively by Samsung this time around, with the exception of the Gen. 4C drive from the 11″ MacBook Air which was manufactured by Toshiba. The Samsung drives are commonly referred to by the identifier of their flash controller, dubbed UBX — or as it’s printed on the drive, SSUBX. This is quick an easy way to identify the Generation 4 drives from the Gen. 3 Samsung drives which have SSUAX printed on the labels.
MacBook Air (Early 2015 - Mid 2017)
The Early 2015 MacBook Air 11″ was the last release of the 11″ laptop form factor, and while most of the hardware saw only incremental improvements, the SSDs were radically different from the previous generation, and unique amongst the Gen. 4 drives. These new drives, which I’ve distinguished as Gen. 4C, still use the PCIe 2.0 interface, but expanded from two to four PCIe lanes, and most notably, use the more performant NVMe interface, the first Apple SSDs to do so.
And although using the the same 12+16 pin arrangement and form factor, their firmware renders them incompatible with earlier MacBook Air laptops. The new drives were also now branded “Apple” rather than with the third party manufacturer’s name, although the flash chips on the SSD make it clear that Toshiba and SanDisk were manufacturers.
On the logic board side, the 2015 MacBook Air 11″ uses the same PCIe 2.0 x4 interface found in previous releases, and can also use the more common PCIe 3.0 Gen. 4A drives, albeit limited to PCIe 2.0 speeds. In fact, if the 11″ MacBook Air was configured with a 512GB SSD from the factory, it already included the same Gen. 4A drive found in other Apple computers of the era.
The 13″ MacBook Air used the same Gen. 4A drives as the rest of Apple’s product lines, but didn’t support the PCIe 3.0 connection the newer drives were capable of. Despite the lack of PCIe 3.0 support, the Early 2015 release still saw read/write speeds that were 90-120% faster than the 2013/2014 models. The same Gen. 4A drives are still in use in the most recent Mid 2017 release.
Like the MacBook Air laptops before them, the Early 2015 – Mid 2017 MacBook Airs lack the space to fit the wider 1TB SSDs, and are limited to the 128GB, 256GB and 512GB options.
MacBook Pro (Early 2015 - Mid 2015)
The 2015 releases of the MacBook Pro laptops were also relatively minor upgrades, but again the SSDs brought about a huge speed boost, especially for the 15″ model A1398. Both the 13″ and 15″ computers support the full range of drive capacities and supported four channel connections, but the 15″ MacBook Pro also supported PCIe 3.0.
Both the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pros also support the NVMe protocol and upgrading to Gen. 5 SSDs can bring a modest speed boost to the 13″ model A1502, but the 15″ model A1398 with its PCIe 3.0 connection really allows the NVMe technology to shine. Read speeds increase by ~40% and write speeds can increase by ~60%.
iMac (Late 2015)
The Late 2015 iMacs see a lot of the same trends found in earlier iMac releases. The 21.5″ iMac only has a PCIe connector on the motherboard if the computer was originally configured with a Fusion Drive or standalone SSD. To the dismay of many people, the 1TB Fusion Drive now only included a 24GB SSD paired with the same 1TB SATA HDD, and continued offering an option for a standalone 256GB SSD. The 27″ iMac also tweaked the 1TB Fusion Drive to include the smaller 24GB SSD, but the 2TB and 3TB Fusion Drives were still paired with the 128GB capacity drives. The 27″ iMac also continued offerings of 256GB, 512GB or 1TB standalone SSDs.
You might have noticed that there had not been a 24GB SSD option until this point in time, and in addition to bringing about a new capacity, the 24GB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD was also Apple’s first removable NVMe SSD. Another interesting oddity with the 24GB drive is that it’s actually designated as a 32GB drive on its label, with 25% of the available space reserved and unusable to the user. All SSDs have some portion of their capacity reserved to replace bad blocks that have become unreliable with time; a natural wearing down of drives that occurs during the writing process. Reserving a quarter of a drive’s capacity is highly unusual, but considering that the drive is designed to act as a cache for the Fusion Drive and will likely take a lot of wear, it makes total sense that a large segment of the drive would be allocated to replace worn out sections. Unfortunately, this is the only NVMe drive available during this period, and NVMe SSDs didn’t become widespread in Apple’s lineup until Gen. 5.
All of the SSDs found in the Late 2015 iMacs are of the new PCIe 3.0 x4 variety, but the A1418 only supports a PCIe 2.0 x4 connection. The 27″ iMac, on the other hand, is the only device other than the 15″ MacBook Pro to support a PCIe 3.0 x4 connection. Both iMacs support the NVMe protocol though and can upgrade to later Gen. 5 SSDs for a big speed boost.
Generation 5
The fifth generation of Apple SSDs introduced a few major changes. On the performance front, all the Gen. 5 SSDs support the NVMe protocol, and the devices that included these drives all support PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe connections. These two changes meant that not only are the Gen. 5 drives quite a bit faster, but all the Apple computers of this era were able to reap the full benefits.
Gen. 5 also saw changes to the form factor, now with two distinct SSD types. The Gen. 5A drives used an all-new, significantly smaller form factor, as well as a new 22+34 Pin connector. The Gen. 5B SSDs continue to use the 12+16 Pin connector found in the Gen. 3 and Gen. 4 drives and have the same form factor found in the Gen. 3B and Gen. 4B 1TB drives. Despite the larger connector on the Gen. 5A drive which one might assume could provide more throughput and performance, the Gen. 5B drives have superior read/write speeds, topping out at a whopping ~2,700 MB/s read speed and ~2,350 MB/s write speed.
The generation 5B lineup didn’t just bring massive speed increases, it introduced a major increase in capacity as well with Apple’s first removable 2TB SSD. While the length and width are the same as the 128GB Gen. 5B SSD, the 2TB SSD doubled the maximum storage capacity available in an Apple blade SSD, and because its connector and form factor remained consistent with previous generations, the 2TB drive makes for the biggest, fastest OEM drive that can be used to upgrade Apple devices dating back to 2013.
MacBook Pro (Late 2016 - Mid 2017)
Starting with the Late 2016 release, Apple began releasing two versions of its MacBook Pro laptop: the non Touch Bar (nTB) version, and the version with Touch Bar. Only the 13″ MacBook Pro was offered in the nTB version, and notably, the nTB version is the only MacBook Pro of this release that has a removable SSD. All of the MacBook Pro laptops with a Touch Bar share the same PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD, but the SSD is soldered to the logic board and is not removable/replaceable. The only way to upgrade the storage on the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is to replace the entire logic board.
The MacBook Pro 13″ that does have a removable SSD used the Gen. 5A SSDs, and the Late 2016 and Mid 2017 releases are the only two computers to support these drives. The Late 2016 MacBook Pro offered choices of a single 256GB, 512GB, or 1TB SSD, while the Mid 2017 release also introduced a 128GB option, and while nearly all of the drives are compatible with both the 2016 and 2017 releases, there are a couple exceptions.
After extensive testing with every Gen. 5A drive we could get our hands on, it appears that 128GB SSDs with part numbers beginning with 656-0074 and 256GB SSDs with part numbers beginning with 656-0076 are only compatible with the model A1708 laptops from the Mid 2017 release.
If you’ve got this far and are looking for more, I’m sorry to say this is the end of the line. This post has attracted more attention than our average post so I’m currently in the process of adding more and better information. I’m planning on adding lots more info, speed tests, part numbers and more upgrade guides. This post ain’t dead yet, so check back soon.
In the meantime, if you have and questions or comments, leave them below because I probably already have the answer.
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Owners of a Unibody MacBook Pro laptop are probably already aware that failure of the hard drive flex cable is a common issue. While it affects just about the entire Unibody lineup, the Mid 2012 MacBook Pro 13″ (Model A1278) is especially prone to this type of failure.
What is it that makes the Mid 2012 release special in this regard? A design flaw in the flex cable that seems to be compounded by the properties of the aluminum housing.
Our repair services department noticed this issue when they’d replace a bad cable, only to have the customer return a few months later with another bad cable. And possibly again with yet another bad cable. It didn’t matter if we used a used cable or a new cable in the replacement. Customers kept returning with the same persistent issue. We had to figure out what was causing the issue and find a solution.
Hi many thanks for this info.I unfortunately purchased a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2017, Two Thunderbolt 3 ports)121GB storage.I urgently need to upgrade my ssd is this possible with this Mac as I was under the illusion that it was not.
Outstanding article! As I sit bored during coronavirus quarantines, I’m thinking of an SSD upgrade for my early 2015 MacBook Pro 13″. I have already replaced the stock 256GB Apple SSD with a 1TB PCIe NVMe M.2 2880 with a Sintech adapter. I’m trying to find new things to do so I thought I’d upgrade that 1TB blade SSD to a 2TB one. I noticed that the blade SSDs seem to run very hot, but the 1TB model has been running OK in my MBP for about a year. Do I have to worry about heat issues with a 2TB… Read more »
I want to speed up my 6,1 Mac pro. How fast a write speed for video editing etc can be got, and with what? Its original 1TB drive is very slow (around 600 mb/sec write) and cannot manage much these days. I need help, because everyone on these machines have no way to equal current speeds without help, and Apple not only do not say, but even OWC only claim around 1300MB/.sec for their very expensive drives. Can you use ANY NVMe drive with an adaptor and putting the OS on it will it function? AngelShark’s optional board uses these… Read more »
Curious to see new research data on the recent iMac 2019
Greta help and article Cody Henderson – thanks for taking the time to explain it. I have a MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2012)1.8 GHz Dual-Core Intel Core i5, 4 GB 1600 MHz DDR3, ntel HD Graphics 4000 1536 MB —and would love to upgrage the SSD to 1TB like an samsung evo plus or such. whats the best I can hope for? as i just get lost with all the connection types and generations? driven me crazy! ordered and then returned as nothing seems to fit. please suggest something for me. or is this mac heading for the crusher 🙂… Read more »
Hi, what ssd has the new MacBook Pro 13” 2020?
Is it upgradable?
I’m looking for an adapter converter to transfer my data of a mid 2017 non touchbar to my current 2019 touchbar … any info on where I can find the proper adapter is most welcomed. Thanks
Hi Cody, I appreciate your knowledge in this matter. i have a MacBook Air 13 ” 2017 with a 250 gb storage. if what I understood is correct this MacBook can’t be upgraded to 1TB because of the space inside. is that correct? My only option is to upgrade to 512 gb?
and when I was checking the ssd in my computer it says it is not detachable, that means I can’t change it if it doesn’t come from factory?
Many thanks for your time.
I am searching for a external enclosure for MZ- JPV5120/0A4 Samsung Apple blade ( was in MBP 2015 13”).
Does anyone know of a enclosure? The OWC envoy pro is not compatible..
Thank you
Regarding the heatsink adhesive on SSDs in the 2013 Mac Pro, it is really not that hard to remove. Use a long segmented blade utility knife and ease it carefully in between the SSD and the heatsink. Takes a few minutes and leaves no residue or damage to either.
Great article! Thank you.
Can you update for MBP 2018 and later?
Thanks!
My late 2016 MacBook Pro unfortunately lost the logic board, but I salvaged the SSD from it. However I cannot find caddy or connection cable that will allow me to retrieve my data. Any suggestions?
So what USB adapters are suggested for these MAC SSD drives?
Have any Apple’s Gen.1 SSD for 512GB?
Thank you for all of your research. This was very well written and expressed in a clear and informative manner and not in the typical “cocky I.T. Know it all” way. I learned a lot. -Thanks again!
I am using MacBook Pro Retina A1425, late 2012. I want to upgrade its 128GB SSD to 500GB or 1TB but not sure of its type and where to get it from?
Please help.
Hi – I wish to get a 256 gb ssd for my MacBook – 2015 version ( original) – which one to get , your advice please . Thanks
This is a really great article, and super informative. Thanks for your tact in this.
Incredibly great, detailed, complete, mostly interesting information !! Many thanks to you, Mr. Henderson !!! 🙂
By the way, do you know the existence of an adapter in which I could insert an Apple SSD Samsung 256GB for Macbook Pro Retina late 2013/14 MZ-JPU256T/0A6 (generation 3 : “12 pin x 16 pin) ?
I would then place this adapter in a PC slot (PCIe) for cloning purpose.
I have an OWC reader, but it only seems to read Apple factory SSDs, i have an OWC board, and i cannot read it outside of the computer. got any recommendations?
Very useful thanks.
Hey! My 2017 13′ macbook from college has been dead for almost a year now. I am actually working now and could use some old programs that I wrote in college on the laptop so I removed the 5A 22+34pin SSD from the laptop. Does anyone know of a connector that I can buy to transfer the data from it to an external harddrive? I have been looking for one for days now and havent found anything :/
Thanks for this fantastic information! It was very helpful to me as I’m replacing the SSD in my 2015 Macbook Pro (11,5). I could not get information on the unusual SSD connector until I found your article. The only thing that could make it better would be to have the proper connector type listed in each computer type’s section. It turns out mine is a 12/16 pin unit, but it doesn’t say that in your section covering my model. If I had not already received my replacement SSD (which let me compare my connector to those you pictured), I would… Read more »
Hi, iMac 27″ Late 2012 I started to get the beachballing error, now almost frozen and reacts like a sloth. I want to try everything before I start uninstalling the screen. Now, few months ago, I have cleaned it and after a backup, installed the OS as a fresh install. Totally booted. During the set up, I remember I changed something on the Disc Settings. Normally, I believe there were 2 divisions, (Im not sure but..) one for the boot up and one for the storage. I think I joined them together. So now, there’s only a single division. do… Read more »
Hans: this link was the best, that I found so far. I have to admit, that I did not know about the PCle possibility on my 2017 iMac until today – thanks for that information. Now my question: I have an 2017 iMac 27″ 18.3, 3.4 Ghz intel Core i5 and a 1TB Fusion Drive. As I learned from your Homepage today, one can only upgrade the PCLe to a 1 or 2 TB Unit in the 5th Generation. That is OK. Why do other M2 Products not work? There are many comments, but most on PCs and not much… Read more »
Now, all the latest Apple systems are the SSD is soldered to the logic board. Apple claims larger capacity support. Is that like RAID 0 ?
Best information I’ve found so far, THANK YOU!!
I have the late 2013 iMac 27” which says it is limited to PCIe 2.0×2 and I’m wondering… would the Thunderbolt ports also be limited to that bus speed, (about 1gb effective rates) or could they be faster with the right external NVMe SSD than you could have with an internal drive of the same caliber?
Does anyone make an Apple Gen5 SSD to M.2/USB/PCIe? I have a Macbook with a bad logic board that I need the data off the SSD. Ideally, I would like to remove the SSD from the Macbook and place it into an adapter to plug in through USB to another computer to recover the data.
Hi all,
I have attempted to rescue a supposed dead MacBook Pro for an elderly lady, the parameters of the machine are:
2018 Apr.10th, Model #A1708 and SN: FVFX5PJTHV29, and after some sleuthing, found out how to get into the machine and retrieve the SSD drive. The latter is one of the items discussed in Cody’s article above, it is a GEN 5A type SSD, 512GB, 22+34 Pin connector and with model # 656-0071A.
So far so good. BUT how does one connect to this beast, fire it up and rescue the contents??
Any help would be most gratefully received!
Brian
Thank you for this article. It’s very informative. I have a Late 2013 21″ iMac with a 1TB Fusion Drive. I want to upgrade my storage capacity to 2TB and am looking for the best approach to take. Your article says this late 2013 iMac can take a PCIe 2.0 x2 NVMe. Would you recommend that I remove the 128G SSD and 1T HDD and replace with the a single 2TB PCIe 2.0 x2 NVMe? Could I expect better speed performance?
Exactly the article I’ve been looking for – very comprehensive. Much appreciated!!!
Fabulous article on Apple’s SSD drives, thank you.
I think the pictures of Type 2A and Type 3A show pin numbers that do not correspond with the text.
Best regards,
Jim
Great work, Cody! We’ve used this post as a reference ever since it went up. Still looking for an enclosure for that Gen5A drive, but it seems there are none out there to be found. Backup for these Gen5As and “onboard” SSDs is absolutely critical. Thank you for posting this.
Wow what a fantastic read Cody! I was just looking forward to what you could do with upgrading the 2019 model imac 5K retina and Noooooooooo. its not there. No info. Please carry on this thread or let me know if another has started up elsewhere.
Got an iMac 2017 27″. What standard is my SSD (the one on the mainboard I mean). Can I buy a compatibile but more modern and capable one?
Hello! I have a Macbook Pro 201 7 model A1078, with and intel i7 processor and no touchbar, which I think is the last model you included in this article. At the end you expressed “I’m planning on adding lots more info, speed tests, part numbers and more upgrade guides. This post ain’t dead yet, so check back soon.” I wonder if you still don’t have more information, or if you continued the information in another post. I would like some guidance for my Mac, since its disk is booting only every once in a while. I would like to… Read more »
Hello Cody, Great article here!
I wonder if you or someone here could help me out, I’ve got a MacBook Air (Early 2015 – Mid 2017) which motherboard died. I just cant to recover the data from the SSD or keep using it as an external SSD by finding a housing that works with this very weird SSD model…. 12+16 pin, Samsung model MZ-JPV256S/0A2
Do you sell such article? or adapter to another easier to find SSD housing standard?
Best,
IR.
Hello.
Thanks for such good article, but I’ll like to know a little bit more about the last generation you describe, since I have an SSD of a Macbook pro 2017, with no TB. I would like to buy an enclosure for it to make it external. The drive became corrupted, but I think I might be able to see the information if I attache it as an external drive to my new Macbook. The drive was if a Macbook Pro Model A1708. The drive is a 512GB EMC 3196 Model 656-0068A
Thank you
Thanks Cody for such a good article. But I have a question….I’ve just pulled a SSD drive from a dead Macbook Pro (2015). It turns out to be a Samsung MZ-JPV512R/0A2 (512GB) SSUBX. (2016). SSD. I would like to use this as an external drive, but cannot find an enclosure that guarantees working with this particular type of SSD. Some enclosures state “Macbook Air/Pro 2013-2016 (sometime to 2017), some 2013-15.
It’s confusing out there!
Your advice would be really helpful as to which enclosure will definitely work with the Samsung SSD.
Thanks again.
Wow! This is quite an article. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge! Now, I have got a 2019 imac 4K Retina, 21.5 inches which apparently has only a 256Gb pcie SSD. In the next few days I am planning to open it to upgrade my RAM which is only 8Gb and I am thinking of upgrading storage as well. There are very confusing information around, especially with this model as many variants come with a fusion drive. Will it be possible to tell me what sort of PCIe SSD 1Tb should I get ? I am completely lost… Read more »
Excellent Article, probably THE reference for mac SSD’s that i have found to date. Planning a teardown of a 21.5 2013 imac for Ram and CPU upgrades ( daughter wants her own iMac ). I now know to wait till i have the logic board actualy removed before ordering a blade SSD as the board may or may not actually have the apple header.
Best Apple SSD write up around. Thanks man.
Has anyone had any experience with doing a swap on a new 13″ MBP M2 (16GB/256GB)? I’d like to put in a WD_BLACK 1TB SN850 NVMe; specs on it are that it’s a Gen4 PCIe, M.2 2280. I believe this should be a match with the 13″ M2’s PCIe 3.0 x4 NVMe SSD, plus an adapter to account for Apple’s connector. Lastly, do you have any thought on if I should order sans heatsink to knock down the drive’s thickness by a good bid to ensure the drive fits?
HI what model real disk of mac pro 2013 need install maverick but not possible? see need real disk? any idea?
A quick note on upgrading a 13″ late 2013 MBP with a Gen. 4 Apple SSD
Windows (bootcamp) won’t work at all.. probably some compatibility issue related to PCIe bus using AHCI and not NVMe.. It will simply stuck at the middle of installation.
Great read, learning everyday! thank you. very detailed. @macrepairsswindon
Hi! I recently upgrade my ssd from 1 tb (Samsung Evo plus) to 2 tb (Samsung Pro – PCIe 4) and my MacBook Pro mid 2015 become lower. I can’t understand.
I have a customer’s 2019 27″ iMac in the workshop for storage upgrade. Existing SSD is the 256gb SSPOLARIS drive, the customer would like either 512gb or 1tb but a new SSPOLARIS drive is not really financially viable for the age of the system. What other options are compatible for 512gb or 1tb? without too much of a performance hit. I don’t currently know if there is a SATA connector or not, even if there is making a fusion drive with 2.5″ SATA would most likely be too much of a performance hit. I guess my question is, would the… Read more »
What is the chipset of the 2018 15″ Intel 2.2ghz A1990 Macbook Pro ssd?