NVME M.2 SSD with adapter

"Jason S.

@xarbit


Rep: 511




2


1


1"

"I installed a Samsung 970 EVO 2TB M.2 in my mid-2017 27” 5k iMac and it works great with 4x NMVe speeds.

You can use the adapters from the MacBook Air etc… with your 5k mid-2017 iMac … and you will get NVMe 4x speeds with a 4x lane drive . Physically the adapters are the same (different protocols ACHI vs NVMe with same pinout).

I haven’t seen this posted anywhere, but the newer sockets on this logic board have an extended shield that can easily shorts to the adapter header. I confirmed with my multimeter. This can short out the power rails and most of the PCIE bus! This would help explain why some people have issues (failure to start and crashing).

I used Kapton tape (electrical tape works also, but is not as clean). You want to cover the soldered header pins on the adapter socket on the mating side but obviously not the gold plated card edge pins. See attachment."

"Samsung has updated firmare for the SSD 970 Evo Plus PCIe NVMe, this is the direct link.

Now it works on Macs https://www.globalmac.cl/SSD-Samsung-970...

Best Regards! Alex"

"Here is my experience with this upgrade. Hope it helps.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ima..."

"I recently upgraded my iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2017) from a 2TB internal to a Corsair MP400 NVMe PCIe Gen 3 x4 M.2 SSD. I got a tech guy to do it (they supplied the adaptor) and, well, it took way longer than expected, he named the new SSD HD some weird-ass name, and reinstalling and restoring from TimeMachine has been a nightmare, but that’s not why I am here.

Is there any way I can use the now removed 2TB SSD as an external? Are there any caddies available that could connect utilising hi-speed throughputs (I have no idea what I am saying here)? Basically, I have no idea what sort of connections are hi-speed anymore (USB 3, C, Lightning, Thunder, etc, etc) and was just wondering what the correct terminology is to search for something to connect this incredibly small SSD into my Mac.

Yeah, it’s pretty stupid replacing it and then asking to connect it back expecting PCMie speeds. Like, why didn’t I just try and connect the 4TB SSD via this method? I know right?"