Compatibility of Samsung 840 EVO mSATA with MBP Retina Early 2013

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Compatibility of Samsung 840 EVO mSATA with MBP Retina Early 2013

Dear Apple Support Community,

I recently stumbled upon the newly released Samsung 840 EVO mSATA drive (MZ-MTE1T0BW)

Now the question is: Is this drive compatible with the early 2013 version of the MacBook Pro Retina 15 inch (2.8 GHz i7, 512 Gb SSD, 16 Gb RAM, Mac OS X Mavericks, Model A1398, EMC 2673)? Even if it might physically fit into the MacBook's mSATA port, I'm not sure that the controller will be compatible. So will it be possible to use it as a replacement for the factory drive from Apple?

Best regards,

Tobias

Posted on Sep 11, 2014 1:51 AM

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Answer 1

Sep 11, 2014 3:18 AM in response to Asdex

As far as I know, there is no mSATA port on any Retina machine. Your machine uses a 5.0 GT/s PCIe x2 bus for flash storage.

I may be wrong, but I don't believe that I am. Perhaps others will weigh in.

Clinton

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS Mavericks 10.9.4, 16GB Crucial RAM, Crucial M500 960GB SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

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Answer 2

Asdex Author

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Sep 11, 2014 3:49 AM in response to clintonfrombirmingham

Well, the Retina machines from late 2013 onwards have this PCIe x2 bus. However, I am quite sure that the machines from early 2013 (which includes my model) are still fitted with a 6 Gbps SATA hard drive interface.

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Answer 3

Sep 11, 2014 3:58 AM in response to Asdex

Yes, your early 2013 Retina model uses 6.0 Gbps SATA but it's not a standard mSATA connection. You could upgrade using Transcend's JetFlash -> http://www.transcend-info.com/apple/jetdrive/ - to space up to 960GB, however.

Clinton

MacBook Pro (15-inch Late 2011), OS Mavericks 10.9.4, 16GB Crucial RAM, Crucial M500 960GB SSD, 27” Apple Thunderbolt Display

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