SATA SSD vs. M.2 to SATA - Speed

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Doombot1

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Hello!

I have a Mid-2010 Macbook Pro (15", Model No. A1286). I absolutely love this laptop - I could get a new, better one for probably not much more than it's worth, but for whatever reason I love the thing. Basically, right now, it has a really old SSD in it (Toshiba TS256B). I have a few extra SSDs at my dorm back at college (I am home over break). They are Samsung 850 PROs, so not exactly very slow, which is good! But I also know that M.2 drives are pretty cheap nowadays. So, my question is as follows:

If I get a very fast M.2 drive for my mac, and use it with an m.2-SATA adapter (say, a Samsung 970 PRO), would it perform faster than, say, an 850 PRO, or would it just get bottlenecked by the SATA interface, and end up giving me a similar performance?

Bonus question: This one is about motherboards. Again, I have a 2010 MBP. If I purchased the mobo from a 2012 MBP (same physical construction and such, still a unibody and the latest non-retina model), would it still support the same display connector and keyboard and such? This would be because I want to try upgrading my CPU/GPU if possible, as I have an i7 but only 256MB of graphics. Don't need to answer this one, as it isn't super important as of yet, but I figured I'd ask anyways.

Thanks for the help!

~DT
 
Solution
Solandri
First, the speed difference between NVMe SSDs and SATA SSDs is relatively small. It just seems big because it's measured in MB/s. You don't perceive speed in MB/s, you perceive it as its inverse - how many seconds you have to wait for x MB of data to be read. When you invert the measure, the huge MB/s numbers that NVMe SSDs produce turn into tiny fraction of a second improvements.

Measured in sec/MB, switching from a HDD to a SSD on SATA2 gives you about half the speedup (wait time reduction) of a NVMe SSD on a M.2 PCIe x4 slot. A SATA3 SSD gives you about 80% the speedup. So those huge MB/s numbers posted by NVMe SSDs only give you a small, nearly unnoticeable speedup over SATA3 SSDs.

Second, your MBP only has SATA2 ports. So...
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Solandri

Solandri

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Jan 4, 2012
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First, the speed difference between NVMe SSDs and SATA SSDs is relatively small. It just seems big because it's measured in MB/s. You don't perceive speed in MB/s, you perceive it as its inverse - how many seconds you have to wait for x MB of data to be read. When you invert the measure, the huge MB/s numbers that NVMe SSDs produce turn into tiny fraction of a second improvements.

Measured in sec/MB, switching from a HDD to a SSD on SATA2 gives you about half the speedup (wait time reduction) of a NVMe SSD on a M.2 PCIe x4 slot. A SATA3 SSD gives you about 80% the speedup. So those huge MB/s numbers posted by NVMe SSDs only give you a small, nearly unnoticeable speedup over SATA3 SSDs.

Second, your MBP only has SATA2 ports. So any SSD you put into it is limited to 300 MB/s. Thus making it even more pointless to try to put a M.2 SSD into it.
https://everymac.com/mac-ssd-storage-upgrade-guide/macbook-pro-hard-drive-ssd-storage-upgrade-info.html

Third, because MB/s is the inverse of how you perceive speed, the smallest MB/s figures are actually the ones which matter most. Because the slowest MB/s operation is the one which takes the most time, so you will spend the most time waiting for it to complete. Consequently, getting a SSD with fast 4k speeds will make the biggest perceivable difference. I can't find any benchmarks for the Toshiba TS256B, but historically Toshiba NAND has been much slower than Samsung NAND at these small file read/writes. (The current gen MBPs have the worst 4k speeds of any laptop SSD I've seen, because Apple refuses to use Samsung NAND.)

So find reviews for or benchmark your SSDs. And pick the one with the fastest 4k read/write speeds to put into your laptop.

As for your bonus question, you can find the technical specs for every Mac made on the above website. Might give you a clue as to if the internal layout is identical. iFixit's teardown guides are also a good reference for comparing the internals, if they have teardowns of the 2010 and 2012 models.
https://everymac.com/
https://www.ifixit.com/
 
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Solution
USAFRet

USAFRet

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Mar 16, 2013
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That converts a SATA m.2 drive to a standard SATA connection.
It has nothing to do with an NVMe drive like the 970 EVO.

Even if it did (and it doesn't), it would be no faster than a standard SATA SSD.
And even slower, because your particular laptop only has SATA II connectivity.

Ignore the 970 NVMe drive for that laptop.
Completely.
 
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atomicWAR

atomicWAR

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Not really that is a M.2 SATA to SATA adapter...not m.2 Nvme to SATA... there is a difference. A NVMe drive will not work over the SATA protocol.
 
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NightHawkRMX

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Well that is not a bad speed. It should be noted a m.2 sata ssd will perform like a newer sata ssd. An nvme ssd will be limited by the sata interface, performing like a good sata ssd. I would just ugrade your older ssd to a newer, faster sata ssd as the speed is limited by the sata interface with any new ssd in your use case. Also, that laptop may not support sata 3, making anything faster than a sata ssd in this case not very usefull.
 
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atomicWAR

atomicWAR

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Um noo. NVMe m.2 is not capable of running on the SATA interface even with an adapter. It will not work, period.
 
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