Notable companies who make Apple compatible internal SSD blades, modules and drives start with Samsung as the performance leader of the pack.

For upgrading many legacy Macs and MacBooks, a very affordable off-the-shelf 2.5 laptop-size 6Gbps SATA III SSD is the right choice.

When used with a 2.5 to 3.5 drive adapter, sled, or tray its also the right choice for older Mac Pro towers and iMac computers which used full-size 3.5 inch drives.

Theyre also ideal for building a DIY external SSD Macintosh backup drive with a low-cost USB or Thunderbolt enclosure.

For upgrades inside your Mac, you need CUSTOM PINOUT Apple compatible SSD modules.

Companies like OWC, Fledging, MCE Technologies, and Dataram make Mac-specific SSD blades appropriate for your particular modelyear of Macintosh laptop or desktop.

We reccomend the Western Digital Black or a Crucial P1 Series SSD blade.

From the original white MacBooks and early MacBook Pros through around 2012, a standard 2.5 SATA SSD was generally an easy upgrade.

As with other Macs, solid-state modules supplanted standard drive form factors, first with custom M.2 SATA and then as by 2014, custom pinout PCIe NVME SSD modules.

Adapters are available to convert a standard M.2 SSD blade to Apples custom pinouts if needed, but its best to buy direct replacements from OWC, Transcend, or Fledging who make Apple compatible modules.

As the 1st Macs to feature solid-state storage, it has transitioned from 1.8 ATA-IDE to 1.8 SATA I, then II, then III, then onto custom-pinout M.2 SATA modules, to the more recent M.2 PCIe modules.

White Plastic iMacs - both G5 and Intel used full-size 3.5 SATA interface drives.

Thick bodied Aluminum iMacs used full-size SATA drives as well.

However with the ultra-Slim Aluminum iMac, Apple moved towards 2.5 laptop size SATA hard drives with (optionally) a custom SATA SSD module.

We recommend complete iMac drive upgrade kits specific to your model with the proper tools and other things needed to safely complete the drive swap.

For Intel CPU based Mac minis, a 2.5 inch SATA SSD is generally the right choice, for older G4 Mac minis you want an IDE-ATA interface 2.5 laptop size drive for upgrading.

The Mac Pro cylinder models use a custom pinout PCIe SSD module.

There arent many aftermarket Apple compatible SSD upgrade options.

OWCMacSales is your best bet, followed by MCE which supplies larger, factory original Apple PCIe modules in larger capacities than your Mac Pro came with.

One is to use a readily available drive trayadapter to convert an off the shelf SATA SSD to 3.5 drive bay.

Another option is the use of a PCIe SSD card in one of the slots which can typicially support either 1 or 2 2.5 SATA SSD drives, or more recent ones that support M.2 SATA or even PCIe SSD modules.

Even for much older G3 and G4 Macintosh models there are a few 2.5 IDE solid-state drives that can be a drop-in replacement for legacy Mac Mini and iBooks.

With an adapter, some can be retrofitted to tuck an IDE SSD into an iMac or other full-size Macintosh 3.5 drive bay common at the time.

Regardless of its form factor, an SSD drive or module is a platform agnostic device.

When formatted for the proper operating system, be it MacOS, Windows, Linux or other OS, it will perform as optimally as it can.

Apple owners will most likely need to reformat a new SSD to the proper GUID or Extended formatting and partitioning depending on your Mac model and version of OSX.

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