Do MacBooks support NVMe SSD drives via the use of a Sintech adapter?
a little update here...

macOS High Sierra beta 9 (and GM) brings us a BootRom update for ALL Macs supported by HighSierra, so that they can boot from APFS drives.

The very, very good news about this is that this update ALSO brings NVMe boot ability on every mac back to the Mac Pro 6.1 (Late 2013) upwards...

So every Mac which have an Apple 12+16 PCIe connector now owe the ability to boot from any NVMe drive, once they have been at least upgraded to High Sierra (and their BootRom updated).

Put it simply :


take a MacBook Pro retina 13" Late 2013
upgrade it to High Sierra
clone the OS to an external USB drive with CCC
power it off
change the stock Apple AHCI SSD to a brand new Samsung 960 Evo (for example)
use a sintech (or other) M.2 ngff to Apple 12+16 adapter (and protect the pin with kapton tape)
boot from your USB backup of High Sierra
copy back your OS and data to the new SSD


everything works (TRIM, SMART status, deepsleep etc.)

So since the beta of High Sierra and the BootRom update, the new results are following :

As for Apple NVMe drives:


Mac Pro late 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (at PCIe 3.0 4x speed)
MacBook Air 11" &amp; 13" mid 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" late 2013 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" late 2013 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" &amp; 13" early 2014 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" mid 2014 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2014 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" &amp; 13" early 2015 :works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" early 2015 : works from 10.10.2 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2015 : works from 10.10.3 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)


As for non-Apple NVMe drives, (Samsung 960 evo/pro etc) :


Mac Pro late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" &amp; 13" mid 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" late 2013 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" &amp; 13" early 2014 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Air 11" &amp; 13" early 2015 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 13" early 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)


PCIe 2.0 speed is around 350 MB/sec by lane so :


with 2x lanes of PCIe 2.0 expect up to 700 MB/sec 
with 4x lanes 1400 MB/sec


PCIe 3.0 speed is around 750 MB/sec by lane so :


with 4x lanes of PCIe 3.0 expect nearly 3000MB/sec