Will the WD Black PCIe SSD work with MacBook Pro 2015?

Peter - Just because it appears to work and in your case you haven’t pushed the SSD that hard so just like a frayed rope it can hold up for awhile.

I deal with some very heavy users, and I’ve had to replace a ton of these M.2 and adapters from their systems putting in real Apple or OWC drives.

There’s a bit more than moving the wires! Don’t get me wrong! I love M.2 SSD’s I have a couple of RAID boxes which use them. The issue is Apple didn’t embrace them and as such the reliably of the adapter as well as it is not able to service the maintenance lines Apple use with in their SSD’s creates issues once you get below 1/4 of the drive being unused and how wear leveling works.

So I would strongly recommend you make a strong effort to backup as one day you will get the dreaded drive failure.

@Dan I’m a heavy user of video, photography, and other apps that put the EVO970 drive through it’s paces and like @Peterdk it’s a flawless solution. Until you want to go past Catalina to Big Sur or Monterey, at which point the Samsung drives have issues. Because it’s now EOL for OS upgrades, the MBP 2015 should be perfectly fine with WD blades and a good adapter (which IS just wires) and should lay as long as any external SSD drive.

You’re right that anyone should make regular backups with ANY drive!

@consciouschange - EOL doesn’t mean they stopped working! It Just stops you from the next macOS release as the driver interface is being changed.

As I tried to explain Apple does their own thing so you need to stick with their drives or ones that fully emulate Apple’s drives.

Just before xmas I had a friend call me in a panic as his system crashed in the upgrade process. He too couldn’t believe Apple would not implement the interface to the M.2 spec only altering the physical interface.

Got him to order an OWC SSD, helped him over the phone getting it working in his 15” 2015 MacBook Pro. He tried accessing the M.2 SSD using a case no luck!

So while you’ve been lucky if you are a pro or an advanced amateur who can’t afford to loose your work then saving a few dollars is not worth it.

Why is there always someone who always goes by what the manufacturer says. It's not your laptop and the person is asking for help on how to do something. No need for negative post. If you can't help stay off the forum.

See original post (Chosen Solution) and then see my post and picture above and tell me how that doesn’t help. The original post (Chosen Solition) is inaccurate. The question was does WD SSD work. The question wasn’t “how to do something” like you stated. Many people are using WD and some other SSD’s without issue. There’s and entire discussion and many tests on this very topic with many SSD’s tested on GitHub. WD’s performed the best without issues. I’m a Network Engineer. I’m running 3 virtual machines on my 2015 MBP and use it daily for managing networks and coding for network automations. Your post contributes nothing. If you can’t see the logic in this, then I have no more words for you.

@marcus3771 - Did you note the date? I posted it back in 2017. M.2 SSD’s with an adapter back then where junk!

Things have gotten better, even still I still see too many M.2 failures in the pro’s I service. So while a student or light weight users are likely to be fine, anyone who needs Five 9’s should stick with either an Apple SSD or one of the pin compatible drives.

And let’s not get lost arguing performance, the difference of many is so slight in real use you won’t gain enough time. The only exception is long processes like image rendering. But sadly what you gain from performance is lost is heat which forces the drive back off in its writes.

Think it like a paper glider, you pitch the nose down it dives, if you aim high you run the risk of stalling. The skill is finding the perfect glide slope!

@danj The pin compatible drives from OWC that you speak of do not work as well as the WD drives. Firmware compatibility issues. Trust me; we’ve been diving into this deep. Find the thread on GitHub.

@marcus3771 - Thats not true! I've installed 100's of units. What you likely encountered is Apple is a moving target!

I've seen people here and directly use the wrong OWC drive in their system and there is no OWC drivers! The 'Driver' is within the firmware and OS files supplied by Apple.

Apple doesn't follow the same model as a Windows or Lynx OS with accessible driver files. The SSD unit's own firmware accesses a set of system firmware API's so you can encounter firmware level issues (wrong SSD for the given system or just not updated when Apple changes things) as the amount of PCI Lane support differs with the different drives (including M.2 drives) and the given PCI spec the drive & system support.

Even with M.2 drives I see people trying to shove in to new a PCI drive into an older PCI spec'd systems.

Think it this way I want more power in my car and Premium gas is still not enough so I install a Nitro injector! Sure it adds more pressure in the cylinder but at what cost? Can the engine take it when you put the accelerator to the floor for hours not just a few secs? These older systems are not designed to be mod'ed to such a degree. I'm not saying you can't squeeze more out of a MacBook just not exceed its max design limits.

Even Apple has FU a few times! Here on iFixit we have identified many a case of that, sadly Apple doesn't like us pointing out their mistakes as it can be quite costly after the fact trying to fix them as example the overheating T-CON's because it's not where it should be placed, short flex cable and Butterfly keyboard issues.