Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
2015 MBP SSD replacement?
- Thread starter firelighter487
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't have any experience with that drive personally but reviews suggest it isn't exactly low power. It's DRAM-less, so it may use less power than a comparable drive with DRAM, but then again it's a WD Black, and the WD Blacks have a reputation for using a lot of power.
As @Macdctr suggested, perhaps reach out to @Audit13 for some advice.
Well, for a computer that old I don't necessarily see the point in maxing out SSD speed, especially when it means using more power. I get that you're often close to a power plug so that works for you, but that may not be the case for many laptop users.
I think I would recommend new MBA at this point too unless you just really need big storage. I did this upgrade to a 13" MBP a few years ago and it was a good solution but lately I felt the dual core & 8gb ram is a limitation. So I bought 2015 15" top spec for a good price and thought ok upgrade the SSD and I'm set. But now it's clear to me the heat of the bigger chip and GPU is too much. It does not bog down like the 13" did but instead gets hot and loud to power through it. That's not the experience I enjoy. So no more upgrading here, I'll keep the old machine for bootcamp but next upgrade will certainly be a Apple Silicon. The answer to why is to have a more modern/future looking machine and avoid the headaches of an old computer.
For the OP I have done this upgrade using Sintech adapter and Intel 660 2TB on 2015 13" (from 128GB to 2TB) and performance is good however I do have issues with sleep/wake. Well no, it sleeps and wakes ok but often wakes up for no reason and drains battery so I have had to resort to shutting down more often. Not a real trouble as boot up is fast but it is a problem if you are frequently transporting the computer. I would dig through as many user reviews and reports as you can to find a drive that hopefully doesn't give any issues. Performance will be ok with any, prioritize compatibility.
the dual core and 8gb of ram is plenty for me. this computer is used mainly for web browsing, javascript coding and I play guitar through it with GarageBand, the storage is the only real limitation for me.
sure, I plan to get a WD SN750 SE, because of mainly pricing.
It really comes down to the user's preferences. My 2015 will never see the max performance of the Samsung NVMe drives I put into them but what I will still have is max performance for the architecture of this laptop which is what I seek for them. There are other solutions out there and that is what makes these laptops nice to have and use even in 2022.
Yes there are much faster powerful choices out there today but for those who don't want to spend that kind of cash, using a 2015 MBP with a decent NVMe storage drive is still a good choice as long as that computer does everything the individual needs that computer to do.
I did this procedure on my 2015 13" last year. Bought the adapter and a Rocket-branded drive. Later, after I had opened it, the battery started swelling and the laptop had a bulge that hit the table. So that was another ~$100 for a DIY repair. The SSD was supposedly ran faster but felt uneven -- faster reads but slower writes. Battery life never was the same after that even after the replacement, although it's hard to tell because the macOS Monterey upgrade also tanked that machine.
On the upside it worked. Plus no sleep issues that the earlier models supposedly suffered from.
I ended up buying a new machine this year.
On the upside it worked. Plus no sleep issues that the earlier models supposedly suffered from.
I ended up buying a new machine this year.
Last edited:
I happen to have a handful of 500 GB SSDs pulled from 2015 MBPs. I used one to upgrade my mac mini, and I have another in an enclosure from OWC. They are all wiped and set so that when you put them in a Mac and boot up, it prompts you to set up a new user account... generally on an OS that was appropriate to that age range of laptop.
I would be happy to sell you one pretty cheap plus shipping as I have no further use for these. How about $20.00?
I actually finally registered for this forum to post this reply, since I figured I should mention that I have exactly what you are looking for... no adapter needed.
I would like to but a lot of my software will not run on any Mac OS above Big Sur, the same goes with hardware. One thing I like about the 2015 MacBook Pro running Big Sur, its very stable and pretty fast. I also like the different ports it has.
Where do you live? I'd buy two if you were close by.
Have you thought of eBay? They go for more than $20 on eBay.Instead of replacing my 2015 MBP SSD, I added a 500 GB micro-SD card using a BaseQi 504A adapter in the laptop's SD card slot. It cost less than an SSD replacement (only $25 for the adapter on sale plus the Samsung 500 GB card), didn't require opening up the laptop, & works well.
However if user jmckenzie has a Mac/Samsung OEM replacement drive for you, that's an even better option than the BaseQi method I use.
However if user jmckenzie has a Mac/Samsung OEM replacement drive for you, that's an even better option than the BaseQi method I use.
That works, but note that most microSD cards don't really work well as drive replacements. If just for relatively static storage that's fine though.
My 2015 15” is my daily driver for a laptop, I upgraded the drive to a 2TB Sabrent. I have to say, it’s a mixed experience. The drive hasn’t failed, but it does have some unexplained slowdowns, so much so that it’s making my machine a chore to use. I launched Word a couple weeks ago, it took 40 seconds to load, and was pretty laggy after that. So keep that in mind, if you have an incompatibility, you may end up taking a hit you hadn’t intended. I thought about trying for an Apple drive, but at 2TB, they’re rare and expensive, so something to keep in mind if you are saving your pennies for a new machine. All in all, changing the drive was a good decision, I need 2TB with my current job, but it’s not a panacea.
How much RAM do you have? Are you hitting the swap? Even with SSD, swap can cause serious speed problems.
With my 8 GB 2014 Mac mini, I have a 500 GB WD SN550 (DRAM-less) SSD. With most of my usage it's totally fine, but if I start piling on the multi-tasking and swap goes above around 1 GB, then I really start noticing the slowdowns. Luckily on this machine I don't need to do that, as I have another machine with 24 GB.
My machine is a maxed-out 2015. 16GB RAM, 2.8 GHz, Discrete Graphics, Memory in the Green in activity monitor. You can see the problem in Blackmagic Speed Test, it will give me respectable speeds, then drop down to 100Mb/s unexpectedly, then pop back up. It could be that the drive is failing, but it’s only a couple years old, so I’d be pretty disappointed if that were the case, and it’s always had these hiccups since new. I’m using the recommended Sintech adaptor.
Also, to clarify, the drive I replaced was an Apple Original 1TB SSD. It started failing, and running really slow with beachballs and bad transfer speeds. Same behavior in multiple machines, so it’s the drive itself.
Weird. The only time I've seen something like that is when the drive was nearly full, but with 2 TB I'm assuming that isn't the case for you. I don't have that problem with my 500 GB Western Digital SN550 in the Mac mini. It's consistently mediocre speed (because of the PCIe interface on this 2014 Mac mini), but the key here is consistent. However, it's of course always plugged in, so power management is not a concern with this machine. I have no extra SSD power management kexts installed.
Yeah, it’s odd for sure. The other symptom with the original drive is that if you set the machine down on a table too hard, the whole machine would reboot. Weird for sure. I’m hoping to upgrade machines soon, once I figure out the money. I was hoping the M2 Pros would be out by now! The 2015s are cool because they can handle the sleep mode and hibernation without modification. Maybe it’s some kind of incompatibility? Who knows?
I think these things are pretty safe to ship if you just pack them even moderately well with cardboard and an antistatic bag (happen to have those). I had thought of eBay but forgot to check the price there! However this offer stands for a few Macrumors types. Maybe I just won't unload them all here. Twenty bucks plus shipping and I'll even pop them into my OWC enclosure to check on them before they go out the door. Not sure how to process the transaction in a way that provides security for the buyer though — don't want you to feel suspense while you wait to see if anything ever shows up in the mail. I'll check to see how they do it on certain tech "marketplace" subreddits.Where do you live? I'd buy two if you were close by.
I'm fine even running Sata on my other Mac, a 9,2 MBP. so as long as it's faster than Sata I'm fine.
idk how feasible that is, shipping would probably end that value real fast. especially considering I already bought the adaptor and I live in the Netherlands...
we'll see. Word is a chunky app anyway to load, but yea. I kinda regret buying the 2015 now, the only reason I did was because my 9,2 from 2012 started having issues, and I was tempted by the Retina display as the 9,2 is non-retina.
however I do have buyers remorse, the 2012's issue was failing ram, a €30 fix. it's been running totally fine since doing that so... ugh.
I thought of this but I'm hesitant because I plan to put stuff like the GarageBand sound library (I'm a guitarist) on the drive, my Music App Library etc etc, so lots of reads and writes, and SD cards aren't really designed for that kind of thing.
I had some issues with my 2015 and my OWC drive. Trying to install over the internet seemed to only bring down the original OS for my computer, and not the latest. It did NOT like my new drive. I finally tried it with an external USB drive, and somewhere in the process it upgraded then when I tried again it worked with the current OS.
Yeah High Sierra was what installed the firmware for NVME drives. Once that’s installed on the logic board, it will recognize 3rd party drives with the adaptor.
ah, probably so. Too bad! But if you have the adapter already, definitely load up with a new one!