Early 2015 13 inch MBP and NVMe SSD upgrade

[csonni]

As I understand it, the Samsung 970 Evo Plus sucks the battery so I’m looking for the best suited NVMe drive for my MBP. I believe I’ll also need an adapter to install it. Can anyone recommend first hand what they used that worked well? A data? Crucial? I need 1 TB.
Found this Crucial: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B098WL46RS/ref=emc_b_5_t?th=1

 

[Romain_H]

Be careful. Using non-Apple SSDs require the use of an adapter.
While this isn‘t an issue by itself, macOS Monterey came with a firmwire upgrade - which fails if 3rd party SSDs are used.

That said, I ran Samsung 970 EVOs an Crucial P1s without issues other than said one on 2015 MBPs. Had to tinker with hibernation on a 2013, other than that its ok.

 

[csonni]

I’d like to know about that issue. Is there a link to that?

 

[csonni]

Is this the issue at hand? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253296956
I've actually installed Monterey with my original Apple SSD installed, so, the firmware upgrade must have already been accomplished through the Monterey install?
I just purchased the Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter Card and am now looking for my NVMe drive.
Actually, I just cancelled that order and went for the longer adapter which apparently has better air flow:

Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter Card for Upgrade 2013-2015 Year Macs(Not Fit Early 2013 MacBook Pro)

NOTICE:because too many customers can use it,I suggest you to try it again if your MAC can't detect nVME SSD. Pls notice to insert card fully into SSD slot and you must prepare bootable USB disk(see third point) with High Sierra to format M.2 SSD first, it can't support recover from internet. mai...

www.amazon.com

 

[Romain_H]

Yes, that‘s the issue.

I guess it doesn‘t really matter which SSD you use. Samsung are said to run a little hot, still it was fine on my machine.
The Crucial you listed looks fine. Its a PCI-e v4 SSD though, super fast, but your Macbook cannot take advantage of that (PCI-e v3)

 

[csonni]

Just found this on the Crucial site for compatibility. Must mean it won't fit to proprietary connection (without the adapter)?

 

[csonni]

Well, I ordered the Crucial P5 1TB 3D NAND NVMe Internal SSD and the M.2 NVME SSD Enclosure Adapter Tool-Free, USB C 3.1 Gen 2 10Gbps to NVME PCIe M-Key(B+M Key) Solid State Drive External Enclosure Support UASP Trim for SSD Size 2242/2260/2280

 

[Romain_H]

Just found this on the Crucial site for compatibility. Must mean it won't fit to proprietary connection (without the adapter)? View attachment 1923276

Correct. Sith the sintech adaper you should be fine I guess. For firmware upgrades you could temorarily swap in the original Apple SSD. Hopefully Apple does not care enough to sabotage the usage of mentioned adapers and/or third party SSDs

 

[csonni]

Correct. Sith the sintech adaper you should be fine I guess. For firmware upgrades you could temorarily swap in the original Apple SSD. Hopefully Apple does not care enough to sabotage the usage of mentioned adapers and/or third party SSDs

As far as firmware upgrades, are we talking for the MBP and do they come through the MacOS upgrade, such as Monterey?

 

[EugW]

As far as firmware upgrades, are we talking for the MBP and do they come through the MacOS upgrade, such as Monterey?

I believe the firmware upgrades came with 10.13 High Sierra. Meaning if you were on 10.12 Sierra and then swap in a third-party NVMe drive with Catalina already on it, it wouldn't work. You'd have to update to High Sierra first to get the firmware update, and then swap in the third-party NVMe drive.

 

[csonni]

Ok. So I should be good. I have Monterey on my MBP with its SSD and am installing an un-initialized NVMe drive to install Monterey onto. I will boot off my bootable Monterey installer flash drive to set up the NVMe drive once installed.

 

[EugW]

A few people are reporting kernel panics with the Crucial P2. Dunno about the P5.

As for power, one popular one is the SK Hynix Gold P31. It's very low power, yet quite fast, although I don't how stable it is. However, it is very expensive in Canada. Much cheaper in the US.

Anyhow, I would suggest posting in the main thread.

 

[csonni]

I’ll be sure to post back with the results. I’m hoping it’s like fluxing and soldering a water pipe. If it doesn’t spring a leak when you turn the water on, you’re good for the life of the pipe.

 

[Romain_H]

As far as firmware upgrades, are we talking for the MBP and do they come through the MacOS upgrade, such as Monterey?

Yes

 

[csonni]

I suppose I should keep my original Apple SSD but, when all is running fine, what kind of external enclosure would work to house it?

 

[Romain_H]

I suppose I should keep my original Apple SSD but, when all is running fine, what kind of external enclosure would work to house it?

I am not aware that such enclosure exists

 

[csonni]

Got my Crucial P5 in an external enclosure. It mounted as unreadable with the option to initialize. Is it better that I initialize it in the external enclosure rather than installing it in the MBP and doing it from there? Also, I plan on initializing APFS. My MBP is APFS Encrypted. Is it best to keep both drives the very same?

 

[Romain_H]

Doesn‘t really matter, won‘t make a difference. If you planto use your P5 for Time Machine backups you need to format in HFS+

 

[csonni]

All done. Installed and running great. Did the Blackmagic speed tests before and after. With the OEM Apple SSD, write was 900 and read was 965. With the new NVMe, write is 1100 and read is 1030. Those speedtests were done right after a fresh install of Monterey and the update to 12.2. Might be some indexing going on, so I'll test again tomorrow.

 

[csonni]

Well, I woke up this morning to my MBP with a flashing folder and question mark. Hard shut down and rebooted. Looks like it had a kernel panic (?). Kernel Panics are something I've rarely seen in my setups. I selected Sleep in the menubar but the display came right back on. Tried again and it went into sleep. Maybe all this once something random. We'll see.

 

[csonni]

Not random. Kernel panic again with flashing folder icon when I returned to MBP. Not sure where to go from here. Is there some firmware update that I was supposed to apply to the NVMe?

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Maybe you want to have a look at this thread. It is very long but has plenty of information:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/

It also deals with the 2015 machines. I upgraded my 13" MBP Early 2015 with lots of help from that thread.

 

[csonni]

Thanks for the great read. I do have the recommended Sintech adapter. I may try to disable hibernation in the terminal rather than pulling the drive, to see if that solves the issue. Was hoping for a no issue upgrade. I suppose I could replace the Crucial P5 with the P2 which is known to work? An added expense.

 

[csonni]

Seems as though setting the sleep modes in Battery prefs to “Never” may have solved the problem without going into the Terminal. I’ll find out when I get home. Not sure what closing the MBP will do. With hindsight, I’d go with the Samsung 980 Evo Plus as I did with my Mac mini, which has exhibited no problems whatsoever. If I continue to have Kernel Panics, I may spring on another Samsung and use the Crucial P5 in the enclosure For backup.

 

[csonni]

Well, closing the MBP lid for 15 minutes ticked off the Crucial and set it into another Kernel Panic. I don't see how I'll be able to use my MBP if I can't carry it with me without crashing. I may have to spring for another Samsung NVMe.