Macbook air 2017 SSD Compatibility with Samsung SSD

[syn4pse]

Let me see if I understood correctly?

I have a Macbook Air 13 "(early 2015).
If I want to upgrade the ssd then I have to install macOS high sierra? Or will it work with Mojave as well?

 

[MacManiac76]

Let me see if I understood correctly?

I have a Macbook Air 13 "(early 2015).
If I want to upgrade the ssd then I have to install macOS high sierra? Or will it work with Mojave as well?

It will work with Mojave as well to update the firmware.

 

[Fishticks]

@Macdctr

Thanks a lot for the very useful information you provide here and on this pages also

Macbook air 2017 SSD Compatibility with Samsung SSD

Install High Sierra on the NVMe drive after you format it using Disk Utility. As for your original SSD, you can pull it with Sierra installed on it. You should have no issues doing a clean install of High Sierra onto the new drive if you're booting off your thumb drive using the installer...

forums.macrumors.com

I'm planning on upgrading a 2015 13" MBA with a Samsung EVO 970 PLUS 1TB and a Sintech ST-NGFF2013-C which should be the best adapter for that purpose from what I understand.

From reading your posts I thought it would be just fine, but I've just come across this:

Apple Proprietary SSDs: Ultimate Guide to Specs & Upgrades | BeetsBlog

Apple’s SSDs are confusing. Are they M.2 drives? What connector do they use? AHCI or NVMe? What drive can I use to upgrade? We have answers. We’ll tell which SSDs work in which MacBook Pros, iMacs, Mac minis and more.

beetstech.com

which says "Like the MacBook Air laptops before them, the Early 2015 – Mid 2017 MacBook Airs lack the space to fit the wider 1TB SSDs, and are limited to the 128GB, 256GB and 512GB options."

Is this outdated, or is it really an issue, and should I not buy a 1TB but just a 512 MB then ?

Thanks again for sharing

 

[Macdctr]

@Macdctr

Thanks a lot for the very useful information you provide here and on this pages also

Macbook air 2017 SSD Compatibility with Samsung SSD

Install High Sierra on the NVMe drive after you format it using Disk Utility. As for your original SSD, you can pull it with Sierra installed on it. You should have no issues doing a clean install of High Sierra onto the new drive if you're booting off your thumb drive using the installer...

forums.macrumors.com

You're welcome, I'm glad you found my post useful. 🍎

I'm planning on upgrading a 2015 13" MBA with a Samsung EVO 970 PLUS 1TB and a Sintech ST-NGFF2013-C which should be the best adapter for that purpose from what I understand.

There is a comment regarding use of the Samsung EVO Plus NVME M.2 drives on Apple Computers. You have to make sure you have the latest firmware updated on the Samsung drive then it will work. I stayed away from the EVO Plus drives for that reason.

From reading your posts I thought it would be just fine, but I've just come across this:

Apple Proprietary SSDs: Ultimate Guide to Specs & Upgrades | BeetsBlog

Apple’s SSDs are confusing. Are they M.2 drives? What connector do they use? AHCI or NVMe? What drive can I use to upgrade? We have answers. We’ll tell which SSDs work in which MacBook Pros, iMacs, Mac minis and more.

beetstech.com

which says "Like the MacBook Air laptops before them, the Early 2015 – Mid 2017 MacBook Airs lack the space to fit the wider 1TB SSDs, and are limited to the 128GB, 256GB and 512GB options."

Is this outdated, or is it really an issue, and should I not buy a 1TB but just a 512 MB then ?

Thanks again for sharing

I have used and installed the 2TB Samsung 970 EVO NVMe M.2 drive in my 2015 MacBook Air and had no issues using this drive before I took it out to use in my 5,1 MacPRO. The only reason I pulled the 2TB 970 EVO drive is because my MacPro was compatible with it. I am now using a 512GB Samsung 970 PRO NVMe M.2 drive in my 2015 MacBook Air.

I can only say from experience that the Samsung 1TB or 2TB 970 EVO NVMe M.2 drive will work in the 2015 MacBook Air.

Oh and the Sintech adapter is a requirement for use in the MacBook Air. I have them in mine, hope this helps!

 

[mate166]

Hi Guys,

Uppgrade done

Adata SX8200 pro 1TB works well I don't have any problem.

Thanks for help.

 

[Beesso89]

Hi Macdctr and all,

Sorry I have some questions that I am confused about and want some input. I have a Macbook Air 6,2 (Early 2014):
1. The Kernal panics are no longer an issue for Samsung Evo 970 with the new updates, right?
2. I have read on some discussion issues with overheating and such and users having to use a heat sink?
3. Since the Samsung EVO 970 is high power and drains the battery faster, what are other good alternatives? (speed is not a major concern for me as long as it's not slower than the original SSD)
4. Is there a reliable step by step guide on how to do the replacement process? I am afraid of crashing my laptop.

Thank you for your help!

 

[Audit13]

Hi Macdctr and all,

Sorry I have some questions that I am confused about and want some input. I have a Macbook Air 6,2 (Early 2014):
1. The Kernal panics are no longer an issue for Samsung Evo 970 with the new updates, right?
2. I have read on some discussion issues with overheating and such and users having to use a heat sink?
3. Since the Samsung EVO 970 is high power and drains the battery faster, what are other good alternatives? (speed is not a major concern for me as long as it's not slower than the original SSD)
4. Is there a reliable step by step guide on how to do the replacement process? I am afraid of crashing my laptop.

Thank you for your help!

1. The kernel panics happened with the Evo Plus unless it was running the latest firmware.

2. Attaching a heatsink is not going to help as there is very little to zero air flow over the SSD.

3. Look at the HP ex920, Intel 760p, and Adata SX8200 Pro. People seem to have good results with these drives. Any nvme is going to have worse battery life compared to an original Apple SSD.

4. Great information here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread....2034976/page-222?post=28013487#post-28013487

 

[bugra101]

Thanks for all the info on here. Can’t thank you enough.

I have finally upgraded my MBA 2017 with Sabrent Rocket 512GB.

Got the Sintech adapter from their eshop website (received black adapter)

Mac sees PCI x 4 lanes but my write speed is low at ~750/mbs

Read speed is not bad at ~1300/mbs

Is this because of the black sintech adapter?

 

[Macdctr]

Thanks for all the info on here. Can’t thank you enough.

I have finally upgraded my MBA 2017 with Sabrent Rocket 512GB.

Got the Sintech adapter from their eshop website (received black adapter)

Mac sees PCI x 4 lanes but my write speed is low at ~750/mbs

Read speed is not bad at ~1300/mbs

Is this because of the black sintech adapter?

I'm using a black sintech adapter on my Early 2015 11-inch Air and I'm seeing 1000MB/s write and 1400MB/s read speeds but I have a 500GB Samsung 970PRO NVMe M.2 storage drive in mine.

 

[bugra101]

I'm using a black sintech adapter on my Early 2015 11-inch Air and I'm seeing 1000MB/s write and 1400MB/s read speeds but I have a 500GB Samsung 970PRO NVMe M.2 storage drive in mine.

It's very strange, from looking at other peoples reads with Same Ssd (Sabrent 512 GB) most people get around 1500 read and 1300 write. Trim is enabled and System page shows x4 lanes PCIe. Not sure how to cross check what's not working, baffled.

 

[MacManiac76]

It's very strange, from looking at other peoples reads with Same Ssd (Sabrent 512 GB) most people get around 1500 read and 1300 write. Trim is enabled and System page shows x4 lanes PCIe. Not sure how to cross check what's not working, baffled.

Being PCIe 2.0 x4, you're never going to get higher than the roughly 1500 MB/s Read/Write speeds. In my 2017 MacBook Air, I added an ADATA SX8200 Pro and get around 1400 MB/s Read/Write speeds.

 

[bugra101]

Being PCIe 2.0 x4, you're never going to get higher than the roughly 1500 MB/s Read/Write speeds. In my 2017 MacBook Air, I added an ADATA SX8200 Pro and get around 1400 MB/s Read/Write speeds.
View attachment 881444

That’s what I’m trying to achieve.

At the moment I’m getting 1500mb/s read speeds but write seems to be stuck at 800mb/s.

If there was something wrong with the SSD I imagine read would be low too?

Also on disk utility my mac sees 2 internal disks. My HD name is “Mac SSD” disk utility sees;

-Mac SSD
-Mac SSD - Data

 

[Barun Puyamba]

Hi @Macdctr and everyone else.

I have a MBA mid 2017 with Catalina and I wish to upgrade my SSD from 128GB to 500GB. What I learned from reading this thread and posts from Macdctr is that -

1. Samsung 950 Evo NVME M.2 works well with over 3000 mb/s read speed
2. Need Sintech M. 2 Adapter
3. High Sierra OS
Now, that post is a year old and I'm unable to find 950 Evo but only 970 Evo Plus.

My questions -
1. Can I use this Samsung 970 Evo Plus without any issue? Any better SSD?
2. Which Adapter do I need?
3. Can I still use Catalina OS after upgrade?
4. Any other advice or latest setup/Step by step procedure

Thanks and Regards

 

[Macdctr]

The 970 EVO Plus can be used as long as the firmware on it is current. I stuck to the 970 PRO or 970 EVO instead because they both work out of the box in the Mac without having to update it's firmware. I'm using a 512GB 970 PRO NVMe M.2 storage drive in my 2015 11-inch MacBook AIR with no issues.

Not sure about the 2017 Air you're using Barun but with my 2015 Air I'm seeing close to 1400MB/s read/write speeds on my NVMe storage drive not 3000MB/s. That's because of the architecture of the logic board. The link width of my logic board is 5 GT/s and x4 width so 1500MB/s will be the maximum speeds available to my drive and I'm okay with this because I'm seeing close to 3x drive performance improvement from my original Apple storage drive.

I'm currently running Mac OS 10.15.2 Catalina on my Air with no issues. As for setup procedure the information is posted in this thread for all if you have any further questions feel free to post.

 

[MacDuggy]

Used disk utilities to “recover” the incumbent 500 GB HDD on a mid 2012 MacBook Pro to a Crucial 1 TB SSD. Had to convert MBR to GUID on the SSD using a 3rd party partitioning program on a Windows 10 pc before APFS would show as a file system option in the MacBook Pros disk utility. I then “recovered” the Catalina o/s from the MacBook Pros incumbent HDD to the SSD and when that completed successfully switched out the HDD for the SSD as the physical boot drive in the MacBook Pro. Before transplanting the SSD into the MacBook Pro I successfully booted the system from it as an external drive. That is the acid test. If you did everything right there should be no problems regardless of the brand of SSD used.

 

[Barun Puyamba]

The 970 EVO Plus can be used as long as the firmware on it is current. I stuck to the 970 PRO or 970 EVO instead because they both work out of the box in the Mac without having to update it's firmware. I'm using a 512GB 970 PRO NVMe M.2 storage drive in my 2015 11-inch MacBook AIR with no issues.

Not sure about the 2017 Air you're using Barun but with my 2015 Air I'm seeing close to 1400MB/s read/write speeds on my NVMe storage drive not 3000MB/s. That's because of the architecture of the logic board. The link width of my logic board is 5 GT/s and x4 width so 1500MB/s will be the maximum speeds available to my drive and I'm okay with this because I'm seeing close to 3x drive performance improvement from my original Apple storage drive.

I'm currently running Mac OS 10.15.2 Catalina on my Air with no issues. As for setup procedure the information is posted in this thread for all if you have any further questions feel free to post.

Thanks a lot for your reply.
So, now I will try to buy 500 GB 970 Evo and do the upgrade, do I need an adapter, if so which one?

or is there any other good SSD with compatible adapter for this upgrade, please suggest.
Also, will I still get all future updates with the third party SSD upgrade?
Thanks in advance

 

[Audit13]

Thanks a lot for your reply.
So, now I will try to buy 500 GB 970 Evo and do the upgrade, do I need an adapter, if so which one?

or is there any other good SSD with compatible adapter for this upgrade, please suggest.
Also, will I still get all future updates with the third party SSD upgrade?
Thanks in advance

Check this thread for other SSDs: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/

The short, black Sintech is a safe buy.

You will get OS updates but not necessarily bootrom updates.

 

[Macdctr]

Thanks a lot for your reply.
So, now I will try to buy 500 GB 970 Evo and do the upgrade, do I need an adapter, if so which one?

or is there any other good SSD with compatible adapter for this upgrade, please suggest.
Also, will I still get all future updates with the third party SSD upgrade?
Thanks in advance

Get this Sintech adapter

Sintech M.2 nVME SSD Card for Upgrade MacBook Air(2013-2017) PRO(Late 2013-2015) 692757402086 | eBay

Resolution of the problem: problem can be solved by disabling hibernation, which is done by typing "sudo pmset standby 1". ST-NGFF2013 M2 M-Key SSD as 2013-2014-2015 MACBOOK SSD for Air A1465 A1466 Pro A1398 A1502.

www.ebay.com

It will work on your 2017 MBA. Audit13 brings up a good point regarding use of NVMe M.2 drives. There are other solutions out there which don't use as much battery power as the Samsung 950 - 970 series drives but I'm good with the Samsung rep and performance and the long battery life (13+ hrs) is not a necessity for my usage...

 

[Barun Puyamba]

@Audit13 and @Macdctr

Thanks a lot buddy. After going through all your replies and related threads, I have decided to get these :-

1. The Sabrent 512GB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280
2. Sintech NGFF M. 2 nVME Adapter Card

In India Sabrent from Amazon India doesn't come with Warranty as it is imported from the US but SX8200 Pro does with 5 Years. However I have decided to go for Sabrent since it supports 4K LBA format like Apple original SSD.

I hope it goes all well for my upgrade.

 

[montreux]

EDIT: Found the info I needed in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/

The ebay-seller selling cintech won't ship to my country but this site seems to.

M.2 nVME SSD Card for Upgrade 2013 2014 2015 MacBook SSD

eshop.sintech.cn

Is there any difference (upgrade etc.) between ST-NGFF2013N (from ebay) and the ST-NGFF2013 from their webpage (linked above)?

 

[Robert Obniski]

Hey,

I don't want to create a new topic so I will join here asking for help. I bought a used MBA 2017 13" Mac was without disk, so after some search the net I bought:
Drive: Samsung 256GB SSD NVMe PCIe 2280 MZ-VLB256B
And the adapter from Allegro offer number: 7713888598

I put everything together and .... I don't see the SSD in any way.

So I connected another external SSD drive and installed the system on it by the combination of shift+alt+cmd+R keys, at this moment the MBA starts up, the system boots, but it runs form external drive. I can't see the disk mounted inside. The system that has been automatically installed is SIERRA. Then I read that SIERRA doesn't support NVMe and I need to update at least to HIGH SIERRA. Following the blow, I said that I had to log in to APP STORE and download macOS Catalina (only this one is available in APP STORE). I downloaded a file wanting to upgrade my SIERRE to the latest system. I start the installer from the APP store level by clicking "open" I manage to click a few times further and I get to the disk selection window on which to install the system and I STOPED AGAIN !!

Internal SSD, of course, still isn't there. The external disk is visible, but I can't select it because I have the message: "You cannot install on this volume; the firmware partition is missing." I made a second partition on the same disk with the thought that maybe it would help - none of that. I put PENDRIVE with the thought that it will install sytem on it but have the same message on it "..firmware partition is missing". Both the partition and PENDRIVE formatted as "MAC OS EXTENDED (journaled)"

I am stuck, I admit that this is my first Mac adventure. I have been sitting and fighting this equipment for a week, but I definitely need someone's help. Maybe I'm trying to do something that can't be done? Please tell me how to run this equipment?

 

[Audit13]

Hey,

I don't want to create a new topic so I will join here asking for help. I bought a used MBA 2017 13" Mac was without disk, so after some search the net I bought:
Drive: Samsung 256GB SSD NVMe PCIe 2280 MZ-VLB256B
And the adapter from Allegro offer number: 7713888598

I put everything together and .... I don't see the SSD in any way.

So I connected another external SSD drive and installed the system on it by the combination of shift+alt+cmd+R keys, at this moment the MBA starts up, the system boots, but it runs form external drive. I can't see the disk mounted inside. The system that has been automatically installed is SIERRA. Then I read that SIERRA doesn't support NVMe and I need to update at least to HIGH SIERRA. Following the blow, I said that I had to log in to APP STORE and download macOS Catalina (only this one is available in APP STORE). I downloaded a file wanting to upgrade my SIERRE to the latest system. I start the installer from the APP store level by clicking "open" I manage to click a few times further and I get to the disk selection window on which to install the system and I STOPED AGAIN !!

Internal SSD, of course, still isn't there. The external disk is visible, but I can't select it because I have the message: "You cannot install on this volume; the firmware partition is missing." I made a second partition on the same disk with the thought that maybe it would help - none of that. I put PENDRIVE with the thought that it will install sytem on it but have the same message on it "..firmware partition is missing". Both the partition and PENDRIVE formatted as "MAC OS EXTENDED (journaled)"

I am stuck, I admit that this is my first Mac adventure. I have been sitting and fighting this equipment for a week, but I definitely need someone's help. Maybe I'm trying to do something that can't be done? Please tell me how to run this equipment?

Did you test the SSD in another computer to confirm it's working?

Did you test the Allegro adapter with another nvme drive?

Are you sure the MacBook is not running a High Sierra bootrom?

You cannot upgrade the firmware on a MacBook using an external drive.

 

[Robert Obniski]

Did you test the SSD in another computer to confirm it's working?

Did you test the Allegro adapter with another nvme drive?

Are you sure the MacBook is not running a High Sierra bootrom?

You cannot upgrade the firmware on a MacBook using an external drive.

Thank you for your replay.

AD.1 No i did not. I do not have any other device where i can do it. SSD is brand new
AD.2 i bought 3pcs of this adapter
AD.3 When i check in FINDER MyMac it says Sierra
AD.4 What is the way to upgrade it ?

 

[Audit13]

Thank you for your replay.

AD.1 No i did not. I do not have any other device where i can do it. SSD is brand new
AD.2 i bought 3pcs of this adapter
AD.3 When i check in FINDER MyMac it says Sierra
AD.4 What is the way to upgrade it ?

What does system report say under About?

Did you try using CMD+Option+R to boot into Internet recovery and using disk utility to see the Samsung?

The bootrom can only be updated using an internal SSD or an EFI programmer. Sometimes, a nvme drive can be used to update the bootrom depending on the bootrom in the MacBook.

 

[z2000]

The Samsung PM981 SSD may not compatible with MBA.

Macbook air 2017 SSD Compatibility with Samsung SSD

The Samsung PM981 does not work. I have reviewed efforts from the MacBook Pro forum and they have reported that the Samsung 960 PRO/EVO does work but I have not confirmed this for the MacBook Air. I do know that the Samsung 950 PRO does work however. I'm using this in my current MBA.

forums.macrumors.com