OEM Mac SSD vs M.2 NVME + Sintech

[1969tgb]

Hi!

I have an Early 2015 MBP with the i5, 16G of RAM and now a 1TB Mac SSD.

Short story long... I bought my MBP with a 512G SSD back in 2015/16- and it was seemingly getting slower and slower, sometimes just hosing up for no reason and then sometime kind of stopping during restarts- I started getting worried about it dying so last year I got an M2 MBA- and it's fantastic! But RIGHT after that, I walked into a low use 1TB Mac/Samsung SSD. So without being worried about it losing all my stuff- I feel free to play with it- I removed the horrible sluffing-off anti-glare coating on the display, replaced the battery, swapped SSDs, imaged it up, did the OCLP Sonoma image- but it really seemed pokey, so I reimaged it to Monterey and it's... ...fine. I mostly just use it for internetting and photo scanning.

I realize that even middling NVME drives are faster than the OEM Mac Samsung drives, but I've read of kernel panics happening on wakeup and I'm wondering if the read/write speed difference would even be noticeable or remotely "worth it" for a secondary computer.


Thanks!

 

[Brian33]

Just my opinion, but if it were me, I'd stick with the OEM SSD, for these reasons:

(1) I really don't think a faster NVMe SSD will be noticeable at all, for typical day-to-day use (including internet browsing and photo scanning). Maybe login would be slightly faster?

(2) I wouldn't want to risk the kernel panics you mention.

(3) I'd rather not spend the money for another NVMe SSD.

(3) In my experience, Monterey runs very well on this machine with the stock Apple SSD.

I have the same machine with the original Apple 256GB NVMe, running Monterey (have not tried OCLP). It gets used a lot by my wife and myself, at perfectly respectable quickness. Mostly browsing the internet, playing videos, using Photos, and small Apple apps like Calendar, Notes, Maps. The only time I'd like it quicker is during initial login, and when we use Fast User Switching to change accounts (this is done frequently -- we usually have both accounts logged in). Still, it's plenty fast for us. Still a very useful device.

I've never had problems with the machine getting "slower and slower." IMHO if it's sluggish it's worth some investigation into what could be using up resources unnecessarily.

My only concern is not getting security fixes to macOS, which will (very likely) stop this Fall. So I have thought about trying OCLP for that reason.

 

[1969tgb]

Just my opinion, but if it were me, I'd stick with the OEM SSD, for these reasons:

(1) I really don't think a faster NVMe SSD will be noticeable at all, for typical day-to-day use (including internet browsing and photo scanning). Maybe login would be slightly faster?

(2) I wouldn't want to risk the kernel panics you mention.

(3) I'd rather not spend the money for another NVMe SSD.

(3) In my experience, Monterey runs very well on this machine with the stock Apple SSD.

I have the same machine with the original Apple 256GB NVMe, running Monterey (have not tried OCLP). It gets used a lot by my wife and myself, at perfectly respectable quickness. Mostly browsing the internet, playing videos, using Photos, and small Apple apps like Calendar, Notes, Maps. The only time I'd like it quicker is during initial login, and when we use Fast User Switching to change accounts (this is done frequently -- we usually have both accounts logged in). Still, it's plenty fast for us. Still a very useful device.

I've never had problems with the machine getting "slower and slower." IMHO if it's sluggish it's worth some investigation into what could be using up resources unnecessarily.

My only concern is not getting security fixes to macOS, which will (very likely) stop this Fall. So I have thought about trying OCLP for that reason.

Thank you!

How you view machine speed is always a lesson in relative speed- as well as your headspace as to how you perceive it.

I work on new machines at work- some of the machines we get are pretty awesome quick- and you get used to *that* kind of responsiveness pretty quickly. (I also work on old machines that are really slow and I wonder how anything ever got done on those boxes)

Add on to this knowing that M1 and then M2 machines were coming out and every review shows them completely outclassing any Windows machine in most every possible way.

Whether my 15 MBP actually was slowing down or I perceived it be slowing down due to knowing there were way faster machines and regularly using way faster machines. Again- that being said, compared to my M2 MBA- that MBP is slow. Slow to launch things, slow to change things... Right now- it should be, theoretically, faster than ever with a 1TB SSD and a fresh image and nothing extraneous- no data- beyond cookies and favorites from a few months of browsing, no secondary programs... It should just be 16G and the truth- but it's definitely slower than the M2.

I've always been of the mind that 'benchmarks are benchmarks' but real world use is so wide open- but looking at how much faster the NVME M.2 drives are... I know plenty of people have changed to them- and was wondering how much of a difference that benchmark data actually makes with actual use.

 

[Brian33]

How you view machine speed is always a lesson in relative speed- as well as your headspace as to how you perceive it.

...

Very well said! I always try to keep using a computer for as long as feasible, both to save money and reduce the need to use new resources. So I definitely have the inclination to say to myself "this is running fast enough, it's doing what I need it to do." But I secretly would like to upgrade to a new faster machine (and I will, at some point). Maybe to forestall that, I will minimize the possible improvement to myself. I'll have to keep this in mind!

Still, I think the faster NVME blade in place of the OEM SSD blade would not normally or often be noticed, outside of benchmarks. One can only know by trying it, though! I would certainly consider it if I had the extra NVME available.