Resolved Upgraded NVMe 2.0 drive slow on Macbook air (early 2015)

[amin0]

Hello,

I decided it was time to upgrade storage on my MacBook Air, so I bought a 500GB Crucial P2 NVMe 2.0 SSD and installed it with a Sintech adapter. Everything is running fine, and I don't really notice a difference in performance, but when I went to check the drive speeds using Blackmagic Speed Test I realized that the new drive was underperforming by a significant amount. With my original MacBook drive I was getting 400-600 mbps write speeds with ~1200 mbps read speeds. Now, with the new drive, I am getting <400mbps write speeds with ~400 mbps read speeds(The drive is rated to have up to 2400 mbps speeds, and I've seen people on the internet running the exact same drive at 1200mbps write and read speeds on their upgraded macbooks). To be quite honest I don't mind this since I don't feel a difference in performance, but I am concerned that either the adapter, new SSD, or my mac are faulty in some way. Has anyone here experienced similar issues, or know the possible cause of mine?

I feel like if the cause was the new SSD, then the SSD wouldn't be running at all(this is just a guess). My bet is that the adapter is faulty.

Links to products mentioned:
Adapter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CWWAENG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
SSD: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086BGWNY8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[xboxbml]

Hello,

I decided it was time to upgrade storage on my MacBook Air, so I bought a 500GB Crucial P2 NVMe 2.0 SSD and installed it with a Sintech adapter. Everything is running fine, and I don't really notice a difference in performance, but when I went to check the drive speeds using Blackmagic Speed Test I realized that the new drive was underperforming by a significant amount. With my original MacBook drive I was getting 400-600 mbps write speeds with ~1200 mbps read speeds. Now, with the new drive, I am getting <400mbps write speeds with ~400 mbps read speeds(The drive is rated to have up to 2400 mbps speeds, and I've seen people on the internet running the exact same drive at 1200mbps write and read speeds on their upgraded macbooks). To be quite honest I don't mind this since I don't feel a difference in performance, but I am concerned that either the adapter, new SSD, or my mac are faulty in some way. Has anyone here experienced similar issues, or know the possible cause of mine?

I feel like if the cause was the new SSD, then the SSD wouldn't be running at all(this is just a guess). My bet is that the adapter is faulty.

Links to products mentioned:
Adapter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CWWAENG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
SSD: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086BGWNY8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

See my Sig... I have same machine you have.. That's way too low IMO. I don't have Crutial but pretty sure it's supposed to do better than that. You should be getting about what I get with the ADATA. You won't get the 2400 as that year Air won't go that fast.. I believe only 2 lanes not 4.

 

[amin0]

See my Sig... I have same machine you have.. That's way too low IMO. I don't have Crutial but pretty sure it's supposed to do better than that. You should be getting about what I get with the ADATA. You won't get the 2400 as that year Air won't go that fast.. I believe only 2 lanes not 4.

Yeah I expected at least 1200 write and read. You have any idea what could be causing the problems? I was thinking I should maybe order just a new sintech adapter and see if that fixes the problem.

 

[xboxbml]

Yeah I expected at least 1200 write and read. You have any idea what could be causing the problems? I was thinking I should maybe order just a new sintech adapter and see if that fixes the problem.

Yeah, you could.. Have you tried just removing them both and reinstalling? If it's an actual Sintech adapter and not a knockoff.. I would think it wouldn't be the issue. I'd be thinking its more the SSD or Mac hardware issue. Leaning more toward the SSD as I think your numbers on original are about on par with normal for that.

 

[amin0]

I tried reinstalling and had no luck. I just purchased a new crucial 500MB ssd and a different variation of the sintech adapter I had bought. As far as I know the one I linked on Amazon is legit. I’ll keep this thread updated on what my findings are. Thank you.

 

[Audit13]

Is the drive listed in system report
as running at a lane width of 4 ?

 

[xboxbml]

I tried reinstalling and had no luck. I just purchased a new crucial 500MB ssd and a different variation of the sintech adapter I had bought. As far as I know the one I linked on Amazon is legit. I’ll keep this thread updated on what my findings are. Thank you.

Well, make sure you're using the Short Sintech adapter! The long one will work, but the case bottom presses quite hard on the adapter and eventually it will cause a failure! Yeah, let us know how the 2tb goes.. I got the ADATA 2TB and that works great. It's more expensive and uses a little more power but works quite well. No issues at all.

 

[amin0]

Hey guys! Seems like I got to the bottom of it. I ordered a brand new, identical, 500GB Crucial drive and reinstalled it using the short sintech adapter. To my surprise, when I tested the first 500GB Crucial drive I had bought with the short adapter, it still ran at those suboptimal speeds. I believe that the first drive I had bought was faulty. Im getting above 1000 mb/s read and write speeds now with my new drive! Really happy I figured it out. Thank you xboxbml and Audit13 for trying to help!

 

[xboxbml]

Hey guys! Seems like I got to the bottom of it. I ordered a brand new, identical, 500GB Crucial drive and reinstalled it using the short sintech adapter. To my surprise, when I tested the first 500GB Crucial drive I had bought with the short adapter, it still ran at those suboptimal speeds. I believe that the first drive I had bought was faulty. Im getting above 1000 mb/s read and write speeds now with my new drive! Really happy I figured it out. Thank you xboxbml and Audit13 for trying to help!

Great! Glad you got it working as expected! Yeah, I was leaning more toward the SSD being the issue... How did you get a new drive so fast?.. Back last year when I got mine, it took almost a full week I think cuz of shutdowns. Maybe not so bad now.. Well, that's great! You should have a good working machine for quite some time now. I woulda gone for a 1 or 2tb... It makes for a longer lasting machine as far as not running out of storage, and is a good selling point if u ever want to sell it.. Make sure you send the old one back and get your money refunded. Happy Spring!

 

[discaublackout]

Hello, I have a similar problem with the Crucial P2 500 Go. I bought it along with the Sintech long adapter -- didn’t put the small foam piece between the SSD and the adapter though, because it seemed too tight.

The write and read speeds are the same as with the stock SSD, so I’m considering to replace it as you did!

If someone has any advice from experience, please let me know

When I look at nvme under my Macbook pro’s hardware, it shows the following. Can the slow speed be related to the FAT32 EFI disk? Why is such a disk still there if I formatted the ssd?

 

[xboxbml]

Hello, I have a similar problem with the Crucial P2 500 Go. I bought it along with the Sintech long adapter -- didn’t put the small foam piece between the SSD and the adapter though, because it seemed too tight.

The write and read speeds are the same as with the stock SSD, so I’m considering to replace it as you did!

If someone has any advice from experience, please let me know

When I look at nvme under my Macbook pro’s hardware, it shows the following. Can the slow speed be related to the FAT32 EFI disk? Why is such a disk still there if I formatted the ssd?

If your machine is actually a MB Pro, not sure what to say.. In the 2015 MB Air, the long adapter does not fit. It is too tight getting smashed in by the case bottom.. Best to use the short Sintech one if on Air. As far as that fat32 partition, I believe that is fine. I believe macOS created that on install. I think it’s recovery partition but not 100% sure right now.. Leave it alone and don’t worry about it.

 

[sunnyofsg]

Hi,

I recently upgraded my macbook air early 2015 (A1466) with a Samsung Evo 970 Plus 1TB SSD.
Start up (from the moment I hit the ON button till the desktop page shows up) takes about 1min!
My 2011 iMac upgraded with a Samsung 950 500GB SSD 7 years back would only take 40 seconds.
I'm curious your macbook air takes roughly how much time to boot till the desktop page shows up.

Also, comparing with my 2011 iMac, apps on the 2015 macbook air don't open as fast either... Everything seem to feel a tad laggy.

Ok my 2011 iMac does have 16GB ram vs macbook air's 8GB. Does more ram help with faster loading of applications and boot up?

 

[Audit13]

Hi,

I recently upgraded my macbook air early 2015 (A1466) with a Samsung Evo 970 Plus 1TB SSD.
Start up (from the moment I hit the ON button till the desktop page shows up) takes about 1min!
My 2011 iMac upgraded with a Samsung 950 500GB SSD 7 years back would only take 40 seconds.
I'm curious your macbook air takes roughly how much time to boot till the desktop page shows up.

Also, comparing with my 2011 iMac, apps on the 2015 macbook air don't open as fast either... Everything seem to feel a tad laggy.

Ok my 2011 iMac does have 16GB ram vs macbook air's 8GB. Does more ram help with faster loading of applications and boot up?

Something is definitely not right. I used an intel 600p on an early 2015 13" Air and it boots fairly quickly. Also, the Apple logo appears very quickly after pressing the power button.

From what I recall, the 970 Evo Plus wasn't one of the recommended drives unless it's running the latest Samsung firmware.

 

[Jack Neill]

Hello,

I decided it was time to upgrade storage on my MacBook Air, so I bought a 500GB Crucial P2 NVMe 2.0 SSD and installed it with a Sintech adapter. Everything is running fine, and I don't really notice a difference in performance, but when I went to check the drive speeds using Blackmagic Speed Test I realized that the new drive was underperforming by a significant amount. With my original MacBook drive I was getting 400-600 mbps write speeds with ~1200 mbps read speeds. Now, with the new drive, I am getting <400mbps write speeds with ~400 mbps read speeds(The drive is rated to have up to 2400 mbps speeds, and I've seen people on the internet running the exact same drive at 1200mbps write and read speeds on their upgraded macbooks). To be quite honest I don't mind this since I don't feel a difference in performance, but I am concerned that either the adapter, new SSD, or my mac are faulty in some way. Has anyone here experienced similar issues, or know the possible cause of mine?

I feel like if the cause was the new SSD, then the SSD wouldn't be running at all(this is just a guess). My bet is that the adapter is faulty.

Links to products mentioned:
Adapter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CWWAENG/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
SSD: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B086BGWNY8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I put a 2TB Sabrent Rocket Q with a Sintech long adapter in my 13" 2015 and I was getting slow speeds at first too, after about an hour, I was getting about 1k R/W's.

 

[xboxbml]

Hi,

I recently upgraded my macbook air early 2015 (A1466) with a Samsung Evo 970 Plus 1TB SSD.
Start up (from the moment I hit the ON button till the desktop page shows up) takes about 1min!
My 2011 iMac upgraded with a Samsung 950 500GB SSD 7 years back would only take 40 seconds.
I'm curious your macbook air takes roughly how much time to boot till the desktop page shows up.

Also, comparing with my 2011 iMac, apps on the 2015 macbook air don't open as fast either... Everything seem to feel a tad laggy.

Ok my 2011 iMac does have 16GB ram vs macbook air's 8GB. Does more ram help with faster loading of applications and boot up?

I have 2015 MBA 8gb ram ADATA 2TB SSD and it's encrypted. I see Apple logo in 6 seconds after hitting power button and I'm looking at desktop at 1m10s...that's with me typing in a very log disk password to unlock it...

 

[sunnyofsg]

Something is definitely not right. I used an intel 600p on an early 2015 13" Air and it boots fairly quickly. Also, the Apple logo appears very quickly after pressing the power button.

From what I recall, the 970 Evo Plus wasn't one of the recommended drives unless it's running the latest Samsung firmware.

Something is definitely not right. I used an intel 600p on an early 2015 13" Air and it boots fairly quickly. Also, the Apple logo appears very quickly after pressing the power button.

From what I recall, the 970 Evo Plus wasn't one of the recommended drives unless it's running the latest Samsung firmware.

Thanks for the reply. I checked the serial number for my 970 Eve Plus and seems it should alrybe on the latest firmware.

Still puzzles me how my much older iMac’s Samsung 950 500GB SSD boots up so much faster and apps pop up snappier...

 

[sunnyofsg]

I have 2015 MBA 8gb ram ADATA 2TB SSD and it's encrypted. I see Apple logo in 6 seconds after hitting power button and I'm looking at desktop at 1m10s...that's with me typing in a very log disk password to unlock it...

Seems comparable to mine... thanks.

 

[csonni]

I'll be upgrading an early 2014 MB Air with the short Sintech adapter and possibly a Samsung NVMe. I had installed a Crucial P5 in my MB Pro but kept getting Kernal Panics when awaking from sleep. Installed the Samsung 970 Eco and never had any issue. Anyone having a problem with Crucial and sleep on the MB Air?

 

[GamerBogdy]

Hi,

I recently upgraded my macbook air early 2015 (A1466) with a Samsung Evo 970 Plus 1TB SSD.
Start up (from the moment I hit the ON button till the desktop page shows up) takes about 1min!
My 2011 iMac upgraded with a Samsung 950 500GB SSD 7 years back would only take 40 seconds.
I'm curious your macbook air takes roughly how much time to boot till the desktop page shows up.

Also, comparing with my 2011 iMac, apps on the 2015 macbook air don't open as fast either... Everything seem to feel a tad laggy.

Ok my 2011 iMac does have 16GB ram vs macbook air's 8GB. Does more ram help with faster loading of applications and boot up?

Hello, I'm facing the same slow drive issue like yours. My Mac is an Early 2015 MacBook Pro and I'm using a 500GB Samsung 970 Evo Plus drive, on the latest Samsung firmware. I did not get any kernel crashes, which is good, but since upgrading the SSD - the battery drains quicker, the laptop runs much hotter and there are sometimes issues when connecting to 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi Networks (including the iPhone hotspot). The adapter that I've used is a no-name green board one, I have another one that's Sintech for sure, but it does not work with 2.4 GHz Networks at all, it's important for me because I don't have any other options. I've ordered another adapter, and I will report back if it's any better than the other two.

 

[Macdctr]

I installed a Samsung 970 EVO 1TB NVMe M.2 storage drive into my Early 2015 MacBook Pro 13 with the latest Samsung firmware tonight and so far my laptop has been running okay. No issues with my laptop running hotter than normal or any issues connecting to my Wi-Fi network. I'm using a short Sintech (black) adapter which is what I use on all my laptops when using an NVMe M.2 storage drive. Read/Write speeds are above 1300 MB/s. Very happy with the performance of my drive