Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Upgrading 2013-2015 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe

Status
The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
I have a Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015 and installed the Sintech NGFF (black one) with ADATA SX8200 960.

Install went fine and mac works fine except my experience on battery life isn't so good. When actively using it I definitely feel it drains faster (don't have actual measurements).

However, when closing the lid at night if not plugged in the machine is nearly dead or dead in the morning. Any ideas what's up?

Also, the double sided memory and thicker Sintech definitely create a slight bulge in the bottom cover. Enough that the two back feet don't touch the tabletop at the same time.
 
MpchBrwn said:
hibernatemode 3 won't work on 2013/2014 mbps with nvme right? unless you patch your bootrom
Click to expand...

why so?

i never changed the apple ssd hibernate mode and with the nvme it still works as usual on hibernate mode 3.
 
jbirdfunk said:
I have a Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015 and installed the Sintech NGFF (black one) with ADATA SX8200 960....

However, when closing the lid at night if not plugged in the machine is nearly dead or dead in the morning. Any ideas what's up?

Also, the double sided memory and thicker Sintech definitely create a slight bulge in the bottom cover. Enough that the two back feet don't touch the tabletop at the same time.
Click to expand...
Did you use the small black or long black adapter?

Did you enable hibernation mode 25?
 
kalea informatique has also adapters that work very well (available in europe).
 
x34 said:
kalea informatique has also adapters that work very well (available in europe).
Click to expand...
Interesting thanks - if my long adapter from Sintech doesn't fit I may take that route. Seem to be available on Amazon and Ebay UK - though not sure which part. Will look into it if my Sintech doesn't work out
 
x34 said:
kalea informatique has also adapters that work very well (available in europe).
Click to expand...
Not sure but I think they are also Sintech adapters, my last Sintech order to my UK address was sent from France and looking at them on ebay they look identical.
 
I'm seriously considering upgrading my late 2013 13" rMBP to an ADATA SX8200Pro, probably 512GB, which I can get for a tiny €110 around here. I've read up plenty and I understand that it should work OK without flashing, but that sleep/hibernate improve by flashing or using a Matt Card. All that's plenty clear. But I have a question about the part after that.

Should I install macos, then install all the apps I need and restore my data? Or should I install macos, then migrate from a backup? Or should I restore from a backup during the OS install?

I'm asking because I've been using this MBP for 5 years without interruption and without decent clean-up. It's not feeling really fresh at the moment and I know it's full of clutter gathered over the years. It's actually a testament to how rock solid macos is that it still is very usable at all. A fresh reinstall would definitely clean the clutter, free up SSD space and possibly speed things up at boot and afterwards.

Blasphemy in this thread, but would it improve general speed if I do a fresh reinstall of macos + applications on the original drive that's still inside?
 
I think that in your case best would be a fresh mojave install then restore documents and your data with carbon copy cloner
 
  • Like
Reactions: PeterJP
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Open a terminal window and enter:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 autopoweroff 0 standby 1

In my experience hibernate mode 25 is broken. Perhaps try mode 0 using:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0 standby 1
 
  • Like
Reactions: murrki
09872738 said:
Open a terminal window and enter:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 autopoweroff 0 standby 1

In my experience hibernate mode 25 is broken. Perhaps try mode 0 using:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0 standby 1
Click to expand...
Could you explain why standby 1 is better on 2013/2014 models?
Thanks
 
jbirdfunk said:
Long Black Adapter. Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter Card from Amazon.

and I don't know how to do the hibernation mode?
Click to expand...
Since you have a 2015, deep sleep should work.

With deep sleep (hibernate mode 25), closing the lid will cause the ram contents to be written to the SSD and the MacBook will power off. When you open the lid, the MacBook will power up and you will see a horizontal progress bar at the bottom of the screen as the contents from the SSD are restored to ram.

You can enable hibernate mode 25 by running the terminal command "sudo pmset hibernatemode 25".
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: 09872738
Correct. Sorry I missed that (late 2015).

MpchBrwn said:
Could you explain why standby 1 is better on 2013/2014 models?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Standby 0 means no standy. You almost certainly wouldn‘t want that. Standby 1 should be default, but does not hurt to explicitly set it just to be sure
 
Last edited:
last night battery drain for 10hours was 5%, any ideas if I can improve a little bit with different pmset values ?

System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 120
standby 1
halfdim 1
hibernatefile /dev/null
powernap 0
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 1
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 3
autopoweroffdelay 0
hibernatemode 0
autopoweroff 0
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 3
highstandbythreshold 50
acwake 0
lidwake 1
 
Just wanted to report success installing a 2TB Intel 760p into my 15" late-2013 rMBP.

I used an external Sintech USB caddy and Carbon Copy Cloner to copy my existing drive onto the new SSD, and then just swapped the drives (so no OS reinstall). The new drive sits in this Sintech adapter.

I've also taken this opportunity to encrypt the new drive when I was formatting it.

To modify the bootrom, I used a SOIC-8 clip connected to a CH341A programmer plugged into a Raspberry Pi (so no J6100 adapter or Matt Card used). I used flashrom and Rasbpian on the Pi.

Current speeds are around 1.5GB/s read and 1.2GB/s write. It's early days, but no overheating or sleep issues to report. I did not change any hibernation settings.

P.S. If any of you are in the UK and need a J6100 adapter, I've listed one I bought but never used. Open to offers.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: mbosse and ponta pon pon
MpchBrwn said:
Can I use this one?

https://es.aliexpress.com/store/pro...-USB-Programmer-with/1916536_32725360255.html

instead of a raspberry I can connect the CH341 to another pc via usb right? can you tell us the steps or you just follow gilles guide?
Click to expand...

Of course it's impossible to say just by looking at the picture, but the CH341A and the SOIC-8 adapter in that listing look very similar to what I used. If your laptop model is different to mine, do make sure there's enough clearance around the EFI chip to physically install the clip — there was on mine, but I understand that's not the case on every Macbook model.

Yes, another PC would have worked just fine. I only used a RasPi because that's what I had to hand.

For the programming, I used the command in Cmd+Q's guide. I went slightly belt-and-braces by also taking a snapshot of the EFI ROM using ROMTool.
 
aix2019 said:
If your laptop model is different to mine, do make sure there's enough clearance around the EFI chip to physically install the clip — there was on mine, but I understand that's not the case on every Macbook model.
.
Click to expand...
thanks for the quick answer, i have a 13" mbp late 2013, i will check clearance around the EFI chip, any advice on how to place/hold the clip? it just fits in one way?
 
MpchBrwn said:
thanks for the quick answer, i have a 13" mbp late 2013, i will check clearance around the EFI chip, any advice on how to place/hold the clip? it just fits in one way?
Click to expand...
When attached properly, the clip should just stay on and not need to be held in place. Just make sure you fit it the right way round: pin 1 of the flash chip should connect to the red edge of the ribbon cable; similarly, polarity needs to be observed at the programmer end of the ribbon cable.

Oh, one thing I found counterintuitive was that the SOIC adapter plugged into what looked like the lower half of the programmer's ZIF socket. There is a diagram on the bottom silkscreen of my programmer, but it took me some time to figure out what's what.
 
I am now reading rom with the ROMTool, it ask about the EEPROM ID, how can I check with EEPROM ID I have on this MBP 13" late 2013?

I am talking about the ID the SPI chip is recognized as "MX25XXXXX"
 
Last edited:
Thanks for the flashing report.was the EFI chip accessible by just removing the bottom cover of the MBP? or did you have to get to the other side of the logic board? How much work was that?
------
Firmwareupdate.pkg - just use Show Package Contents in Finder! No need to extract!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back