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

[darkevil]

Heres some pics of the current market Type C long black sintech adapter that I just received from amazon. I’m using the intel 660p 512GB drive on a 2014 rMBP 13”. Hibernate mode 25 crashes of course so I’ll be setting it to mode 0.

Going to order the ch341a and clip next to plan on flashing all my Macs with the modded firmware.
[doublepost=1550255487][/doublepost]I also cropped and zoomed into my current market long sintech board and the other persons current market short sintech board to compare.

 

[Audit13]

For those in Toronto, Canada Computers is selling the Intel 660p 1 TB for $149.99 + tax for 1 day: https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=179_1229_1296&item_id=134662

 

[jackqueenking]

For those in Toronto, Canada Computers is selling the Intel 660p 1 TB for $149.99 + tax for 1 day: https://www.canadacomputers.com/product_info.php?cPath=179_1229_1296&item_id=134662

What's the power consumption like vs the intel 760p? I know there's an endurance difference, just wondering if the power difference is worth the sacrifice of endurance.

 

[Audit13]

What's the power consumption like vs the intel 760p? I know there's an endurance difference, just wondering if the power difference is worth the sacrifice of endurance.

I've only seen tests on Windows machines and the idle power on the 660p is better than the 760p; however, I don't know how Mac os handles nvme power management.

 

[Blaggah]

After reading thousands of replies in this thread, I chose the Toshiba XG3 1TB for my MacBook Air 2015 11", thought it would be a hassle-free solution for the upgrade.

The installation of macOS 10.13.4 went well and the speed is acceptable due to the pcie2.0x4 limitation. However, it can't wake up after deep sleep and shows a folder icon with a question mark. The laptop then reboots and shows a kernel panic report. This problem has been temporarily solved with the hibernatemode 25.

Bootcamp (win10 1803) works fine for me. The benchmark seems to be ok.

But everytime when i try to reboot from the OS, it fails to recognize my ssd as if it doesn't exist. I guess it has something to do with the sleep issue under mac os.

Looking forward to advice and help.

Thanks in advance

How's it going man? I too am facing the same issue with my 2014 MacBook Air. I'm using the short SinTech adapter and it works fine, however my wake from sleep does that work. Just saw a guy on YT that had it working for him. The best way to go about this is to so a Time Machine backup of your current drive first and then boot up from USB installer, format SSD and restore from TM backup. My issue with mine is it doesn't want to wake up from sleep. Just a black screen and that's it. It turns out that the 2013-2014 Macbooks have issues with the hibernate mode and wake issues unless you patch the bootrom which isn't like a walk in the park for most people. But yours should work if you use the Sintech adapter here https://www.amazon.com/Sintech-Adap...544459596&sr=8-4&keywords=macbook+ssd+adapter

And the YouTube video I recommend is this one

 

[cereus18]

Hey everyone
newbie here - my Late 2013 RMBP bit the dust and I've been reading through the thread to try to figure out what I should do but it's a little overwhelming. Can anyone give me some recommendations? Thanks!

 

[darkevil]

What's the power consumption like vs the intel 760p? I know there's an endurance difference, just wondering if the power difference is worth the sacrifice of endurance.

I’m using the 660p 512GB model. Got it for $99 at memoryexpress. So far I left it in hibernatemode 3 and it lost battery pretty quick so I’ve set it to mode 0 and going to see how that goes. As for power during use I’m not sure yet but I’ve read that it uses a lot less power than Samsung and others. However the 760p has even lower consumption ratings based on other people’s tests.

 

[Speedex]

Today i tested the small black sintech adapter and the long sintech adapter with a Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus 1TB and a Samsung SSD 970 Evo 250GB .

Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus 1TB (small black adapter, long adapter)
--> Doesn't work. Still reboots at "AFPS add Volume".


Samsung SSD 970 Evo 250GB (small black adapter, long adapter)
--> works!

 

[tshelby73]

Quick question. I have a 2014 MacBook Air. Every now and the it gets a boot rom update. With these unpatched bootrom the nvme drives show up as external.

Would a quick way of telling if apple patches a future bootrom be if it shows up as internal?

 

[tromatik]

Have you guys thought about creating a new thread, then you can set the first post to be a wikipost?

I agree, there are lot of useful informations scattered in the thread. Consolidation, even in the first post of this thread would be great.

And a question, is the use of a SPI programer is mandatory ? Anyone tried to flash the rom through ROMtool or any other software tool ?

Thx everyone for all the valuable informations here, and particularly gilles_polysoft

 

[Audit13]

How's it going man? I too am facing the same issue with my 2014 MacBook Air. I'm using the short SinTech adapter and it works fine, however my wake from sleep does that work. Just saw a guy on YT that had it working for him. The best way to go about this is to so a Time Machine backup of your current drive first and then boot up from USB installer, format SSD and restore from TM backup. My issue with mine is it doesn't want to wake up from sleep. Just a black screen and that's it. It turns out that the 2013-2014 Macbooks have issues with the hibernate mode and wake issues unless you patch the bootrom which isn't like a walk in the park for most people. But yours should work if you use the Sintech adapter here https://www.amazon.com/Sintech-Adap...544459596&sr=8-4&keywords=macbook+ssd+adapter

And the YouTube video I recommend is this one

Are you using hibernate mode 0 or 3? Hibernate mode 25 can't be used unless the MacBook is a 2015 or a 2013/2014 with a modded bootrom.
[doublepost=1550416454][/doublepost]

Quick question. I have a 2014 MacBook Air. Every now and the it gets a boot rom update. With these unpatched bootrom the nvme drives show up as external.

Would a quick way of telling if apple patches a future bootrom be if it shows up as internal?

I don't think Apple will ever issue a patched bootrom for the 2013 or 2014 MacBook.

Has your drive ever shown up as internal? Is your MacBook running the latest bootrom which I believe is 110.0.0.0? I have a 2015 air and the drive has always appeared as an internal.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Anyone ever had issues with Internet Recovery in here?

Got a new adapter and EX950 2TB to try last night finally.
Internet Recovery kept stalling out a 2003F error.

I ended up using a USB Mojave installer to install Mojave onto the EX950 (in the machine), but it needed to do a point release update to the latest version through Software Update in System Preferences, and that also, would never work, just like internet recovery.

Installing Apps worked from the App Store, but I couldn't get anything related to installing software updates to work and it sort of freaked me out. It's making me wonder if there's some level of incompatibility with macOS/Apple and these new EX950's?

Not sure what to make of it at all.

When I tried an EVO 970 I had literally none of these issues. Popped it in, did Internet Recovery to install a new macOS copy and it all worked flawlessly.

The disparity between that experience and the EX950 last night worried me. I don't want a machine with fundamental issues like "can't install software updates" - yikes..

 

[Audit13]

Anyone ever had issues with Internet Recovery in here?

Got a new adapter and EX950 2TB to try last night finally.
Internet Recovery kept stalling out a 2003F error.

I ended up using a USB Mojave installer to install Mojave onto the EX950 (in the machine), but it needed to do a point release update to the latest version through Software Update in System Preferences, and that also, would never work, just like internet recovery.

Installing Apps worked from the App Store, but I couldn't get anything related to installing software updates to work and it sort of freaked me out. It's making me wonder if there's some level of incompatibility with macOS/Apple and these new EX950's?

Not sure what to make of it at all.

When I tried an EVO 970 I had literally none of these issues. Popped it in, did Internet Recovery to install a new macOS copy and it all worked flawlessly.

The disparity between that experience and the EX950 last night worried me. I don't want a machine with fundamental issues like "can't install software updates" - yikes..

This may be another drive that is not compatible with a MacBook, similar to crashes that happen on a 970 Evo Plus but not the 970 Evo.

 

[turbineseaplane]

This may be another drive that is not compatible with a MacBook, similar to crashes that happen on a 970 Evo Plus but not the 970 Evo.

Let me report back here again in a little while.

I popped the drive back in just now with fresh motivation and did a PRAM reset and now got internet recovery to work and it’s installing now.

Standby…


Been very bizarre so far - Got into Internet Recovery, started install process, but according to the Log it was constantly failing and trying different Apple CDN's... after literally 11+ failed attempts and 15 minutes of it sitting there, it found a server it liked that is working...downloading now, but very slowly given my connection and from an Apple CDN.

Will update more shortly..

(this is making me wonder if something about Apple's software update server situation just happens to be experiencing some behind the scenes issues right now?)

 

[tshelby73]

Has your drive ever shown up as internal? Is your MacBook running the latest bootrom which I believe is 110.0.0.0? I have a 2015 air and the drive has always appeared as an internal.

The factory drive shows as internal when you hold option on boot to boot into Macos or boot camp.

When using nvme drive it shows as external at the boot menu this also causes problems installing windows. Once in macOS it sows as internal

 

[darkevil]

Today i tested the small black sintech adapter and the long sintech adapter with a Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus 1TB and a Samsung SSD 970 Evo 250GB .

Samsung SSD 970 Evo Plus 1TB (small black adapter, long adapter)
--> Doesn't work. Still reboots at "AFPS add Volume".


Samsung SSD 970 Evo 250GB (small black adapter, long adapter)
--> works!

That’s awesome! Glad to hear the long and short sintech are exactly the same now besides the lengths.

To my understanding it’s been documented by other user that the 970 EVO PLUS has some compatibility issues with the MacBooks. No one has figured out exactly why.

And a question, is the use of a SPI programer is mandatory ? Anyone tried to flash the rom through ROMtool or any other software tool ?

Thx everyone for all the valuable informations here, and particularly gilles_polysoft

It’s been documented also in this thread that flashing with dosdude1’s ROMTool will not work with out generation of MacBooks due to not being able to put it into firmware update mode. It was discovered that the system has some form of system validation check that we are not currently able to bypass that only Apple updates can initiate.

Update on my end, I’ve set my pmsettings to the following:
standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0

So far it looks like only about 2% battery loss from sleeping over night with the intel 660p. That seems pretty par with the consumption I was getting with the stock ssd. So not bad.

 

[Audit13]

I installed the 10.14.3 supplemental update on my late 2013 13" Pro running an original Apple SSD and early 2015 13" Air running an Apple SSD. Neither MacBook had its bootrom updated.

The pro is still at 149 and the air is still at 182.

 

[darkevil]

In a side note, I’ve noticed other users setting standby 1, which doesn’t make sense to me as you are telling the power management to have MacBook go to hibernation but with hibernatemode 0 you are essentially telling it to not hibernate as these two commands are Codependent on each other.

According to the pmset command manual it states that using standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0 truly deactivates hibernation and sets the MacBook to just do the plain old sleep mode. So setting standby 1 technically shouldn’t really make a difference.

the Standby and Autopoweroff variables purpose is to turn on or off hibernate for either Battery Power or AC Power. Hibernatemode is the variable that tells standby and autopoweroff what type of hibernate it needs to perform.

I think even just setting standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 3 should still do the same and only put the MacBook to sleep and not hibernate on either power modes.

**EDIT UPDATE**

I have figured out that all 3 commands are independent of each other as noted in my other post.

 

[09872738]

It seems you are correct. I used standby 1 because I somewhere read (or so I believed) there is a difference in handling of keys when using Filevault.
Perhaps my memory misled me as I cannot find the paper stating that any more.

 

[darkevil]

okay so i just messed around with different pmset configurations.

standby 1 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0 (I also set standbydelayhigh and standbydelaylow both to 1 second delay) This still triggered a black screen upon wake up once the delay timer reached. So i think many users have not experienced the issue as they have plugged in or opened their macbooks before the delay timers completed since by default its already set for 24hrs or the battery has died before then.

standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 3 (I also set with both standbydelay arguments set at 1 second, system went to sleep normally and woke up with out the black screen although I suspect that since hibernatemode set to 3 would mean it has still written the hibernate image file to disk as well as to RAM as per the command function which may only cause issues if you lose all power and try to restart and will probably get a double chime.

standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0 (I still left the standbydelay arguments the same at 1 second however I dont believe it will have any bearing on the results due to standby being turned off so the delay timers are not active. This configuration gave me no issues, woke up right away with no black screen, however with total power loss it will just boot up fresh and since no hibernate image was created it should boot up normally.

Also note that having autopoweroff turned on would also have similar issues as standby since i suspect that once the autopoweroffdelay timer has reached, the system will try to hibernate causing system to wake with black screen despite what the other two modes are set to.

hiberatemode 25 triggered black screen as soon as I wake no matter what mode standby and autopoweroff is set to because you are telling power management to hibernate instantly upon sleep.

My new conclusion after re-reading the pmset manual is that standby, autopoweroff, hibernatemode all work independently of each other. Simply setting hibernatemode 0 will not fix the black screen issue as standby and autopoweroff are functions that will create their own hibernate image files once the timers have run out despite what mode you have hibernatemode in. According to pmset manual it sounds that way. Safest way is to set them all the 0's across the board as instructed in the pmset manual to function as 'plain old sleep mode'

 

[x34]

It seems you are correct. I used standby 1 because I somewhere read (or so I believed) there is a difference in handling of keys when using Filevault.
Perhaps my memory misled me as I cannot find the paper stating that any more.

can you explain?

i found this: http://osxdaily.com/2013/07/06/maximize-filevault-security-destroy-key-storage-standby/
https://www.macuser.de/threads/filevault-macbook-im-ruhezustand-stand-by-sicher.726332/

is it safe since we have standby mode off?

 

[09872738]

can you explain?

i found this: http://osxdaily.com/2013/07/06/maximize-filevault-security-destroy-key-storage-standby/
https://www.macuser.de/threads/filevault-macbook-im-ruhezustand-stand-by-sicher.726332/

is it safe since we have standby mode off?

That is the question and the reason why I chose standby 1. I'd have to look into this in more detail though as I am not 100 % positive standby 1 makes any difference at all when hibernate is set to 0.

okay so i just messed around with different pmset configurations.

standby 1 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0 (I also set standbydelayhigh and standbydelaylow both to 1 second delay) This still triggered a black screen upon wake up once the delay timer reached.

Which is why I set standbydelay to one week as described in this post: #2732

 

[darkevil]

That is the question and the reason why I chose standby 1.



Which is why I set standbydelay to one week as described in this post: #2732

I dont really use the filevault functions so i dont really have a problem setting mine to standby 0

 

[Audit13]

Let me report back here again in a little while.

I popped the drive back in just now with fresh motivation and did a PRAM reset and now got internet recovery to work and it’s installing now.

Standby…


Been very bizarre so far - Got into Internet Recovery, started install process, but according to the Log it was constantly failing and trying different Apple CDN's... after literally 11+ failed attempts and 15 minutes of it sitting there, it found a server it liked that is working...downloading now, but very slowly given my connection and from an Apple CDN.

Will update more shortly..

(this is making me wonder if something about Apple's software update server situation just happens to be experiencing some behind the scenes issues right now?)

I just started internet recovery on an air 2017 with an original Apple SSD and it downloaded the 2 GB file very quickly using my 500 Mbps connection and is now installing Mojave.

 

[Theride]

Hello guys !
I have a MacBook Pro Early 2015 13", I tried to upgrade the SSD with the 970 EVO Plus 500Gb, the installation of Mojave crashed everytime with a kernel panic error. However, I managed to install Windows and use it without problem.
I will try the SN750 this week and post the results.