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

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
Audit13 said:
Get the sx8200 Pro as it is the updated version of the 8200. In Canada, the 8200 Pro is the same price or cheaper than than the 8200.
Click to expand...
thanks for answering my questions! much appreciated! I will order the SX8200 PRO 1TB some time later next week!


Audit13 said:
Get the small adapter. Get the green if you need the screwdrivers or the small black if you don't.

I use the small green in an early 2015 Air is it's perfect. It's small enough to allow the bottom casing to close with no bulges.
Click to expand...
Just ordered the small green adapter from the Sintech website. looking forward to installing it together with the SX8200 PRO :D
Audit13 said:
Since you have a 2015 MacBook, you should not encounter sleep or hibernation issues.

There is not much you can do to prevent battery drain since any nvme drive is going to use more power than an original Apple drive.
Click to expand...
so just for clarification, I do NOT have to insert "sudo pmset -a standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0" or similar codes in the terminal command for my macbook pro 13" early 2015 after installing the NVME SSD?

Again, thanks for answering me!
 
lkchelios said:
so just for clarification, I do NOT have to insert "sudo pmset -a standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0" or similar codes in the terminal command for my macbook pro 13" early 2015 after installing the NVME SSD?

Again, thanks for answering me!
Click to expand...

Correct...
 
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lkchelios said:
... just for clarification, I do NOT have to insert "sudo pmset -a standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0" or similar codes in the terminal command for my macbook pro 13" early 2015 after installing the NVME SSD?
Click to expand...
Correct, there is no need to alter the sleep settings after installing the OS.

I have two Airs (2015, 2017) with nvme drives and I did not have to change the sleep settings in either Air after installing Mojave.
 
Hey guys, I'm planning to update my mid-2014 rMBP with an Apple SSD from a newer rMBP (MZ-JPV2560/0A4). Does someone know if they're compatible?
Thanks!
 
Hi Guys,

I'd like to share and contribute some experience here:
Hardware rMBP 2013 13"
SSD Intel SSD 660p 1TB : OK
OS Mojave : OK
Bootcamp Windows 10 : OK with extra steps needed, will be explained:
Adapter : https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07889YRFT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Speed: attached

Bootcamp difficulties:
1) Bsod before user was created
2) Bsod when Magsafe is not connected

Succeeded Steps:
1) Create Bootcamp Partition using Bootcamp assistant
2) Create bootable disk using bootcamp partition, mostly following these steps: Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
3) BUT: I did not copy Windows Support (downloaded from bootcamp assistant) into bootable Windows USB Flash drive before I install windows
4) Install windows without any apple drivers. NOTE: MAGSAFE MUST BE CONNECTED
5) After install, windows reboot itself. This step is time critical: Upon booting, immediately press shift + f10 and follow this step: Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
The reason is: If nothing is done, it will have Bsod and unable to call command promt after first Bsod occur. It must be done at this step.
6) Once this is done, windows can be booted correctly and create your windows user.
7) Install Apple drivers now by copying Windows Support to the bootable USB and running it in windows (note: Wifi and many drivers is not installed by default because I used a "clean windows install")
8) Magsafe bsod: Power Management -> PCI Express -> Battery -> !!Middle Energy saving!!
- maximum enegy saving will cause bsod for me. Attached
 

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tromatik said:
I agree, there are lot of useful informations scattered in the thread. Consolidation, even in the first post of this thread would be great.
[..]
Thx everyone for all the valuable informations here, and particularly gilles_polysoft
Click to expand...

I agree!

I have made a Site Feedback post requesting that mods convert the first post of this thread into a Wikipost so that information can be consolidated there.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mod-request-to-convert-first-post-to-a-wikipost.2171901/

If anyone would like to support the request, please please post in the Site Feedback thread linked above.

Many thanks T
 
I've been trying to consolidate things from this thread into a document. There's just too much important information in here to have it get buried. It's not something that I think will be done anytime soon, but I'll link it here when I'm finished.

For hopefully anyone else's benefit, the summary of my experiences:

- I started with Mid-2014 MBP 13" 128gb. My use case soon outpaced the capacity. I tried other options like external drives and at one point a Nifty Drive, but they both had drawbacks.

- After reading up on what others were doing when High Sierra introduced NVMe boot, I got and installed a Samsung EVO 960 with green Sintech type c adapter.

- Suffered known sleep/wakeup issues solved with the very well known at this point 'pmset' command. Observed moderately increased battery drain, but seemingly less than others reported. About a 50% chance to KP on boot to OSX (boot to Windows/Linux fine). Stable otherwise once booted. Sleep/Hibernate/Wakeup actually worked just fine in Windows/Linux. I had to do weird things during the bootcamp/windows installation but I don't remember what all they were. The install fails midway through and you have to do a keyboard command to change a registry key and reboot. I don't remember what the error is or what the key change was, unfortunately. Once you're installed you have to also do something to power management. I think it was turning off link state management in advanced power settings -> pci express. It was at least something similar: when I mentioned that earlier, user Ismis was able to figure it out the rest of the way based on that, so hopefully that will help anyone else who comes after. Everything was relatively stable otherwise all things considered.

- I spent some time going down a rabbit hole with attempts at getting at the 2015 NVMe driver via messing with the firmware and kext injection via clover. No disasters happened but nothing useful came of it. I think the firmware changes got silently rejected each time due to signing issues, but I have surprisingly few notes from my attempts at that. I think changing the system id to Macbookpro11,4 actually pulled it off, but I couldn't use mouse/keyboard so I couldn't actually log in.
Bought a Early-2015 MBP 15" (256gb stock) on ebay recently. Exchanged hard drives with 2014 and I gave it to my girlfriend to replace her 2011. 2014 works great (NVRAM/SMC resets were necessary) with the 2015 stock drive, though there were boot camp issues.

- EVO 960 was surprisingly unstable in the 2015. Occasional KPs, especially during partition resizing and FS modifications, including during initial setup. Had to boot into a live linux usb to fix partitions. Bootcamp was a no-go and I had to install Windows by hand and load the apple drivers later (that's a lot of busy work but not "hard"). Power consumption "probably high" on the 2015, but the battery is in amazing shape for being a 4 year old used laptop, so I still got some 8 hours or so with marginal hard drive usage (so, better than the 2014).

- Bought the much lauded ADATA SX8200 Pro today and got a NVMe->PCIE adapter for my gaming desktop. I figured I'd try both and whichever one worked less well in the 2015 I'd use for games because I needed an SSD there anyway.

- Installed SX8200 Pro. Installed Mojave via usb. Installed Windows via iso/bootcamp. I'm early in the game, but there's absolutely no issues to report so far.

General Wisdom:

- You WANT that 1.2mm pentalobe driver. There's a lot of other solutions. A slotted screwdriver _can_ work once and probably even two or three times, but every time you use it you're going to grind that head down just a little bit more each time. It got to the point today where I knew I'd be drilling out the screws if I didn't go pick one up, and so I did.

- Probably a good idea to disconnect the battery first. I don't know what macs are doing power-wise when the battery is plugged in so I didn't want to risk anything bad happening. A guitar pick or spudger will pop the connector right off of the logic board and it's a fairly durable connector too and there's no reason it won't surive more abuse than it should receive.

- I still really think there might actually be the possibility of a perfect functionality solution for the 2013/2014 using Clover. I'm not sure what it is though and I really strongly recommend that no one try that unless they know what they're doing. At one point, I had the 2014 stuck on thinking it was a 15" enough that, even after several formats and smc/nvram resets, it was still showing the apple boot logo at about 1/2 the size it should be. I finally fixed it and that was the worst I saw, but I'm no stranger to clover either. I could easily see too many of the wrong settings there absolutely screwing up a real mac beyond simple repair.
 
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erudyne said:
I've been trying to consolidate things from this thread into a document. There's just too much important information in here to have it get buried. It's not something that I think will be done anytime soon, but I'll link it here when I'm finished.

For hopefully anyone else's benefit, the summary of my experiences:

- I started with Mid-2014 MBP 13" 128gb. My use case soon outpaced the capacity. I tried other options like external drives and at one point a Nifty Drive, but they both had drawbacks.

- After reading up on what others were doing when High Sierra introduced NVMe boot, I got and installed a Samsung EVO 960 with green Sintech type c adapter.

- Suffered known sleep/wakeup issues solved with the very well known at this point 'pmset' command. Observed moderately increased battery drain, but seemingly less than others reported. About a 50% chance to KP on boot to OSX (boot to Windows/Linux fine). Stable otherwise once booted. Sleep/Hibernate/Wakeup actually worked just fine in Windows/Linux. I had to do weird things during the bootcamp/windows installation but I don't remember what all they were. The install fails midway through and you have to do a keyboard command to change a registry key and reboot. I don't remember what the error is or what the key change was, unfortunately. Once you're installed you have to also do something to power management. I think it was turning off link state management in advanced power settings -> pci express. It was at least something similar: when I mentioned that earlier, user Ismis was able to figure it out the rest of the way based on that, so hopefully that will help anyone else who comes after. Everything was relatively stable otherwise all things considered.

- I spent some time going down a rabbit hole with attempts at getting at the 2015 NVMe driver via messing with the firmware and kext injection via clover. No disasters happened but nothing useful came of it. I think the firmware changes got silently rejected each time due to signing issues, but I have surprisingly few notes from my attempts at that. I think changing the system id to Macbookpro11,4 actually pulled it off, but I couldn't use mouse/keyboard so I couldn't actually log in.
Bought a Early-2015 MBP 15" (256gb stock) on ebay recently. Exchanged hard drives with 2014 and I gave it to my girlfriend to replace her 2011. 2014 works great (NVRAM/SMC resets were necessary) with the 2015 stock drive, though there were boot camp issues.

- EVO 960 was surprisingly unstable in the 2015. Occasional KPs, especially during partition resizing and FS modifications, including during initial setup. Had to boot into a live linux usb to fix partitions. Bootcamp was a no-go and I had to install Windows by hand and load the apple drivers later (that's a lot of busy work but not "hard"). Power consumption "probably high" on the 2015, but the battery is in amazing shape for being a 4 year old used laptop, so I still got some 8 hours or so with marginal hard drive usage (so, better than the 2014).

- Bought the much lauded ADATA SX8200 Pro today and got a NVMe->PCIE adapter for my gaming desktop. I figured I'd try both and whichever one worked less well in the 2015 I'd use for games because I needed an SSD there anyway.

- Installed SX8200 Pro. Installed Mojave via usb. Installed Windows via iso/bootcamp. I'm early in the game, but there's absolutely no issues to report so far.

General Wisdom:

- You WANT that 1.2mm pentalobe driver. There's a lot of other solutions. A slotted screwdriver _can_ work once and probably even two or three times, but every time you use it you're going to grind that head down just a little bit more each time. It got to the point today where I knew I'd be drilling out the screws if I didn't go pick one up, and so I did.

- Probably a good idea to disconnect the battery first. I don't know what macs are doing power-wise when the battery is plugged in so I didn't want to risk anything bad happening. A guitar pick or spudger will pop the connector right off of the logic board and it's a fairly durable connector too and there's no reason it won't surive more abuse than it should receive.

- I still really think there might actually be the possibility of a perfect functionality solution for the 2013/2014 using Clover. I'm not sure what it is though and I really strongly recommend that no one try that unless they know what they're doing. At one point, I had the 2014 stuck on thinking it was a 15" enough that, even after several formats and smc/nvram resets, it was still showing the apple boot logo at about 1/2 the size it should be. I finally fixed it and that was the worst I saw, but I'm no stranger to clover either. I could easily see too many of the wrong settings there absolutely screwing up a real mac beyond simple repair.
Click to expand...

thanks for sharing your extensive journey!

but in all seriousness, setting hibernate to 0 and you're good to go on a 2014 (like 5 years old!) macbook pro.
 
ycl90 said:
Hi Guys,

I'd like to share and contribute some experience here:
Hardware rMBP 2013 13"
SSD Intel SSD 660p 1TB : OK
OS Mojave : OK
Bootcamp Windows 10 : OK with extra steps needed, will be explained:
Adapter : https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B07889YRFT/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Speed: attached

Bootcamp difficulties:
1) Bsod before user was created
2) Bsod when Magsafe is not connected

Succeeded Steps:
1) Create Bootcamp Partition using Bootcamp assistant
2) Create bootable disk using bootcamp partition, mostly following these steps: Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
3) BUT: I did not copy Windows Support (downloaded from bootcamp assistant) into bootable Windows USB Flash drive before I install windows
4) Install windows without any apple drivers. NOTE: MAGSAFE MUST BE CONNECTED
5) After install, windows reboot itself. This step is time critical: Upon booting, immediately press shift + f10 and follow this step: Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
The reason is: If nothing is done, it will have Bsod and unable to call command promt after first Bsod occur. It must be done at this step.
6) Once this is done, windows can be booted correctly and create your windows user.
7) Install Apple drivers now by copying Windows Support to the bootable USB and running it in windows (note: Wifi and many drivers is not installed by default because I used a "clean windows install")
8) Magsafe bsod: Power Management -> PCI Express -> Battery -> !!Middle Energy saving!!
- maximum enegy saving will cause bsod for me. Attached
Click to expand...

For me balanced was not enough. I had to use performance.
Nice Job.
 
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x34 said:
but in all seriousness, setting hibernate to 0 and you're good to go on a 2014 (like 5 years old!) macbook pro.
Click to expand...

Yeah, the power drain is annoying, but all things considered it was functional enough just with hibernate 0 set. Only reason I would up getting the 2015 was because my girlfriends 2011 was having issues anyway. At that point, finding one with a larger stock ssd and then doing the swap was the only thing that made sense.
 
since I live in Reunion Island, it's quite hard to get the SSD I want, so my choices (1To) are limited to :
- Intel 660
- Crucial P1

I can get the samsung SSD too, but since they seems to be the worst choice of them all...
I guess the intel 660 is the best choice among those two?
 
Last edited:
RedTomato said:
I agree!

I have made a Site Feedback post requesting that mods convert the first post of this thread into a Wikipost so that information can be consolidated there.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mod-request-to-convert-first-post-to-a-wikipost.2171901/

If anyone would like to support the request, please please post in the Site Feedback thread linked above.

Many thanks T
Click to expand...
Hi,
this is a really good idea.. I've tried many times to contact the original poster with no answer...
May I be able to participate in the redaction of the wikipost ?
 
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After running this through terminal:
"sudo pmset standby 0"
My hibernate mode is 3, not 0, when checking by entering:
"pmset -g"

Is this OK for a l2013 15" MBP or is hibernate mode 0 required?

No problems so far installing and putting to sleep overnight a 1TB SX8200 pro with a long Sintech adaptor that I carefully cut with scissors to convert into the short adaptor. The only minor points of note are that the SSD + adaptor are ever so slightly too long but the supplied adaptor screw still fits, and also the clip nearest the SSD that attaches the base cover to the computer itself doesn't fully close due to the thickness of the double sided SSD, however this doesn't affect screwing the base back on at all.

Thanks everyone.
IMG_1387.jpg IMG_1382.jpg IMG_1383.jpg IMG_1389.jpg
 

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ANNOUNCEMENT

The first post in this thread has now been converted to a Wikipost. Many thanks to Arn, founder of MacRumors, for doing the work.

It can be edited by anyone "with the appropriate permissions". I'm not sure who that includes, probably most logged in users.

Everyone, please feel free to update with news, guides, info, updates etc.

Vandalism can be reverted with the 'History' button.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/

gilles_polysoft said:
Hi,
this is a really good idea.. I've tried many times to contact the original poster with no answer...
May I be able to participate in the redaction of the wikipost ?
Click to expand...

Please participate, oui s'il vous plaît :)
 
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Last edited:
I just purchased this 2TB NVME module by Sabrent on sale for $360.00. I still need to run Sierra for some music hardware/software I own and people note this drive comes with 4K sector block advanced formating.

Sabrent 2TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-2TB)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MTQTNVR/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_A0ZFCbDT4ZYXX

I can run some temperature and energy consumption tests once I get it and report back. What is the best way to test these things? Thanks.
[doublepost=1551843888][/doublepost]Does this adapter work OK? Not sure what version it is?

Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FYY3H5F/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_sb0FCbA754XEY

Thanks again
 
Last edited:
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Clarifying question, I read several pages of comments. I have a 2014 15" mbp, I would need an nvme with 512 sector size, and an ahci to m.2 adaptor. Are there some drives and adapters that don't have sleep issues with the 2014 15"? It seems like some people have the right combination to work fine??
 
theandrewgordon said:
Clarifying question, I read several pages of comments. I have a 2014 15" mbp, I would need an nvme with 512 sector size, and an ahci to m.2 adaptor. Are there some drives and adapters that don't have sleep issues with the 2014 15"? It seems like some people have the right combination to work fine??
Click to expand...
Nope. The issue is the firmware (BootROM). There is no combination that works without sleep wake issues. You can disable hibernate though. No big deal.
 
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