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

[Blacklive]

I have Macbook Pro 15 Late 2013, 16GB, 512GB,
I upgraded it before two days with :-
- Corsair MP510 960GB NVME SSD,
- Sintech short adapter
- Disable hibernation "sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0"

The result :
- Speed is good (see attached).
- After 8 hours of close lid, my MacBook Pro still 100%.

I will keep test it and give feedback.

Thanks

 

[aatoma]

I'm planning to keep the original apple ssd stick I pulled from my MBA for exactly that reason.
[doublepost=1564270507][/doublepost]
I have the same 7,2 MBA and upgraded to the sabrent 1 TB nvme stick and got higher write speeds. Supposedly the 1TB stick has higher benchmarks than the 2TB. But that seems like a big difference. Do you have 4 lanes running? Check your boot rom and try reseating your sabrent stick.

Thanks for your reply.
I had to do the upgrade in a hurry and already returned the laptop to its owner.
When I checked the nvme link width, it was x4, but didn't have a chance to reseat the drive.
I saw in Gilles' charts that all SSDs using Phison E12 controller report higher write than read speed and ended up in thinking it could be normal.

 

[frogfeet]

I have read through many these posts (awesome!) as well as other sites, and have a couple of questions/need advice. So, it sounds like the Samsung 970 Plus is now working on Mac laptops with the firmware upgrade. I have a mid 2014 MBpro 15" and want to upgrade the original Apple 1TB SSD with a 2 TB. I do a lot of Photo, video and music editing, storage and large photo, video and sound file folder slinging to and fro external usb drives. My photo library is approx 800+GB and growing. I like all my stuff on one drive as best as possible... Hence need the larger SSD.

Based on what I have read here, I think I have narrowed down to either the Samsung 970 Plus or the Western Digital WD Black SN750. In reading above, it seems the Sabrent is now a contender (and cheaper!)

Questions: I have mid 2014 MBpro 15" Retina 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7

-- Anyone have a recommendation for one over the other (or other) given my rig and use case (video, photo and music)?

-- Anyone have any concerns about compatibility/tried your SSD with Catalina beta yet? Any issues?

-- latest adapter preference?

Thanks again everyone for the awesome posts and would appreciate your advice!

Any advice would be most appreciated.

For the SSD drive, you may want to stay away from the Samsung 970 plus. if you do a search of the thread you'll see several posts contending that the "plus" models of the Samsung sticks are not compatible. Otherwise the Samsung 970 and WD Black are both premium drives, with better performance, and for many posters, they run hotter (especially the Samsung). I went with a 1TB Sabrent drive in my 2017 MBA and am happy with it.
HAven't tried Catalina.
The Sintech adapters are highly recommended. I used the short adapter because my Sabrent stick had chips on both sides and I was concerned about the extra width of the long Sintech adapter. Just be sure that the tape job on your Sintech adapter covers all the leads to avoid issues after installation (kernel panics). You can search and find plenty of pictures of what needs to be covered by tape. My Sintech adapter was fine, and I'll probably return my kapton tape to Amazon. Others had to add tape to theirs. Probably a QA issue at the factory.
Good luck.

 

[Audit13]

Updated my early 2015 13" Air running a 256 GB HP ex900 to 10.14.6 and the bootrom updated to 188.0.0.0.0 from 187.0.0.0.0.

 

[Trunkz]

So I'm trying to flash the efi with the CMD Q instructions. I have the same adapter and cable, but everytime I try to run flashrom -p ch341a_spi -r dump1.bin it always gives an error.

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
No EEPROM/flash device found.
Note: flashrom can never write if the flash chip isn't found automatically.

I've disconnected the battery and magsafe (tried with them connected too), I installed the Mac drivers for the CH341 card, but no matter what I always get that error. This is with flashrom 1.1

I've got the same issue with mine as well - has anyone come across this?

 

[fanfzero]

So I bought a matt card, now my 2014 macbook air powers on, I can boot installers/linux from usb, but the ssd is not recognized, it had mojave (or high sierra, I can't remember) installed, the drive was apfs formatted, so I guess the trouble is matt card's bootrom being outdated and not recognizing the drive (similar to what is stated in this article https://www.journaldulapin.com/2019/03/01/matt-card-a-card-to-steal-a-mac/), what can I do?

 

[erkoolio]

I've got the same issue with mine as well - has anyone come across this?

check that you have correct pins connected to the ch341. If that does not work try turning the logic port connector 180 degrees.

Photo of your setup would be helpful.

 

[aaizikovich]

Upgraded my 2015 MBP 15 inch with a 1TB Inland NVME SSD.

Used this adapter:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LGTMCCX/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1



View attachment 847799
View attachment 847802

How is the battery life? and did you run into any issues?

 

[badstraw]

Do you guys know if the nvme would be recognized by Ubuntu? I’m planning to upgrade a Mac mini and I want to use it as a server

 

[aaizikovich]

Guys thank you so much for your input!
I have a question regarding High sierra vs Mojave,
when I clean installed Mojave, my write speeds dropped 2 times, has anybody experienced this, or have a solution?

MBPr mid 2015, 11,4, Original 256gb

Hi Everyone,

I have recently updated my 256 ssd drive in my macbook pro 15" mid 2015. I went for the Sabrent Rocket SSD 1TB based on the amazon reviews and this thread opinions. I think is the best cost/performance option so far.

I havent had any issues during instalation.

Steps:

Created a time machine back up.
Replaced the ssd
Installed fresh copy of Mojave and the used Migration Assistant to recover my info.

So far no kernel panic or any other fail whatsoever.

Sorry for my english and thank you all for sharing

Here are some speed test:

Which adapter did you use?

 

[rockstarjoe]

Thanks for updating those tables, gilles.

It looks like the Phison E12-based SSDs are leading the pack in all of the categories.. interesting how each of the E12 SSDs differ somewhat in performance, guess it's the components? Same controller.. And even then, those differences are small between them.

By the way, some people may have noticed that even with the enhanced performance of their E12 SSDs, there is still one issue that is somewhat annoying- updates like the latest Security Update 2019-004 for Sierra / High Sierra and the 10.14.6 update won't update your Mac's BootROM.

If you don't want to open up your laptop / desktop every time to swap in an Apple OEM SSD to do the firmware update, just hook up a plain hard drive, doesn't matter what brand, to a fast USB 3.0/3.1 or Thunderbolt dock, boot from a prepared, latest 10.14.6 flash key, wipe the hard drive to the usual HFS+ default, and tell the installer to install to the hard drive instead of your SSD.

After a while your Mac will boot from that hard drive after doing its usual self-install, and it will have its BootROM updated to the latest version! You can save that hard drive and boot from it the next time there is an upgrade / security patch that updates the firmware.

SSDs where you don't need to use the hard drive trick: OEM Apple SSDs (some come from Samsung, some come from SanDisk, others from Toshiba), Samsung SM 951, EVO 960 and 960 PRO

SSDs where you need to use the hard drive trick: all other third party SSDs so far as I can tell. Only tried Sabrents, Inland Premiums, and Microns myself.

It appears that the BootROM installers do a check of the SSD and depending on what it finds, either runs the firmware update or doesn't. Can't imagine that Apple puts a callable command in the OEM SSD firmware from three different vendors, so IMHO it's only looking for a particular SSD ID or something, as the Samsung SM 951 / 960 EVO and Pro seem to work okay.

To check if your Mac is running the latest EFI firmware, run this great program called SilentKnight, available here:

https://eclecticlight.co/lockrattler-systhist/

It will check your firmware against an updated list kept online, and also tell you if there's anything that needs to be updated with your basic macOS.

SilentKnight also has other useful info, it can tell you if you have SIP enabled/disabled, your Mac's exact model number, and other misc. system info.

Should you do this before or after running software update on the internal NVME drive? Thanks for the tip!

 

[juan985_Spain]

Guys thank you so much for your input!
I have a question regarding High sierra vs Mojave,
when I clean installed Mojave, my write speeds dropped 2 times, has anybody experienced this, or have a solution?

MBPr mid 2015, 11,4, Original 256gb


Which adapter did you use?

Long black sintech adapter.

Regards

 

[TarSand]

For the SSD drive, you may want to stay away from the Samsung 970 plus. if you do a search of the thread you'll see several posts contending that the "plus" models of the Samsung sticks are not compatible. Otherwise the Samsung 970 and WD Black are both premium drives, with better performance, and for many posters, they run hotter (especially the Samsung). I went with a 1TB Sabrent drive in my 2017 MBA and am happy with it.
HAven't tried Catalina.
The Sintech adapters are highly recommended. I used the short adapter because my Sabrent stick had chips on both sides and I was concerned about the extra width of the long Sintech adapter. Just be sure that the tape job on your Sintech adapter covers all the leads to avoid issues after installation (kernel panics). You can search and find plenty of pictures of what needs to be covered by tape. My Sintech adapter was fine, and I'll probably return my kapton tape to Amazon. Others had to add tape to theirs. Probably a QA issue at the factory.
Good luck.

Thanks a lot. As I need a 2TB solution, I see Sabrent has a

For the SSD drive, you may want to stay away from the Samsung 970 plus. if you do a search of the thread you'll see several posts contending that the "plus" models of the Samsung sticks are not compatible. Otherwise the Samsung 970 and WD Black are both premium drives, with better performance, and for many posters, they run hotter (especially the Samsung). I went with a 1TB Sabrent drive in my 2017 MBA and am happy with it.
HAven't tried Catalina.
The Sintech adapters are highly recommended. I used the short adapter because my Sabrent stick had chips on both sides and I was concerned about the extra width of the long Sintech adapter. Just be sure that the tape job on your Sintech adapter covers all the leads to avoid issues after installation (kernel panics). You can search and find plenty of pictures of what needs to be covered by tape. My Sintech adapter was fine, and I'll probably return my kapton tape to Amazon. Others had to add tape to theirs. Probably a QA issue at the factory.
Good luck.

Thanks frogfeet!. Yes, I am obviously confused. Many people say Samsung 970 plus is working, others not so much. Is the Samsung 970 EV Plus working for folks? I have mid 2014 MBpro 15" Retina 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7. Based on what I have read here, I think I have narrowed down to either the Samsung 970 Plus, the Western Digital WD Black SN750 or Sabrent 2TB (based on frog feet's experience). Any advice on which? Also, which adapter? The Sintechs on Amazon specifically say they won't work with the Samsung 970 Plus.... Help I am out of space!

 

[assilzm]

I'm in China, I designed a matt card myself, solved the hibernation bug and it cost about $30.

那么这位兄台能交流下解决方法吗，我的2014mid升级SSD后深受休眠问题困扰。也考虑过淘宝采购几个设备来自己升级，但是对硬件不熟悉所以还没下定决心，能否分享下解决方案？愿意支付一定的酬劳。

 

[dpro111]

那么这位兄台能交流下解决方法吗，我的2014mid升级SSD后深受休眠问题困扰。也考虑过淘宝采购几个设备来自己升级，但是对硬件不熟悉所以还没下定决心，能否分享下解决方案？愿意支付一定的酬劳。

我做了几片样板出售，可以上淘宝搜索“NVME 休眠”

 

[TarSand]

For the SSD drive, you may want to stay away from the Samsung 970 plus. if you do a search of the thread you'll see several posts contending that the "plus" models of the Samsung sticks are not compatible. Otherwise the Samsung 970 and WD Black are both premium drives, with better performance, and for many posters, they run hotter (especially the Samsung). I went with a 1TB Sabrent drive in my 2017 MBA and am happy with it.
HAven't tried Catalina.
The Sintech adapters are highly recommended. I used the short adapter because my Sabrent stick had chips on both sides and I was concerned about the extra width of the long Sintech adapter. Just be sure that the tape job on your Sintech adapter covers all the leads to avoid issues after installation (kernel panics). You can search and find plenty of pictures of what needs to be covered by tape. My Sintech adapter was fine, and I'll probably return my kapton tape to Amazon. Others had to add tape to theirs. Probably a QA issue at the factory.
Good luck.

Hi frogfeet,

Thank you so much for your advice... Because I am a glutton for IT punishment, I have ordered the Samsung 970 Plus. AND, since I am rolling the dice here anyway, I am also going to try to update to the Catalina beta and really risk the abyss! While hope is not a strategy, I am hoping that I will be in the lucky bunch... Unfortunately, the small Sintech is backordered at Amazon, so ordered the long one, and some Kapton tape. If the 970 Plus doesn't work out, I will return or sell it, and get the WD black or the Sabrent 2TB and press on. Will keep you all posted on what transpires!

As as side point, did you see that new generation Sabrents are out? The new gens are supposedly backward compatible and on sale at Amazon... But it seems that they require the heat sink and I do not know whether that would fit in the Macbook Pro... Is a shame not to be able to leverage these at this price!

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Inte...6406&s=electronics&smid=A29Y8OP2GPR7PE&sr=1-1

 

[markintosh13]

so... 13" MacBook Pro early 2015 efi firmware...
Is this out of date?

/usr/libexec/firmwarecheckers/eficheck/eficheck --integrity-check

EFI Version: MBP121.88Z.0178.B00.1809171422 (Boot ROM Version: 180.0.0.0.0)

Matching allowlist not found in EFIAllowListShipping. Searching in EFIAllowListAll.

Primary allowlist version match found. No changes detected in primary hashes.​

 

[leet]

So I'm trying to flash the efi with the CMD Q instructions. I have the same adapter and cable, but everytime I try to run flashrom -p ch341a_spi -r dump1.bin it always gives an error.

Calibrating delay loop... OK.
No EEPROM/flash device found.
Note: flashrom can never write if the flash chip isn't found automatically.

I've disconnected the battery and magsafe (tried with them connected too), I installed the Mac drivers for the CH341 card, but no matter what I always get that error. This is with flashrom 1.1

I had the same problem, what finally worked for me was to have the battery disconnected but the magsafe attached. Please try it and let me know if it worked for you!

 

[graves14]

Trying to play it safe, I got a Matt Card. I haven't connected it yet, and grabbed the ROM off the "virgin" Matt Card just in case. I can't find the nvme driver GUID in there however. Is this expected?

Also, I want to back up my current ROM, but I don't have the adapter ($55+). Can I still use flashrom -p internal to gather a local copy? It doesn't seem to recognize the internal programmer option.

 

[bastimm]

Hello,
I just removed my Evo970. Unfortunately the problem with the hibernate mode was too big for me and my usage!

After the new installation on the original SSD I have now received an EFI upgrade from 149.0.0.0.0 to 156.0.0.0.

Is there anything known about the NVMe driver in this EFI update?
Or is there information about the new EFI in Catalina?

Thanks in advance!

 

[paultman]

Opinion Q
Do you guys think apple might release the updated nvme driver for the late2013/2014 models, similar to the update for the mid 2015 model?
I imagine Apple put out that driver for... maybe if they or others need to update failed oem ssd drives and older oem drives might not be as easy to get? or have some supply limitation? If that was the case for the 2015 models, maybe it would eventually be the same for the 2013/2014 ones as well?

I really love my late 2013 15" model, however the hibernate issues make this a non-starter. I'm tempted to do the manual bootroom update, but obviously would prefer to do it with software or if apple themselves did a similar update for 2013/4 models.

What do you guys think? Will Apple make it happen or should i just bite the bullet and try the bootroom update myself with one of the programmer/flasher devices?

Thanks!

 

[dudaslaszlo]

Hi everyone! I've installed a Samsung 960 Pro 512GB SSD in my MacBook Air 13 A1466 and it works perfectly!
I use a cheap long NGFF adapter from aliexpress, here is the link.
Well, I am totally satisfied with these products, the speed is so fast and there is no kernel panic, sleep/wake or restart issues. The battery life is only lasts 6 hours with a fully charged battery, I've checked in coconutBattery and the consumption is about 11 Watt.
The main problems are heating issues and fan speed. The CPU temperature drops up quickly, when I log in, it just 60°C and after launching the Chrome it increases to 70°C and the fan speed is up to 1500-2500rpm.
In summary, I recommend this adapter with this super powerful SSD.

 

[rockstarjoe]

Thanks for updating those tables, gilles.

It looks like the Phison E12-based SSDs are leading the pack in all of the categories.. interesting how each of the E12 SSDs differ somewhat in performance, guess it's the components? Same controller.. And even then, those differences are small between them.

By the way, some people may have noticed that even with the enhanced performance of their E12 SSDs, there is still one issue that is somewhat annoying- updates like the latest Security Update 2019-004 for Sierra / High Sierra and the 10.14.6 update won't update your Mac's BootROM.

If you don't want to open up your laptop / desktop every time to swap in an Apple OEM SSD to do the firmware update, just hook up a plain hard drive, doesn't matter what brand, to a fast USB 3.0/3.1 or Thunderbolt dock, boot from a prepared, latest 10.14.6 flash key, wipe the hard drive to the usual HFS+ default, and tell the installer to install to the hard drive instead of your SSD.

After a while your Mac will boot from that hard drive after doing its usual self-install, and it will have its BootROM updated to the latest version! You can save that hard drive and boot from it the next time there is an upgrade / security patch that updates the firmware.

SSDs where you don't need to use the hard drive trick: OEM Apple SSDs (some come from Samsung, some come from SanDisk, others from Toshiba), Samsung SM 951, EVO 960 and 960 PRO

SSDs where you need to use the hard drive trick: all other third party SSDs so far as I can tell. Only tried Sabrents, Inland Premiums, and Microns myself.

It appears that the BootROM installers do a check of the SSD and depending on what it finds, either runs the firmware update or doesn't. Can't imagine that Apple puts a callable command in the OEM SSD firmware from three different vendors, so IMHO it's only looking for a particular SSD ID or something, as the Samsung SM 951 / 960 EVO and Pro seem to work okay.

To check if your Mac is running the latest EFI firmware, run this great program called SilentKnight, available here:

https://eclecticlight.co/lockrattler-systhist/

It will check your firmware against an updated list kept online, and also tell you if there's anything that needs to be updated with your basic macOS.

SilentKnight also has other useful info, it can tell you if you have SIP enabled/disabled, your Mac's exact model number, and other misc. system info.

So I just tried this... I set up a fresh USB drive with the 10.14.6 installer and installed to an external USB drive. It did not update my internal BootRom though. I'm still on 192.0.0.0 (I believe my MBP 11,4 should be on 194.0.0.0). Any idea what I did wrong?

 

[le9508]

I stumbled upon this thread earlier today and I’m very tempted to upgrade my late 2013 15” MacBook Pro. Before going through with this, I have two questions:

1. I understand that I’ll have to patch the EFI using the Korean J6100 adaptor. How do OS updates work after patching? From what I’ve read, I’ll be able to update as normal, but the only difference will be that I won’t receive EFI updates. I also found that you can install Mac OS to an external drive and update on there, which will update the EFI. But if I do this, will it then be necessary to re-flash the EFI to keep hibernation working?
2. It seems like the Sabrent Rocket is the best choice, so I will be going with this. There are apparently 2 versions of the Sintech adaptor: long and short. The long one seems more reliable to me, but is it physically compatible with the Sabrent, i.e. will it fit?

On a side note: I found a post by DutchGuy Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe. It doesn’t look like the steps worked on Mojave, but what about installing High Sierra on an external drive and then following the instructions in the StackExchange comment at

(https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...use-of-a-sintech-adapter#comment444229_333495)

Basically, just running
/usr/libexec/efiupdater -p /path/to/EFIPayloads --force-update
with the patched file in an installation of High Sierra on an external drive.


Thanks for the help, I appreciate it.

 

[DmitryZ]

I have two questions:

1. I bought MattCard and flash patched EFI backup to this card and then install it to motherboard. I think this is more safety variant. Yes, you can't receive EFI updates to non-Apple ssd.
2. I bought Sabrent Rocket 1tb + Sintech long adapter - working perfect, but you should cut a part of adapter(anchorage area), cause Sabrent Rocket has memory on both sides of ssd logic board and you can't close notebook back lid without this modification.

Best regads