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

[Luki1979]

I also have Retina Mid 2014 13'' and instaled Intel 660p nvme ssd 1TB to a sintech long adapter, but I'm always getting drive showing as external (yellow icon) at boot so I have to wait 30 seconds to boot from drive. Do you have that kind of problems or not? Sleep, hibernate works like it should.
I am using Catalina beta 8 with bootrom 157.
P.s. Drive in system report shows as internal. Is this maybe adapter fault, I already tried two of them. I also tried on Macbook Air 2017 and it works without problems.

No mate, nothing like that boots super fast. It must be the adapter. I'm on Mojave though so still 156 boot room. Only thing I've noticed is my Macbook sometimes turn itself on. Happens twice but not sure if that's related to SSD.

Drive shows like that:

 

[Luki1979]

How is your drive shown on boot screen (alt pressed) - external (yellow icon) or normal (internal) and if boot is delayed for 10 seconds after chime or not?

Aha now I understand, yes on boot selection drive shows as external, I think simply as it's not Apple drive so EFI thinks it's external drive.

 

[JohnyDJ]

No mate, nothing like that boots super fast. It must be the adapter. I'm on Mojave though so still 156 boot room. Only thing I've noticed is my Macbook sometimes turn itself on. Happens twice but not sure if that's related to SSD.

Hm... thanks. Will buy short adapter though directly from sintech, because I have long one from ebay also sintech and NFHK one.
Try reseting NVRAM and SMC maybe thats the case of waking up randomly.

So the only solution is to flash nvram settings from Macbook pro 2015 to have everything fully working.

 

[aidanw]

I did not flash anything just updated rom to latest version and worked right away, but also tried on 156 version before on Mojave and also worked. I tried hibernate over night and just lost 1% of battery, reboot and waking from sleep no problems.
Also tried two different m.2 ssds and two different adapters.
Edit: I tried sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 and then it hangs from waking up and just normaly boots, but default is 3, so after night I did not have any problems with sleep. Probably it sleeps and after a long period of time not using it, it hibernates.
I didn't try this one yet.

How is your drive shown on boot screen (alt pressed) - external (yellow icon) or normal (internal) and if boot is delayed for 10 seconds after chime or not?

Drive is shown as external yellow drive icon on boot menu. There's nothing else that indicates it's external when booted?
I haven't noticed any 10 second delay after the chime, but then I don't shutdown or restart often.

You may not have noticed hibernate issues because the hibernate timeout for a full battery is _very_ long. Even 8 hours overnight won't trigger it.

There are two states for the power settings, one is when the battery is low "standbydelaylow", the other is when the battery is high "standbydelayhigh".

The default value for standbydelayhigh is 86400, i.e. 24 hours. Therefore if your battery is "high" (I'm not sure what % battery defines this) then macos won't try to go into hibernate mode for 24 hours.

Btw the default value for standbydelaylow is 10800, i.e. 3 hours.

If you want to test hibernate, I recommend setting both these values to 3600 i.e. 1 hour. Then leave it unplugged overnight and be more confident the mac will try to go into hibernate mode.

*Edit, this is on MBPr 15" mid-2014 with 1TB sabrent rocket using long sintech adapter, mojave, unpatched efi (so far).

 

[Luki1979]

Hibernation is totally irrelevant to me as I simply shutting down when I'm done with MacBook for a day so I don't even know if hibernation works, sleep is enough for me.
PS. I've noticed delay after I've tried booting with alt pressed it is like 10 seconds. Reselecting target disk in Startup Disk / System Preferences and now delay is like 5 seconds, I'm not 100% sure as I didn't measure the delay.
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So the only solution is to flash nvram settings from Macbook pro 2015 to have everything fully working.

Now that's ambitious plan, make sure you back up your data

 

[JohnyDJ]

Drive is shown as external yellow drive icon on boot menu. There's nothing else that indicates it's external when booted?
I haven't noticed any 10 second delay after the chime, but then I don't shutdown or restart often.

You may not have noticed hibernate issues because the hibernate timeout for a full battery is _very_ long. Even 8 hours overnight won't trigger it.

There are two states for the power settings, one is when the battery is low "standbydelaylow", the other is when the battery is high "standbydelayhigh".

The default value for standbydelayhigh is 86400, i.e. 24 hours. Therefore if your battery is "high" (I'm not sure what % battery defines this) then macos won't try to go into hibernate mode for 24 hours.

Btw the default value for standbydelaylow is 10800, i.e. 3 hours.

If you want to test hibernate, I recommend setting both these values to 3600 i.e. 1 hour. Then leave it unplugged overnight and be more confident the mac will try to go into hibernate mode.

*Edit, this is on MBPr 15" mid-2014 with 1TB sabrent rocket using long sintech adapter, mojave, unpatched efi (so far).

Yes you are right tried that and hibernation didn't work, also hibernate mode 25 triger hibernation right away to test. Maybe Catalina will update boot rom like on 2015 macbook's which don't have that problem (I hope)
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Hibernation is totally irrelevant to me as I simply shutting down when I'm done with MacBook for a day so I don't even know if hibernation works, sleep is enough for me.
PS. I've noticed delay after I've tried booting with alt pressed it is like 10 seconds. Reselecting target disk in Startup Disk / System Preferences and now delay is like 5 seconds, I'm not 100% sure as I didn't measure the delay.
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Now that's ambitious plan, make sure you back up your data

I will try to reach some apple service IT , who has this in their work shop to do it

 

[Victor Rossetti]

Hi, nice to meet you all
New in this forum and thread..
I'm Victor, and own a MBP 13 late 2013.
Since it's battery was failing and had to be replaced, it was also a great opportunity to upgrade the ssd . Found on Amazon the Sintech short adapter (black version and bought it along a Kingston A2000 1TB blade. (Haven't read this forum before the buy)
Before installing I upgraded to the latest Catalina beta, to ensure latest BootROM.
Replaced the battery and the SSD with adapter, without the tape shielding. No problems so far, have still a lot to test on the sleep/hibernate issues, which haven't appeared yet.

I ran speed tests and found overall R/W speeds about 330 MB/sec, which look quite slow for the drive speed.
Hence the newbie questions:

.- What can I do to attain better speeds?
.- Is shielding with Kapton tape really needed for my adapter?

Thank you all for your help

 

[vince22]

Hi, nice to meet you all
New in this forum and thread..
I'm Victor, and own a MBP 13 late 2013.
Since it's battery was failing and had to be replaced, it was also a great opportunity to upgrade the ssd . Found on Amazon the Sintech short adapter (black version and bought it along a Kingston A2000 1TB blade. (Haven't read this forum before the buy)
Before installing I upgraded to the latest Catalina beta, to ensure latest BootROM.
Replaced the battery and the SSD with adapter, without the tape shielding. No problems so far, have still a lot to test on the sleep/hibernate issues, which haven't appeared yetView attachment 860509.

I ran speed tests and found overall R/W speeds about 330 MB/sec, which look quite slow for the drive speed.
Hence the newbie questions:

.- What can I do to attain better speeds?
.- Is shielding with Kapton tape really needed for my adapter?

Thank you all for your help

that's pretty low for 2013, maybe faulty sintech adapter?

 

[Luki1979]

There isn't much difference between 2013/2014 Haswell and 2015 Broadwell MacBook technically. I wonder if Apple will do us favour and update the boot rooms.

I got 2 chimes on a boot from battery today. Anybody got this issue?

 

[mo5214]

Actually for 15" models, the late 2013-2014 and 2015 models all uses haswell/crystalwell CPUS. I wonder why only the bootrom on the 2015 works with NVMe OOB, and the previous ones requires bootrom patching. BTW nice meeting Y'all. Regis-ed just for this thread (after been lurking here forever )

 

[flaubert]

Actually for 15" models, the late 2013-2014 and 2015 models all uses haswell/crystalwell CPUS. I wonder why only the bootrom on the 2015 works with NVMe OOB, and the previous ones requires bootrom patching. BTW nice meeting Y'all. Regis-ed just for this thread (after been lurking here forever )

The very first post of this thread (the wiki) explains why the 2013-2014 models have boot rom limitations; it has to do with a compressed driver that doesn't properly get loaded on activation from sleep. See the first posting section titled "Fixing Hibernation issues on 2013-2014 laptops."

 

[mo5214]

The very first post of this thread (the wiki) explains why the 2013-2014 models have boot rom limitations; it has to do with a compressed driver that doesn't properly get loaded on activation from sleep. See the first posting section titled "Fixing Hibernation issues on 2013-2014 laptops."

I am aware that the late 2013-2014 models had a 'faulty' NVMe drivers, and thus need to be patched. What I was curious about was that since (late 2013-2014) and (2015) 15" models are of basically the same design and architecture (from schematics they seemed almost identical except the choice of x2 and x4 speed AHCI PCIe SSDs, and new interfaces for ForceTouch), how come they dont share the same BootROM. (I mean they could've just pushed the BootROM on the older ones and have them share the ROM)

Am I missing something? Or Is it that the boards of these 2 models are really different design wise?

I suppose that the design deviation (of adding Force Touch-capable trackpad) requires updated ROM and they just threw it in there. (They could've had some prototype NVMe in the labs and some nice engineer decided to throw it in as a bonus)

 

[Victor Rossetti]

that's pretty low for 2013, maybe faulty sintech adapter? fresh install needed? here's comparison (2012 MBP 13") (2012 MBP 13" RAID0) (2015 MBP 13")

Found what is happening, just 1X PCIe lane enabled.... well, let's start diagnosing and see what can be done

 

[Luki1979]

Damn if I knew I would go for 2015 model as cost almost the same second hand. Only thing I've noticed that 2015 screens goes really bad (stain gate issue) but that's another subject.
We can only hope that final Catalina will bring us new boot rom with NVMe support but I won't hold my breath for now I'm disabling hibernation.

 

[Victor Rossetti]

Found what is happening, just 1X PCIe lane enabled.... well, let's start diagnosing and see what can be done

Solved: Isolated the Adapter as per instructions and reconnected everything....

This stuff is amazing

 

[mo5214]

Damn if I knew I would go for 2015 model as cost almost the same second hand. Only thing I've noticed that 2015 screens goes really bad (stain gate issue) but that's another subject.
We can only hope that final Catalina will bring us new boot rom with NVMe support but I won't hold my breath for now I'm disabling hibernation.

Most people may not know this, but I am just gonna put it out there. The coating on the 'staingate' affected screens can be easily removed using glass etching cream such as Armour Etch (That's what I use).

The procedure is kind of the same with how they fix scratched-up multi-coated prescription glasses. Apply dab of cream on a used tooth brush and then brush it on the surface. The coating should come right out. Then wipe and clean. The coating will be gone. but it will make the surface completely transparent again.

Pros:
- no more annoying smudge.

Cons:
screen gonna be a bit more reflective (like the old unibody MBPs) now

Potential Evil Plan (If you are evil. I'm not responsible for potential consequences or guilty conscience):
1. Buy cheap 'Broken Screen rMBPs' off eBay (or somewhere else) that is within Apple's Screen program (4 Yrs after Purchase, check serial)
2. Make ur own 'Staingate affected screens' screen using the glass-etcher so its covered under the repair program.
3. Turn the machine in to Apple for a free new screen assembly!
4. Sell the Machine (Or keep it) (Or just sell the fixed Screen)
5. Profit!

Rationale:
TBH The coating is gonna come off the screen anyway as its only the matter of time the coating expires and goes bad. Might as well get a new screen while u can.

I Had applied this treatment on several rMBPs already. Works wonders. But I taped off the rubber gasket around the screen as it corrodes anodized aluminum. Remember to wear eye protection and gloves.

 

[vince22]

Most people may not know this, but I am just gonna put it out there. The coating on the 'staingate' affected screens can be easily removed using glass etching cream such as Armour Etch (That's what I use).

The procedure is kind of the same with how they fix scratched-up multi-coated prescription glasses. Apply dab of cream on a used tooth brush and then brush it on the surface. The coating should come right out. Then wipe and clean. The coating will be gone. but it will make the surface completely transparent again.

Pros:
- no more annoying smudge.

Cons:
screen gonna be a bit more reflective (like the old unibody MBPs) now

Potential Evil Plan (If you are evil. I'm not responsible for potential consequences or guilty conscience):
1. Buy cheap 'Broken Screen rMBPs' off eBay (or somewhere else) that is within Apple's Screen program (4 Yrs after Purchase, check serial)
2. Make ur own 'Staingate affected screens' screen using the glass-etcher so its covered under the repair program.
3. Turn the machine in to Apple for a free new screen assembly!
4. Sell the Machine (Or keep it) (Or just sell the fixed Screen)
5. Profit!

Rationale:
TBH The coating is gonna come off the screen anyway as its only the matter of time the coating expires and goes bad. Might as well get a new screen while u can.

I Had applied this treatment on several rMBPs already. Works wonders. But I taped off the rubber gasket around the screen as it corrodes anodized aluminum. Remember to wear eye protection and gloves.

thanks for the tip, this will be handy if my 2015 MBP staingate occurs.

 

[a-maxime]

That said, with a NVMe drive you can lower the hibernation delay : I did it on my own 2015 rMBP that I'm using for 2 years now with a NVMe drive. I've setted standbydelay to 180s on battery, so my mac goes to hibernation nearly immediatly. This is not an issue because wake from hibernation is very fast with a NVMe drive.

Hi Gilles,

I started writing this post in French but after thinking my question and your answer could be profitable for other people too. I'm going to change my 15' Late 2013 Stock SSD for a Sabrent Rocket 2 To. I will obviously make the BootRom trick to get hibernation working properly. My only question is can you share us your pmset settings with a modified BootRom ?

Thanks,
Maxime

Hello,

Anyone in France would have a J6100 SPI-ROM adapter which I can borrow for a few days? I pay the postal service expenses.
I just need to flash a new EFI ROM.
I already have the CH341A chip/stick.
Maybe @gilles_polysoft ?

Big thanks!

Hi mate,

I have it on Paris or Toulouse right now, I could lend it to you if needed once my modification on mine is done.
Don't hesitate to send me a message

 

[gogydm]

Solved: Isolated the Adapter as per instructions and reconnected everything....

This stuff is amazing

What is the current version of the BootROM with your late 2013 13" MBP now that you're using Catalina beta? And have you had an opportunity to test hibernation and sleep with the Kingston drive?

Thanks in advance!

 

[monofase]

Hi all,
I'm running a Samsung 970 Evo 1TB in my 2015 15" MBP without any problem since more that one year.
The only issue is with the battery. It lasts only 3 hours and I remember that with the original Apple SSD it was lasting 6 Hours.
It's a good idea to replace the SSD with a less power hungry one? Such as the Kingston A2000 or HP.
Any idea of which is a good choice between performance and battery time?

 

[IgorGIV]

Any idea of which is a good choice between performance and battery time?

Intel 760p.

 

[aidanw]

Hi all,
I'm running a Samsung 970 Evo 1TB in my 2015 15" MBP without any problem since more that one year.
The only issue is with the battery. It lasts only 3 hours and I remember that with the original Apple SSD it was lasting 6 Hours.
It's a good idea to replace the SSD with a less power hungry one? Such as the Kingston A2000 or HP.
Any idea of which is a good choice between performance and battery time?

I'm also only getting 3hrs with Sabrent Rocket 1TB in mid-2014 MBPr 15" when surfing the web. Has halved the battery for me, if not worse. If I'm using Lightroom I've had it go flat in 2hrs which is pretty horrendous.

So I wouldn't recommend the Sabrent for that reason.

 

[mo5214]

I'm also only getting 3hrs with Sabrent Rocket 1TB in mid-2014 MBPr 15" when surfing the web. Has halved the battery for me, if not worse. If I'm using Lightroom I've had it go flat in 2hrs which is pretty horrendous.

So I wouldn't recommend the Sabrent for that reason.

There might be a problem elsewhere. Can you confirm that it's the SSD? (try logging SSD Current draw using iStatMenu among other stats). (I'm considering the switch from 970 Pro to Sabrent)

AFAIK, a lot of ppl (inc. the excel in the first page) suggest that Sabrent have like, half the power consumption on the laptop.

Have you patched the BootROM(with the 2015 ones)? or updated the BootROM at all?
It helped in my case (better stability on my rMBP 2015 after updating from 183.0.0 to 195)

 

[aidanw]

There might be a problem elsewhere. Can you confirm that it's the SSD? (try logging SSD Current draw using iStatMenu among other stats). (I'm considering the switch from 970 Pro to Sabrent)

AFAIK, a lot of ppl (inc. the excel in the first page) suggest that Sabrent have like, half the power consumption on the laptop.

Have you patched the BootROM(with the 2015 ones)? or updated the BootROM at all?
It helped in my case (better stability on my rMBP 2015 after updating from 183.0.0 to 195)

I'll check the power draw tonight.

It's the second SSD I've installed in the Macbook, first was a change from 256GB Apple SSD to a 512GB Apple SSD. Didn't notice a change in battery life then.

I have noticed the Sabrent is remarkably quick compared to the Apple SSD.

Haven't patched the bootrom with the 2015 one due to the cost of the J6100 (although I might give in on that and get one). I only lose 1-5% overnight in standby so haven't found the lack of hibernate to be as much of an issue as I thought it might be. Had Mojave with Apple SSD so whatever the bootrom is that came with that is the one I'm on.

*Edit: If anyone has a J6100 they're definitely not using and want to sell (and don't mind posting to New Zealand) please PM me. And if you want it back I'll happily pay to send it back to you.

 

[vince22]

I'm also only getting 3hrs with Sabrent Rocket 1TB in mid-2014 MBPr 15" when surfing the web. Has halved the battery for me, if not worse. If I'm using Lightroom I've had it go flat in 2hrs which is pretty horrendous.

So I wouldn't recommend the Sabrent for that reason.

I've used Sabrent Rocket 1TB in 2015 MBPr 13", definitely got more than 7hrs of battery life just for browsing (LCD 50% brightness), check istatmenu for power draw.