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

[tzippy]

I don’t think you can just fit the new drive and set it up from recovery, it’ll never see the drive to use it.

Actually, yes you can. I installed the blank, unformatted new SSD. The only "problem" was that entering the recovery mode using Command+R would not download the latest version of macOS. When I did that, I ended up with a "OS X" labelled version. So no support for NVMe since that came with macOS Sierra.

What I actually needed to do was entering the recovery mode with Option-⌘-R. This way, the latest compatible macOS version is downloaded. And that one actually did support NVMe and I was able to see the drive and format it.
Thanks to user @Birkan for that.

The support document on Option-⌘-R states that starting recovery mode with Command+R is downloading the macOS version that was last installed on the computer. Since I started with a blank SSD installed there was no way for it to determine which macOS was "last installed". So I guess it just downloaded the one that was installed when the computer shipped back in 2015. And that was some version of OS X (before the rebranding to macOS).

On a different note:
I unfortunately did not format my "old" SSD before replacing it with a new one.
So I would have to reinstall it to safely format it so I can sell it.
Or I get an external enclosure with a USB port. But it looks like those are only available for around $50 and upwards for my MacBook Pro 2015. For the Macbook air 2012 model they seem to be cheaper, starting at $15.

 

[Elviss116]

[QUOTE = "vince22, publicación: 28600620, miembro: 852431"]
Hace solo 10 meses que me uní a este hilo y reemplacé mi MBP de 13 "de principios de 2015 con un cohete sabrent de 1TB, WDsn750 1TB, adaptador corto sintech y no tengo nada más que una excelente confiabilidad hasta ahora, al menos 7- 8 horas de duración de la batería de mi uso diario, con 5 años de garantía, me arriesgaré.
[/QUOTE]

Decide, ¿SSD Sabrent o Western Digital?

 

[herb2k]

I have an intel 660p and my battery life ranges from 5-6hrs compared to the original drive of ~8hrs or so.

I understand from the charts at the top, that the Sabrent will be the most power efficient, and you may get more battery life from Sabrent.

 

[Birkan]

Actually, yes you can. I installed the blank, unformatted new SSD. The only "problem" was that entering the recovery mode using Command+R would not download the latest version of macOS. When I did that, I ended up with a "OS X" labelled version. So no support for NVMe since that came with macOS Sierra.

What I actually needed to do was entering the recovery mode with Option-⌘-R. This way, the latest compatible macOS version is downloaded. And that one actually did support NVMe and I was able to see the drive and format it.
Thanks to user @Birkan for that.

The support document on Option-⌘-R states that starting recovery mode with Command+R is downloading the macOS version that was last installed on the computer. Since I started with a blank SSD installed there was no way for it to determine which macOS was "last installed". So I guess it just downloaded the one that was installed when the computer shipped back in 2015. And that was some version of OS X (before the rebranding to macOS).

On a different note:
I unfortunately did not format my "old" SSD before replacing it with a new one.
So I would have to reinstall it to safely format it so I can sell it.
Or I get an external enclosure with a USB port. But it looks like those are only available for around $50 and upwards for my MacBook Pro 2015. For the Macbook air 2012 model they seem to be cheaper, starting at $15.

You can get an NVMe to USB 3.1 case like this one from AliExpress for around $20. I have an older generation version of this external case and it works pretty well for my use case. You can get up to 1 GB/s read/write speeds depending on the SSD inside. PS: Nevermind, I forgot that the SSD inside the Mac is not a normal NVMe SSD. I was thinking about the other way around.

 

[bape1892]

Hi guys - just looking for some advice here. I have a Macbook Pro Late-2013 (A1502) which I have upgraded to the 1TB Samsung Evo 970, using in conjunction with this Sintech short adapter: here

I am experiencing a great improvement in read/write speeds and battery life i'm not too fussed about however I often have times where the MBP pro will fail to wake from sleep. At first I used a cheaper adapter but moved to the recommended Sintech one.

I know I'm being lazy here but without wading through 270 pages of posts - is it possible to have a fully functional MBP successfully working with the Samsung Evo 970 with no sleep/wake issues?

Here are my power settings - and any help is much appreciated!

standbydelaylow 10800
standby 1
halfdim 1
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap 0
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 60 (sleep prevented by AddressBookSourceSync, sharingd)
autopoweroffdelay 0
hibernatemode 0
autopoweroff 0
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 60
highstandbythreshold 50
acwake 0
lidwake 0

 

[Audit13]

Hi guys - just looking for some advice here. I have a Macbook Pro Late-2013 (A1502) which I have upgraded to the 1TB Samsung Evo 970, using in conjunction with this Sintech short adapter: here

I am experiencing a great improvement in read/write speeds and battery life i'm not too fussed about however I often have times where the MBP pro will fail to wake from sleep. At first I used a cheaper adapter but moved to the recommended Sintech one.

I know I'm being lazy here but without wading through 270 pages of posts - is it possible to have a fully functional MBP successfully working with the Samsung Evo 970 with no sleep/wake issues?

You need to flash a modded bootrom is you want the MacBook to support sleep/wake with a NVMe drive. There's no way around it at this moment.

 

[nosajgames]

You need to flash a modded bootrom is you want the MacBook to support sleep/wake with a NVMe drive. There's no way around it at this moment.

Hey, I've been running into the issue with me having to restart my computer sometimes from wake/sleep, do we have prior threads to support this flashed bottom process?

 

[herb2k]

Hey, I've been running into the issue with me having to restart my computer sometimes from wake/sleep, do we have prior threads to support this flashed bottom process?

Post #1 at the top of the thread: Fixing Hibernation issues on 2013-2014 laptops

 

[nothingtoseehere]

Hello everybody, this is a report of my successful SSD upgrade on a rMBP 13" early 2015. Thanks to all contributors in this great thread, really helpful!

These are the internals of my machine at the beginning. Before doing the upgrade, I got a new battery from the Apple store - I was fearing that going there after the upgrade, they would deny it, no idea whether this is true. I think that 209 Euro are a very good price for a new battery, new keyboard and new trackpad as they changed all of it.



Preparing for the work, I followed the instructions of this Youtube guy:

I liked his method not to go via Time Machine but to put the new SSD into an enclosure, install the OS on it and transfer the system directly to the new SSD. Very elegant and fast!
Mysteriously, it took several attempts to install Mojave on the new SSD. Mac App Store produced errors after the download, but when I was short of giving up, it suddenly worked.

The SSD is Western Digital SN550 1 TB High-Performance M,2 PCIe NVME SSD. See old and new (Sintech adapter already in place) here:



The actual swapping was easy. Here the machine after the upgrade:



I did it because of space rather than speed. Nevertheless, the writing speed spiked. Before:


After:



The new system is now fully functional for about ten days so I think I can call it a success Not getting hotter than before.

The remaining question is, what shall I do with the old 512 GB original SSD. There is an - rather pricey - OWC enclosure out there. Would be very obliged for any ideas!

 

[Cyberflyer]

On May 27, 2020 I purchased an XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB 3D NAND NVMe Gen3x4 PCIe M.2 2280 Solid State Drive R/W 3500/3000MB/s SSD (ASX8200PNP-2TT-C) from Amazon.com in anticipation of installing in a MID-2015 MacBook Pro.

I also purchased a SinTech NVMe/PCIe adaptor board to convert the stock pins to the Apple proprietary pins. This is recommended by the forum as the only adaptor that gets the engineering right.

As my mid 2015 MBP delivery was delayed I only recently installed the SSD along with repasting the CPU/GPU.

I am developing a YouTube video explaining the choice of system, SinTech Adaptor and the XPG ADATA SX8200 Pro device. This will highlight the performance resulting which should be on the order of ~3500 MB/s Read and ~3000 MB/s Write.


After the installation I got the following numbers on my benchmarks:

AmorphousDiskMark. (Crystal Disk Mark for Mac)

AJA System Test Lite

Black Magic Disk Speed Test

The Read/Write disparity does not match between tests.

These speeds, while impressive, are not close to 3500 MB/s Read and ~3000 MB/s Write. I'd buy a little less than advertised due to System overhead, but not much as Catalina 10.15.5 is a mature version of Apple's latest OS.

I doubled the Kapon tape to make certain I did not short any pins on the Adapter.

Anyone have any thoughts as to why I am not getting 3500/3000?

I've sent all of this to ADATA/XPG with a request for a replacement that will deliver the full rated/advertised speed.

 

[Thomas Kuang]

So far across the Internet, I have seen the following SSDs update their BootROM with either the 2020-003 Security Update or 10.15.5..

- 1 TB OWC Aura Pro (ugh)
- 500 GB Samsung EVO Plus
- 1 TB Silicon Power

add those to the 1 TB Inland Premium and 500 GB 960 EVO..

New to this upgrade thing, so bear with me if questions seem silly. In your post, the listed SSDs will update the MacBook BootROM or what? Reason I'm asking is I'm preparing to upgrade SSD on my 2014 MBA (6,2) so I need to flash the BootROM that it can hibernate. My understanding was that I need to flash a custom made BootROM every time MBA upgrades their OS if BootROM changes. Does this "SSD update BootROM" solve that problem, or it's totally irrelevant? TIA!

 

[aslowdodge]

I have a 2013 MacbookPro 15 in late 2013 with 2.3ghz I7 and 16gb of Ram running Mojave. I want to go to a larger SSD. I see the list and I know I need the sintech adapter. I need to clone the old SSD onto the new one. I will need an external case to hold the new drive. Which one to use?

 

[Cyberflyer]

On May 27, 2020 I purchased an XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB 3D NAND NVMe Gen3x4 PCIe M.2 2280 Solid State Drive R/W 3500/3000MB/s SSD (ASX8200PNP-2TT-C) from Amazon.com in anticipation of installing in a MID-2015 MacBook Pro.

A few more details from System Info:

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,5
Processor Name: Quad-Core Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2.8 GHz
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: 198.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.30f2

ADATA SX8200PNP:

Capacity: 2.05 TB (2,048,408,248,320 bytes)
TRIM Support: Yes
Model: ADATA SX8200PNP
Revision: 42AZS6AC
Serial Number: 2K1220049989
Link Width: x4
Link Speed: 8.0 GT/s

I don't see a firmware version (unless that is Revision, above). Nor can I possibly update the firmware as ADATA does not provide a utility that runs on the Mac OS like they do for Windoze.

 

[Audit13]

I have a 2013 MacbookPro 15 in late 2013 with 2.3ghz I7 and 16gb of Ram running Mojave. I want to go to a larger SSD. I see the list and I know I need the sintech adapter. I need to clone the old SSD onto the new one. I will need an external case to hold the new drive. Which one to use?

You could create a time machine backup, install the new drive, and restore from time machine. This saves you having to buy an external case. Ive successfully used this method several times.

 

[Needleroozer]

New to this upgrade thing, so bear with me if questions seem silly. In your post, the listed SSDs will update the MacBook BootROM or what? Reason I'm asking is I'm preparing to upgrade SSD on my 2014 MBA (6,2) so I need to flash the BootROM that it can hibernate. My understanding was that I need to flash a custom made BootROM every time MBA upgrades their OS if BootROM changes. Does this "SSD update BootROM" solve that problem, or it's totally irrelevant? TIA!

Recent macOS updates have been found to update the laptop’s BootROM to the latest version regardless of whether an original Apple SSD is installed. Previously, laptops with non-stock SSDs would not upgrade their BootROM when running macOS updates that contained a newer version.
This means that those of us who have flashed patched BootROMs to enable hibernation will need to re-patch the BootROM every time we perform one of these updates.

 

[Waughy]

Well I've decided to bite the bullet and go back to an Apple SSD. For my 2014 MBP I have found a 2015 dated 512Gb drive (SSUBX, so 4x lanes) for a reasonable price (still not cheap, but AU$100 cheaper than the average going price compared to others on sale at present). I'll sell the Adata if I can find a buyer, but due to the issue I had on installation I'll have to take a cut on what I can sell it for, but I can cop that. The Apple SSD will run a bit slower I imagine, but will still be faster than the original SSUAX 2x lane original 256Gb SSD.

Main reason for the swap is that I don't always remember to do a full shutdown in between uses, and it's been draining the battery flat more often than I'm happy with. That's only increasing the battery cycles faster than it normally would, and I'd rather not have to replace the battery sooner than it needs it. I also like the option of it being almost instant on from sleep (without the battery hit), as well as unlocking with my watch (that's just a little extra plus to having an OEM drive. It didn't factor into my decision).

Hopefully these drives are working well enough that everyone else is happy. Performance is great, I'm just over my poor battery getting flogged for no reason when the MBP should be asleep. I have been through all the settings for sleep and hibernate, so I'm confident there's nothing there that I haven't set right. It's just the way things work with these drives in the pre 2015 computers.

 

[Thomas Kuang]

Recent macOS updates have been found to update the laptop’s BootROM to the latest version regardless of whether an original Apple SSD is installed. Previously, laptops with non-stock SSDs would not upgrade their BootROM when running macOS updates that contained a newer version.
This means that those of us who have flashed patched BootROMs to enable hibernation will need to re-patch the BootROM every time we perform one of these updates.

bad news for us. So the bootrom didn’t get upgraded with the macOS update on non reported ones like the Sabrent?

 

[Needleroozer]

bad news for us. So the bootrom didn’t get upgraded with the macOS update on non reported ones like the Sabrent?

I think that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; it’s likely that all installations now get BootROM updates. I’m on mobile right now, but I think that was the general gist of the speculation when this started being observed. The way to know for sure would be to search this thread and see if anybody has a report of the BootROM version staying the same on newer macOS updates with a non-stock SSD.

 

[vince22]

I think that an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; it’s likely that all installations now get BootROM updates. I’m on mobile right now, but I think that was the general gist of the speculation when this started being observed. The way to know for sure would be to search this thread and see if anybody has a report of the BootROM version staying the same on newer macOS updates with a non-stock SSD.

BootRom was updated with latest MacOS Western digital SN750/sintech adapter 2015 13" MacBook Pro.

 

[Thomas Kuang]

BootRom was updated with latest MacOS Western digital SN750/sintech adapter 2015 13" MacBook Pro.

Thanks for your data point. How often is Apple to release the new BootRom? I know they have major release once a year or so, but how about small patches (like windows machine)? I'm Okay to open the case and flash the rom once a year. But if it's once a month or two, I'm giving up. After all, each rom flashing is risk taking.

 

[macpro_mid2014]

BootRom was updated with latest MacOS Western digital SN750/sintech adapter 2015 13" MacBook Pro.

I've just updated Calatina from 10.15.5 to 10.15.6 in a Silicon Power NVMe 1TB on my Macbook Pro mid-2014 15" and the BootRom has been updated from 160.0.0.0 to 162.0.0.0 (Apple skipped version 161.0.0.0)

Update: The update on a MacBook Air Early 2015 and Silicon Power 500GB also completed without issues. In this case, the Bootrom has been updated from 194.0.0.0 to 195.0.0.0

Later this week, I will test the hibernation issue and post it here.

 

[herb2k]

I've just updated Calatina from 10.15.5 to 10.15.6 in a Silicon Power NVMe 1TB on my Macbook Pro mid-2014 15" and the BootRom has been updated from 160.0.0.0 to 162.0.0.0 (Apple skipped version 161.0.0.0)

Update: The update on a MacBook Air Early 2015 and Silicon Power 500GB also completed without issues. In this case, the Bootrom has been updated from 194.0.0.0 to 195.0.0.0

Later this week, I will test the hibernation issue and post it here.

Same experience on my MBP 13" Retina Early 2015, update BootRom from 161 to 162 without issues. Have been running the beta and it improved my standby battery drain (consistently about ~9% overnight now, in the past it varied from 20-30% even with no apps running).

Using sintech Short Green adapter and Intel 660p.

 

[landfiles]

Hello everyone

I just upgraded my Macbook Pro 2015, 15 inch, with a 512 Sabrent Rocket SSD.

I want to share my experience using a faulty adaptor.

i had 2 of these cheap adaptors, and I was getting terrible results on writing, after I installed the new ssd.
(You can see the results, around 600 mb/s on writing)

so I just changed the adaptor, to the other one I had (both identical, lucky I bought 2) and the results boosted up!

So, just be careful on what adapter you use!
I'm still buying the sintech adapter that everyone recommends on the forum.

Good luck !

 

[kkng]

Installed the latest update for Catalina (10.15.6) on my mid-2013 MBA (Corsair MP510 + Sintech adapter) and the Boot-ROM changed from 120.0.0.0.0 to 122.0.0.0.0.

 

[viprshark]

I have read about 25-30 pages of this post by searching different phrases and questions I've had. I have come to the conclusion that buying an OEM Apple SSD is the best way to go if you want to avoid overheating and sleep/hibernation issues. Off brand SSDs will give you better bang for your buck aka better speed and space compared Apple OEM SSDs. I am willing to forgo these advantages.

Where do you recommend buying genuine Apple OEM SSD drives?