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

[Asoka1989]

Hi all... have been following this thread and almost ready to pull the trigger on an upgrade (Sintech adapter, Barracuda 510 SSD NVMe) when I got flummoxed by my rMBP Late 2013 15" Apple System Report details. All the data from my System confirms its a Late 2013 model.

And so, all sources say (including Apple), this should have a SSD on a PCIe interface. I am a bit confused with my ASR information - which shows the SSD on the SATA Device tree vs. the PCI one... is it simply because Apple used a SATA m.2 for the SSD on the PCI hardware interface and that's confusing me ?(or) did I get some sort of Frankenstein laptop ?

If anyone has gone thru' a similar situation and pulled off a NVMe upgrade successfully would you please let me know ?

 

[Cmd+Q]

[...] what do you mean "does the update get flashed to the MattCard?". As far as I understand, do you say that maybe when I will install Big Sur (or any other upgrade), the firmware of the Mattcard is overwritten and my at-the-beginning-well-spent-65€ are thrown away? I would like to believe that the Mattcard firmware is only readable (maybe I am just saying nonsense).

I had to strike the speculation from my previous reply. The MattCard webpage has some new information since I last checked. But still, I don’t know what the mechanics are. They will dump a customer provided image onto the card (you’d probably want that, to keep your serial number, etc). It is not clear to me if that ROM can be updated by the customer. This might be interesting when you want an updated firmware that comes with a future macOS release.

 

[JDW]

Not satisfied to be ignored, we shall try a second time...

I have a mid-2015 15" MBP and I am using a SanDisk Extreme Portable 2TB (old gen) USB SSD. When I close the MBP the SanDisk SSD sleeps, but it remains quite warm for the entire duration of the sleep (which means it's drawing quite a lot of power). If I leave the Apple power cable disconnected, the SanDisk will drain the MBP battery dead after a few hours. I think the SSD tech inside is SATA, not NVMe. Even so, are there any kernel extensions or hacks that would reduce power on USB SSDs like this, or otherwise shut them down during sleep?

 

[Cmd+Q]

Not satisfied to be ignored, we shall try a second time...

I don’t think there is any ill-intent here, the configuration you are inquiring about is simply outside of the discussion at hand. My MBP keeps the USB power on in sleep; I believe once the system goes to deep sleep/hibernation that stops. So, you could try: To disconnect USB devices, make the system go to deep sleep by default (see https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-power-while-sleeping.2221178/post-28176570), or make the system transition from sleep to deep sleep after a shorter time interval. In the case of options 2 and 3, I recommend a read of man pmset. I hope this help.

 

[JDW]

you could try: To disconnect USB devices, make the system go to deep sleep by default (see https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/usb-power-while-sleeping.2221178/post-28176570), or make the system transition from sleep to deep sleep after a shorter time interval. In the case of options 2 and 3, I recommend a read of man pmset. I hope this help.

Thank you for the guidance. I see that similar advice appears on this StackExchange page too, and that page seems to indicate you would not be able to use normal sleep (i.e., simply close the lid), but rather I would need to type "pmset sleepnow" each time I want to sleep.

Here's yet another StackExchange discussion that implies "hibernate mode 25" = "standby," which if true means that "hibernate mode 25" Terminal command won't work as per Apple's article which states that no USB devices can be attached. In my case, I have the USB SSD and the Mac booted from that SSD.

 

[herb2k]

Hi all... have been following this thread and almost ready to pull the trigger on an upgrade (Sintech adapter, Barracuda 510 SSD NVMe) when I got flummoxed by my rMBP Late 2013 15" Apple System Report details. All the data from my System confirms its a Late 2013 model.

And so, all sources say (including Apple), this should have a SSD on a PCIe interface. I am a bit confused with my ASR information - which shows the SSD on the SATA Device tree vs. the PCI one... is it simply because Apple used a SATA m.2 for the SSD on the PCI hardware interface and that's confusing me ?(or) did I get some sort of Frankenstein laptop ?

If anyone has gone thru' a similar situation and pulled off a NVMe upgrade successfully would you please let me know ?View attachment 969765

Physical Interconnect = "PCI"

You do have an SSD on the PCIe Interface. The original apple SSDs are SATA (technically SATA Express) as you see in the left hand column. You're good to go with your suggested combo - I have the same, the Seagate works great!

 

[Asoka1989]

Physical Interconnect = "PCI"

You do have an SSD on the PCIe Interface. The original apple SSDs are SATA (technically SATA Express) as you see in the left hand column. You're good to go with your suggested combo - I have the same, the Seagate works great!

Thank you, Herb2K

How has your experience been on the whole battery life/hibernation bit ? Did you hack in the Hibernation fixes recommended on this thread with the Kexts or left things be ? My current battery runs at 63% design capacity so its showing its age

 

[herb2k]

Thank you, Herb2K

How has your experience been on the whole battery life/hibernation bit ? Did you hack in the Hibernation fixes recommended on this thread with the Kexts or left things be ? My current battery runs at 63% design capacity so its showing its age

I have a 2015, so I didn't need to do any of the hibernation fixes (related to crashing, etc.) I did change the delays to ~1hr though.

I noticed the worst "hits" to battery life was just having the laptop lid closed, unplugged and sleeping. That usually would drain 20-30% overnight.

While running, with the NVMeFix kexts, runtime is pretty decent - 5-8 hours depending on what you're doing.

 

[xboxbml]

I have a 2015, so I didn't need to do any of the hibernation fixes (related to crashing, etc.) I did change the delays to ~1hr though.

I noticed the worst "hits" to battery life was just having the laptop lid closed, unplugged and sleeping. That usually would drain 20-30% overnight.

While running, with the NVMeFix kexts, runtime is pretty decent - 5-8 hours depending on what you're doing.

herb2k, have you tried turning off bluetooth just for grins, and see what happens with battery life asleep? I have what's in my sig(2015MBA, SX8200 Pro) and did that, and my battery hardly moves overnight now. I can come back to it in a couple days now and it's only gone down a little. Not the 15-20% or more like I had before I did that. You should try that and see what happens. I only turn my BT on when I need to use my AirPods now. Let us know if you try it and what results are.

 

[herb2k]

herb2k, have you tried turning off bluetooth just for grins, and see what happens with battery life asleep? I have what's in my sig(2015MBA, SX8200 Pro) and did that, and my battery hardly moves overnight now. I can come back to it in a couple days now and it's only gone down a little. Not the 15-20% or more like I had before I did that. You should try that and see what happens. I only turn my BT on when I need to use my AirPods now. Let us know if you try it and what results are.

I did actually - I normally use a BT Keyboard + Mouse, and suspected that allowing those to wake the device caused the drain, no significant change.

I have noticed pretty consistently that there is almost always a little bit of heat from the SSD area when this happens.

 

[xboxbml]

I did actually - I normally use a BT Keyboard + Mouse, and suspected that allowing those to wake the device caused the drain, no significant change.

I have noticed pretty consistently that there is almost always a little bit of heat from the SSD area when this happens.

Hmm.. ok. Yeah if you use BT kbd/mouse.. prolly gonna keep it from actually sleeping. I've read that leaving anything plugged into ports does not allow deep sleep. I think sometimes even regular sleep. I usually have mine connected to an OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock when I'm home(with wired mouse and kbd, 24inch monitor connected to dock), usually plugged into power. Sometimes I'll leave power adapter in bag and not plug it in, just close lid when I'm done leaving dock connected, and battery drains a lot overnight. I've also just hit sleep in menu but leave dock connected, and it still drains a lot. I now will unplug the dock and hit sleep in menu and it doesn't drain much overnight. I've had this SX8200 Pro for over 4 weeks now(installed 9/18), and I've not had any overheating issues, crashes, or anything. I had a thought about BT being the culprit just thinking about my iPhone issue once.. That's how I came across this "fix" for MBA. That and unplugging dock..

 

[herb2k]

Hmm.. ok. Yeah if you use BT kbd/mouse.. prolly gonna keep it from actually sleeping. I've read that leaving anything plugged into ports does not allow deep sleep. I think sometimes even regular sleep. I usually have mine connected to an OWC Thunderbolt 2 dock when I'm home(with wired mouse and kbd, 24inch monitor connected to dock), usually plugged into power. Sometimes I'll leave power adapter in bag and not plug it in, just close lid when I'm done leaving dock connected, and battery drains a lot overnight. I've also just hit sleep in menu but leave dock connected, and it still drains a lot. I now will unplug the dock and hit sleep in menu and it doesn't drain much overnight. I've had this SX8200 Pro for over 4 weeks now(installed 9/18), and I've not had any overheating issues, crashes, or anything. I had a thought about BT being the culprit just thinking about my iPhone issue once.. That's how I came across this "fix" for MBA. That and unplugging dock..

Oh! You have an MacBook Air, for some reason power management on MBA's are different (for instance, tcpkeepalive is always disabled by default on the MBA).

I did upgrade my MBA in the past and had no issues with excessive drain - only on my MBP it seems to happen.

Edit: I gave it a try again - overnight power drain was 7% with all other settings default. Not quite the 1-2% of the original SSD, but way better than 20-30% that I was seeing before.

 

[Jedi82]

Soooo, finally here I am again with another test with my MBPro Late 2013 15''. Here is what I did:

1) mount my new Sabrent Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD 512GB with my Sintech short adapter
2) install a fresh copy of Catalina with APFS encrypted file system (maybe it's this the cause...)
3) set all the basics and noticed since the beginning that my Mac is more fast
4) Boot ROM version: 162.0.0.0.0
5) System report... of my new SSD on my Mac
6) changed thermal paste on my Mac that is soooo clean and perfect
7) tested 3 of my Sintech adapters (I bought three of them)

This is my new video benchmark of the disk...why so slow? It's not good -->https://streamable.com/jlwkpo

The system as ended indexing my disk, I'm not doing nothing heavy, system is now very empty so...what can I do?

UPDATE: tried one more time with one of my Sintech adapter and now it's seems OK and have constant values: https://prnt.sc/v4rgl3. Maybe it's not always the same speed when testing?

Now I'm asking what's next:

1) Do i have also to open terminal and apply this: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0 ?
2) Do i have to install and set NVMEfix like I see here on this quick guide?

PS: Did you also noticed, when reboot that the MBP stay a little longer with a black screen and then start booting normally?

 

[Spiros Poullos]

Did you format the drive before you installed it? Or the first format was when you booted from your usb stick?

 

[Spiros Poullos]

1) mount my new Sabrent Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD 512GB with my Sintech short adapter

I'm waiting my adapter as well to install a 2TB Silicon Power NVME.

Did you format your drive before install or you formatted it from the usb boot disk?

 

[Jedi82]

I boot the new drive with my Catalina usb stick installer, format my new ssd and then install Catalina

 

[herb2k]

PS: Did you also noticed, when reboot that the MBP stay a little longer with a black screen and then start booting normally?

You just need to re-select your startup disk from System Preferences:

Unlock the dialog (lock icon on bottom left), select the Internal Drive (the grey one) and hit restart.

 

[otosan]

You just need to re-select your startup disk from System Preferences:

Unlock the dialog (lock icon on bottom left), select the Internal Drive (the grey one) and hit restart.

View attachment 971403

Aside from that,

it is a well known behaviour for 2013-2014 models to have slower boot (1-3 secs slower) after changing to NVME drive,

this is also due to broken nvme EFI driver. Which also causing the macbook to think the internal drive is an external in bootloader (proof of this is that it show the drive in orange color instead of grey if you boot while holding alt)

this only happen in 2013-2014 models though, and perfectly manageable and acceptable

Side Note :
If the startup disk is not selected, the boot delay can be up to 10 seconds. But even after it selected, 2013-2014 models will still have those delay, but down to only 1-3 secs

 

[Asoka1989]

Are there any reasons to prefer the Short vs. Long Sintech adapters for a Late 2013 rMBP upgrade. My order for the short one - just blindly following the link from Page 1 - is supposedly only being delivered by Amazon in late nov/early Dec !

 

[otosan]

Are there any reasons to prefer the Short vs. Long Sintech adapters for a Late 2013 rMBP upgrade. My order for the short one - just blindly following the link from Page 1 - is supposedly only being delivered by Amazon in late nov/early Dec !

Short one will have better fit for SSD that have double sided PCB design. And have more breathing room so less heat.

 

[otosan]

Another good installation of NVMEFix today,

Biostar M700 on Late 2013 13" Retina
NFHK Short Adapter

Read top at 1620MB/s
Write around 1300MB/s

Idle on 0.12A
Full load on 0.68A

for anyone installing the fix, just make sure to set boot-args="0x144" as well

 

[Jedi82]

Thanks so so much for the explanation! Now this:

1) Do i have also to open terminal and apply this: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0 ?
2) Do i have to install and set NVMEfix like I see here on this quick guide?

Aside from that,

it is a well known behaviour for 2013-2014 models to have slower boot (1-3 secs slower) after changing to NVME drive,

this is also due to broken nvme EFI driver. Which also causing the macbook to think the internal drive is an external in bootloader (proof of this is that it show the drive in orange color instead of grey if you boot while holding alt)

this only happen in 2013-2014 models though, and perfectly manageable and acceptable

Side Note :
If the startup disk is not selected, the boot delay can be up to 10 seconds. But even after it selected, 2013-2014 models will still have those delay, but down to only 1-3 secs

 

[otosan]

Thanks so so much for the explanation! Now this:

1) Do i have also to open terminal and apply this: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0 ?
2) Do i have to install and set NVMEfix like I see here on this quick guide?

1. Yes, it would be good idea to do that on 2013 models to prevent hibernation issue, also put : darkwakes 0 in those lines as well
2. You dont have to do it just to make thing work, but it would be good addition if your ssd play nice with it.

 

[Pametfisher]

Back in the mid-70s I was a software developer on mini-computers, which meant writing in assembly language—just pointing out that I’m ancient so go easy on me, or don’t. 😉

Back in May 2020, my mid-2014, 15”, 2.5GHz, 512G SSD booted into the black screen with a folder containing a question mark. Nothing I could do would revive it and I found your excellent thread.

I read the first couple pages and bought a 512G Samsung 970 Pro SSD and a Sensico M.2 adapter rather than Sintech (impatient with 2 WK delivery because I was down).

Through dumb luck more than skill, everything worked the first time. I was able to perform an internet install of Catalina (already on that rev before it failed) and got a time machine backup to work. Since then I’ve installed every Catalina update without issue.

My MBP is at Apple Service getting some free work done replacing the delaminating screen and I learned the hard way that I had to remove the non-OEM SSD before they would repair it—back and forth twice to them.

The three problems with nvme SSDs: no Bootcamp, Hibernate hang-up and high power consumption have all bit me but I installed Parallels, used the Terminal command to stop hibernation and live with about 1/2 to 2/3 battery life, which isn’t too bad since I put in a new battery in March because the old one had swollen causing the touch pad to barely function.

While it’s being repaired I’m thinking of getting a used Apple SSD so I have some flexibility. I have a couple questions and would appreciate your collective wisdom.

1. Since my mid-2014 MBP has PCIe 2.0, will it pickup any speed with an SSUBX SSD?

2. I noticed the 1TB SSUBX is wider than my original SSD. Since I don’t have my MBP at the moment, will the 1TB fit?

3. If I don’t buy a used Apple SSD, do you think I will be able be able to migrate to Big Sur with the 970Pro?

4. In your opinions, should I try and get Nvmefix and Lilu to work and will it port to Big Sur?

Thanks for all that all of you have contributed. I’m in your debt.

 

[otosan]

Back in the mid-70s I was a software developer on mini-computers, which meant writing in assembly language—just pointing out that I’m ancient so go easy on me, or don’t. 😉

Back in May 2020, my mid-2014, 15”, 2.5GHz, 512G SSD booted into the black screen with a folder containing a question mark. Nothing I could do would revive it and I found your excellent thread.

I read the first couple pages and bought a 512G Samsung 970 Pro SSD and a Sensico M.2 adapter rather than Sintech (impatient with 2 WK delivery because I was down).

Through dumb luck more than skill, everything worked the first time. I was able to perform an internet install of Catalina (already on that rev before it failed) and got a time machine backup to work. Since then I’ve installed every Catalina update without issue.

My MBP is at Apple Service getting some free work done replacing the delaminating screen and I learned the hard way that I had to remove the non-OEM SSD before they would repair it—back and forth twice to them.

The three problems with nvme SSDs: no Bootcamp, Hibernate hang-up and high power consumption have all bit me but I installed Parallels, used the Terminal command to stop hibernation and live with about 1/2 to 2/3 battery life, which isn’t too bad since I put in a new battery in March because the old one had swollen causing the touch pad to barely function.

While it’s being repaired I’m thinking of getting a used Apple SSD so I have some flexibility. I have a couple questions and would appreciate your collective wisdom.

1. Since my mid-2014 MBP has PCIe 2.0, will it pickup any speed with an SSUBX SSD?

2. I noticed the 1TB SSUBX is wider than my original SSD. Since I don’t have my MBP at the moment, will the 1TB fit?

3. If I don’t buy a used Apple SSD, do you think I will be able be able to migrate to Big Sur with the 970Pro?

4. In your opinions, should I try and get Nvmefix and Lilu to work and will it port to Big Sur?

Thanks for all that all of you have contributed. I’m in your debt.

1. SSUBX will still pick up speed since even though yours is 2.0, it still x4. But again, UBX speed at most is 1200ish

2. 1TB should fit, i see the space is enough.

3. I think you will be able to use NVME drive in big sur.

And btw, you can do bootcamp in NVME drive, been doing it on dozens unit.