FWIW - on the unit I tested, the 2262G was still noticeably faster than the Phison E12 based unit I have today (power consumption was much worse though).
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Upgrading 2013-2015 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
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FWIW - on the unit I tested, the 2262G was still noticeably faster than the Phison E12 based unit I have today (power consumption was much worse though).
Thanks for this great thread! Recently I installed a WD SN550 1TB into my cousin's 2015 13-inch Macbook Pro. I thought why not contribute something back to the thread by sharing my experience with the new SSD.
First comes first. The main reasons I picked SN550 are 1) its theoretical throughput (2400MB/1950MB) fit nicely with maximum PCIe 2.0 x4 bandwidth available from the Macbook's SSD socket. So no over-spent performance will be left on the table. And 2) the low power requirement as shown in WD specs.
The maximum 4.9W for the 1TB model from the WD spec sheet appears like an over statement. Below are the power states retrieved by smarttools:
The programmed Maximum is only 3.5W with a typical 2.9W. During benchmarks (BlackMagic & etc), the maximum current I've ever seen from iStat Menu is about 890mA (which coincidentally indicates ~2.9W power). The drive runs cool considering the tight space inside the Macbook. Idle temperature is 35C with room temperature at 24C. Max temperature observed during benchmark is 43C.
About idle power consumption. With display on & no input activity for a minute or two, SN550 idles at 0.26A or 0.00A accodring to iStat Menu. I don't understand the exact logic of transitions but eventually it will idle at 0.00A, meaning beyond measurable.
With NVMeFix, SN550 idles at 0.23A or 0.00A - a reduction of 30mA. Given that the SSD automatically idles at 0.00A most of the time. I won't bother with NVMeFix if its installation is troublesome for you.
Overnight sleep consumes "zero" battery. The catch is that I had to reduce "standbydelaylow" and "standbydelayhigh" from Apple's default 3hr and 24hr respectively down to 25min for both. I picked 25min simply because of the desire to strike a balance between saving battery and reducing wear&tear of the SSD (due to frequent write of hibernation image). A glimpse at the size of /var/vm/sleepimage is only 1GB in my case. Perhaps I should not worry at all.
All in all we're extremely happy with this upgrade. It just shows Apple's SSD prices or 3rd-party made-for-Apple SSD prices are beyond comprehension. If I've to mention any downside of SN550 in general, it'll be the "poor" random 4k write performance.
Note that 2015 13-inch Macbook Pro came with dual core (four threads) processors. From my quick bench using fio, SN500's random 4k read is about 350k IOPS (close to WD's spec 410k). Given the machine under test is only dual core, I would think 350k is decent. The random 4k write is a miserable 50k IOPS (far below WD's spec 405k). Given the core counts, I give WD the benefit of doubt though I have expected way higher than 50k.
As an aside for OS disk, random read is way more important than random write. So practically I should see little impact on overall performance. With lower core counts & processor performance in these machines (at least 2015 13-inch Macbook), it indicates another reason for not over spending on a high performance SSD.
Last but not least, a BlackMagic screenshot to complete the post. I also put on an unused "heatsink" from my last year's ADATA purchase - it's a thin aluminum sheet with double side tape. The adaptor is a cheap noname from AliExpress.
Hope the post helps someone. Peace out.
First comes first. The main reasons I picked SN550 are 1) its theoretical throughput (2400MB/1950MB) fit nicely with maximum PCIe 2.0 x4 bandwidth available from the Macbook's SSD socket. So no over-spent performance will be left on the table. And 2) the low power requirement as shown in WD specs.
The maximum 4.9W for the 1TB model from the WD spec sheet appears like an over statement. Below are the power states retrieved by smarttools:
Code:
Supported Power States
St Op Max Active Idle RL RT WL WT Ent_Lat Ex_Lat
0 + 3.50W 2.90W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 + 2.70W 1.80W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 + 1.90W 1.50W - 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 - 0.0200W - - 3 3 3 3 3900 11000
4 - 0.0050W - - 4 4 4 4 5000 39000The programmed Maximum is only 3.5W with a typical 2.9W. During benchmarks (BlackMagic & etc), the maximum current I've ever seen from iStat Menu is about 890mA (which coincidentally indicates ~2.9W power). The drive runs cool considering the tight space inside the Macbook. Idle temperature is 35C with room temperature at 24C. Max temperature observed during benchmark is 43C.
About idle power consumption. With display on & no input activity for a minute or two, SN550 idles at 0.26A or 0.00A accodring to iStat Menu. I don't understand the exact logic of transitions but eventually it will idle at 0.00A, meaning beyond measurable.
With NVMeFix, SN550 idles at 0.23A or 0.00A - a reduction of 30mA. Given that the SSD automatically idles at 0.00A most of the time. I won't bother with NVMeFix if its installation is troublesome for you.
Overnight sleep consumes "zero" battery. The catch is that I had to reduce "standbydelaylow" and "standbydelayhigh" from Apple's default 3hr and 24hr respectively down to 25min for both. I picked 25min simply because of the desire to strike a balance between saving battery and reducing wear&tear of the SSD (due to frequent write of hibernation image). A glimpse at the size of /var/vm/sleepimage is only 1GB in my case. Perhaps I should not worry at all.
All in all we're extremely happy with this upgrade. It just shows Apple's SSD prices or 3rd-party made-for-Apple SSD prices are beyond comprehension. If I've to mention any downside of SN550 in general, it'll be the "poor" random 4k write performance.
Note that 2015 13-inch Macbook Pro came with dual core (four threads) processors. From my quick bench using fio, SN500's random 4k read is about 350k IOPS (close to WD's spec 410k). Given the machine under test is only dual core, I would think 350k is decent. The random 4k write is a miserable 50k IOPS (far below WD's spec 405k). Given the core counts, I give WD the benefit of doubt though I have expected way higher than 50k.
As an aside for OS disk, random read is way more important than random write. So practically I should see little impact on overall performance. With lower core counts & processor performance in these machines (at least 2015 13-inch Macbook), it indicates another reason for not over spending on a high performance SSD.
Last but not least, a BlackMagic screenshot to complete the post. I also put on an unused "heatsink" from my last year's ADATA purchase - it's a thin aluminum sheet with double side tape. The adaptor is a cheap noname from AliExpress.
Hope the post helps someone. Peace out.
Attachments
I would like to upgrade the storage on my late 2013 15" MacBook Pro Retina. I already upgraded from the supplied 512GB to an Apple 1TB SSUBX so taking the bottom case off holds no fears. My options are
2TB Apple Polaris which is pricey but would just be plug'n'play
2TB Sabrent Rocket with Sintech adaptor - cheaper
4TB Sabrent Rocket with Sintech adaptor - similar price
Sabrent quote the performance of the 2TB & 4TB as up to 3,300 MB/s (read) and 3300 MB/s (write) but I'm not sure that I would see this performance in the MBP.
Any thoughts on real life performance or power consumption & thus heat -> fan noise?
2TB Apple Polaris which is pricey but would just be plug'n'play
2TB Sabrent Rocket with Sintech adaptor - cheaper
4TB Sabrent Rocket with Sintech adaptor - similar price
Sabrent quote the performance of the 2TB & 4TB as up to 3,300 MB/s (read) and 3300 MB/s (write) but I'm not sure that I would see this performance in the MBP.
Any thoughts on real life performance or power consumption & thus heat -> fan noise?
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on 2013 models, max performance will be capped at 1500Mb/s regardless what ssd being used.
so you might want to look more into consumption indeed.
as for heat, i always found high performance ssd slotted into capped mainboard produce more heat compared to when you slot midrange ssd one.
but if i may suggest a model that might interest you,
it would be Exceria Plus 2TB, performance is good, should be comparable to EVO 970, SX8200 and those Rockets in daily usage
price is cheaper than Rocket,
and among any models i used to install, this one rarely hit 60° even during load.
I have Catalina. I just tried the small adapter, still no luck. When booting from USB, it says my Boot ROM version is 192.0.0
I'm not sure if that's accurate, since I booted from USB.
Hi,
I’ve got a MB Pro 15" late 2013. Two years ago, thanks to this thread (and other @gilles_polysoft french threads) (thank you all), I updated it with an Intel 760p 1TB SSD which still works fine.
I recently bought a 2TB SSD PNY XLR8 CS3030, tried to replace my 1TB SSD, boot from Internet Recovery, but SSD isn’t recognised in Disk Utility.
Do you know why ?
I tried this SSD in an external USB case and it works.
I chose this SSD because of its low power consumption, good price, Phison E12 controller (seems good in the SSD comparison charts on 1st post), ... But I can still send back this SSD if you think it won’t be compatible.
I’ve got a MB Pro 15" late 2013. Two years ago, thanks to this thread (and other @gilles_polysoft french threads) (thank you all), I updated it with an Intel 760p 1TB SSD which still works fine.
I recently bought a 2TB SSD PNY XLR8 CS3030, tried to replace my 1TB SSD, boot from Internet Recovery, but SSD isn’t recognised in Disk Utility.
Do you know why ?
I tried this SSD in an external USB case and it works.
I chose this SSD because of its low power consumption, good price, Phison E12 controller (seems good in the SSD comparison charts on 1st post), ... But I can still send back this SSD if you think it won’t be compatible.
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I'm not sure about compatibility, but did you run Disk Utility from a USB MacOS installer?
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No, I didn’t find my OSX USB key so I run Disk Utility from the internet recovery mode.
Do I have to use a bootable USB key ?
Thanks. Is there any advantage to an 2TB Apple Polaris if price is not a consideration?
Hi Guys, I've read some pages of this thread to search a solution for my problem but nothing. I've a MacBook Pro 13 early 2015 (macbookpro12,1) and I've installed a Sabrent rocket Q 1TB SSD (SB-RKTQ-1TB) with an NVme adapter (no sintech). All works good except the battery drain in standby/stop mode. I've registered a consumption of about 25% during night (about 10h), with the original ssd the power consumption in that hours are about 6%. I've tried to install NVMEfix and Lilu kext, they loads correctly on boot but I haven't any NVMEPmproxy tab in registry. I've also tried to change NVME adapter with another one that I use on 2015 MacBook Air (that works good) but the battery drain is the same.
I've tested all on latest Catalina 10.15.7.
Could anyone help me to solve the problem? any suggestions?
Thanks!
I've tested all on latest Catalina 10.15.7.
Could anyone help me to solve the problem? any suggestions?
Thanks!
Do you go into recovery by holding CMD + R ? or CMD + Alt + R ?
without alt, it will give you a Recovery version of your initial OS (one that come with the macbook when you buy it), while one with Alt, will give you latest supported OS recovery (based on installed BootRom)
older version of recovery wont be able to detect NVME drive.
Thats why safer option would be using High Sierra (or newer) USB stick
Hmmm, straight forward compatibility is the only thing i can think of,
if i were you, i would just get 2TB of NVME, so even when i decide to sell or retire the macbook, it will still usable on either another windows notebook, or desktop, and it can be easily sell again as the demand for good price 2TB NVME will be higher in the future,
while polaris, can't even used in newer non upgradeable macbook nor on any other non apple computer. Demand for it is very low because of price point, so selling it off wont give better optoon either.
Either try disabling standby altogether by doing
sudo pmset -a standby 0
or try disable network wake,
sudo pmset -a tcpkeepalive 0
OK I'll try that, thanks.
my current settings are:
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
lidwake 1
autopoweroff 1
standbydelayhigh 86400
autopoweroffdelay 259200
proximitywake 1
standby 1
standbydelaylow 10800
ttyskeepawake 1
hibernatemode 3
powernap 1
gpuswitch 2
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
highstandbythreshold 50
womp 1
displaysleep 10
networkoversleep 0
sleep 1 (sleep prevented by apfsd)
tcpkeepalive 1
halfdim 1
acwake 0
disksleep 10
Versione Boot ROM: 192.0.0.0.0
Versione SMC (sistema): 2.28f7
Do you see anything strange? I've just reinstalled all the system again.
So I just put in the same SSD into my MacBook Pro early 2015, but I seem to not be getting the same results as you. My battery decreases very fast both off the charger and when closing lid, my read write speeds are all over the place but never above 500 for both. I am currently on Catalina, a fresh reboot of the OS with the blue SN550 500gb. Ive been trying to find information on what I can do differently, but everything I have seen is just make sure TRIM is enable. I did not do the NVMEfix but it seems by what you had said it shouldn't make that big of a difference. If you could message me maybe some more exact steps on what you did to get that performance! thank you
I've tried both your suggests but the result it's the same, battery discharge about 2.5/3% hour during stop... Durign standby i haven't any log, i've Also tried to update to the newer MacOS big sur but the result Is the same.. :'(
Hey. I think what I did is very the same as lots of people in this thread. I installed SN550 then did a fresh installation of Catalina 10.15.7 (including doing the format of SN550 from within the Catalina installer). After that restored old applications & data from Time Machine backup. Everything described in my previous post about SN550 just works out of the box after that.
If you can't exceed 500MB read/write, it's very weird. One possibility I could think of is that your SN550 somehow run at PCIe 2.0 x1 speed. Check in System Information > NVMe to rule this out.
Battery drain during "sleep" is a daunting task to hunt down. I think I was lucky our Macbook didn't have battery drain issue before (and after). One thing is certain though if your battery drains that much it's very likely not sleeping much and certainly no hibernation.
To trigger hibernation, you need to type these from Terminal
Bash:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 3 standby 1 standbydelaylow 1500 standydelayhigh 1500
I've just installed Big Sur 11.0.1 Release Candidate and the BootRom was bumped up again from 424.0.0.0 to 427.0.0.0.
- Have you tried turning off wifi and bluetooth before sleeping the macbook?
- Another culprit seems to be chrome/firefox and spotify . So i just close them before sleeping. Luckily you can restore last nights session with a single click.
- My pmset settings:
- sudo pmset -a standby 1
- sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25 <—to turn off RAM when sleeping and copy its content to your ssd. also works with the default mode (3), but i now use 25 just to make sure. We're using ssd's now, so waking up is as instantaneous as mode 3.
- sudo pmset -a tcpkeepalive 0 <--disable network wake
- sudo pmset -a standbydelaylow 1000 <--important! Time before deep sleep. default is 28800 (8 hours)
- sudo pmset -a standydelayhigh 1500 <--important! Time before deep sleep. default is 86400 (24 hours)
- sudo pmset -a proximitywake 0 <--disable iwatch wake.
- Lastly turn off find my mac and keychain in the icloud settings. There are numerous stories of battery drain because find my mac is aggresive in sending packets to determine its location.
Using those settings everything works fine, close to 0 percent battery drop overnight, but the moment i forgot to close my browser or forgot to turn off wifi/bt then all hell breaks lose lol. If you search the internet for macbook battery drain then you will find similar stories, even with newer models. I reckon its a software issue.
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I was planning on selling the Apple 1TB SSUBX that is currently in the MBP to defray the cost of the upgrade. I'm also not planning on getting rid of the MBP anytime soon as I was just about to get a new battery fitted.
I wondered if the Polaris would run cooler than a 2TB NVMe plus an adaptor.
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I am not sure if it will upgrade the bootrom of my Macbook Air mid 2013, but well I guess I am gonna find it out, downloading the Big Sur in the background right now.
EDIT: I have just upgraded to Big Sur from Mojave. My bootrom was 122.0.0.0.0 and now it is 427.0.0.0.0. Now I am gonna observe if the hibernation issues are fixed or not with this new bootrom for the Macbook Air (mid 2013).
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Hey guys. Finally after 6 years using my 15’ Mid 2014 MBP im finally considering to upgrade my ssd. Im student and would like a suggestion which Nvme I should get to use for at least 2-3 years. What i read Sabrent is the best option and which Sabrent i should get
and last question should i apply the 424.0.0.0 FIXED by macpro_mid2014?
Im now running Big Sur 11.0.1 Release Candidate
Thanks in advance
1. Sabrent 500GB Rocket Nvme PCIe 4.0 M.2 2280 Internal SSD
2.Sabrent 512GB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280
Or any Nvme that best in performance for my model.and last question should i apply the 424.0.0.0 FIXED by macpro_mid2014?
Im now running Big Sur 11.0.1 Release Candidate
Thanks in advance