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#7639 is interesting, and thanks for sharing. This let users update BootROM without going through the hassle of installing a new OS. Some users will find it very useful.
We took the plunge and successfully upgraded our 2015 13-inch Macbook Pro to the latest BootROM 424.0.0.0.0. The result is uneventful. The new BootROM alone doesn't show any improvement with respect to third party SSD nor there is any change in sleep/hibernation behaviour. OS version is Catalina 10.15.7.
But with further tinkering comes more observations...
When is "SSD 3.3V" = 0.00A. Should you believe it's truly close to 0A?
Hopefully this is just a glitch in Apple's SMC after the SSD gets right out of lower power states.
Now I'm pretty sure 0.00A comes directly from Apple SMC. When our WD SN550 in lower power state, the current is truly non-measurably close to 0A (more on this below). Sounds like a real glitch that when 3rd party SSD in such power state, Apple SMC can't respond quick enough to provide "real-time" reading when disk activities resume. If the activities are "brief", you simply can't observe any change in current.
Actual power usage when "SSD 3.3V" reads 0.00A
For SN550, if the battery loss is lower than 2% per hour, safe to bet "SSD 3.3V" = 0.00A may actually mean close to 0A consumption. If the battery loss is higher than 2%, SN550 idle current is probably not the culprit of your battery drain BUT we aren't sure "SSD 3.3V" = 0.00A actually means close to 0A idle current either.
Back then it was just a thought experiment, I didn't have concrete data. With the new BootROM, I repeated sleep/hibernation tests with more attention to details. Here are the results:
Restore power management back to Apple defaults i.e. for average users, the chance of hibernation is reduced to minimal if not none.
Session one: sleep for 5.5h (I think Apple calls it "Deep Idle"), battery dropped 11%.
Session two: sleep for 4.5h, battery dropped 9%.
On average, our Macbook Pro drops 2% per hour. Great! And yet embarrassing.
2% per hour lands on the divider in my though experiment. So I looked into our ageing battery (with 220 cycles). The current capacity is about 6050mAh (about 92% of design capacity). That means if SN550 consumes 260mA at idle or sleep or any lower power states, it'll cause battery to drop a whopping 4.2% per hour. This gives me confidence in asserting that SN550 truly consumes no power when SMC reports 0.00A (most of the time..)
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.
Now, apply 25min to both standbydelay's as described above. Did two tests too.
Session one: 2.67h 0% drop
Session two: 6h 1% drop.
Very nice. Personally, we'll stay with the adjusted & reduced standbydelay's. SSD write incurred by hibernation image is low when compared to daily TeraByteWrite quota given SN550's 5-year warranty. Also it's way easier and enjoyable to replace a SSD then a new battery.
This sums up my one-month long journey. To everyone (and future Internet nobody landing on this thread), enjoy your new SSD and MacBook's.
Cheers