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

[kvic]

Some suggestions to all the new buyers...asking what to buy.. which is better etc. Others may have different opinions. So here is mine.

Is there a post / link for more updated data than what's in OP, especially how it compares to "newer" models?

I have a back of the envelope sketch. I can write down in a few sentences. ssdpmEnabler KEXT doesn't shift the landscape much as all seem to benefit and end up using less power on average.

For 2TB SSDs, go with Phison E12/E12S. Seems not many choices but dark blue Sabrent Rocket, Silicon Power A80 (?), Corsair 510 (?). Read the last 20 pages. You'll get all the names. Sabrent Rocket's data is frequently posted. New buyers could kindly ask other owners to help you with some first hand data.

For 1TB and below, if you want absolutely bright idle power, go with Phison E12/E12S. Or else WD SN550 is bang-for-buck that no one should miss and in real world usage you actually end up using less power once passing the point of 30% RW 70% idle.

Hints: Use iStat Menus (SSD 3.3V or equivalent) 24h chart to gauge how busy your disk activities are _when_ you're operating the computer. I bet everyone will be surprised. I was..when I fount out our MBP was writing over 100GB everyday in the first few days with a newly installed SN550. Later we did successfully reduce it down to about 30GB write per day.

In both categories, if people could find a good deal on SM2262 based SSDs such as SX8200 Pro, just grab it, and install ssdpmEnabler. Profit.

For budget oriented buyers, simply get the best deal from one of the above.

Avoid QLC. Go with TLC. For both _worst-case_ speed (*1) and endurance.

EDIT:

clarification with emphasis

*1 such as after disk is half full, SLC cache runs out etc.

 

[MauriceG]

I'm looking at upgrading the 512GB to 2TB on my MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-Inch, Mid-2015).

I already have everything I need (Sintech adapter, tools, Big Sur on a bootable USB drive), but the nVME drive.

Based upon the OP, it seems the ADATA SX8200 Pro or Sabrent Rocket seem to be the way to go. Both are currently the same price (give or take) on Amazon, but which is the more ideal one to go with? Is there a nVME drive I should be

See message of kvic. If your not a power user than QLC is also OK. I’m happy with Intel 660p. The new 665p has 50% more endurance and is a bit faster.

 

[n1smo]

Hi everyone, I'm new on here but have been lurking and studying this thread for some time. I'm excited about Kvic's kext so I'm trying it on my Macbook pro 11,5. Thats the 15in from mid-2015. I'm also running an Intel 660p 2TB with Big Sur. Unfortunately Terminal verification is telling me that your kext is failing to load on my system. I believe its installed correctly, and I've verified that.

With the 660p I've never seen it go below .17A in istats, thats with the NVMEfix as well, which I currently don't have installed.

So could it be to do with the fact that this Macbook had a slightly newer PCIe system than the other laptops pre 2015? Or is it that Intel 660p doesn't play nice? Anybody else got this running on a mid 2015 MBP?

Kvic, thanks for your effort on this, I think it could be a bit of a breakthrough on this issue that will make a lot of people happy.

MBP 11,5 here (mid-2015, 15"), same as you. Installed properly but doesn't load. kernel[0]: (SsdPmEnabler) Enabled PCIe PM on SSD is missing from the output. This is with a power hungry 2TB ADATA SX8200Pro (.24A idle) so getting something like this to work would be awesome.

 

[terrazoids]

I assume you meant to say you didn't see "Enabled PCIe PM on SSD" as per the User Guide when you said the kext failed to load. If that's the case, then maybe it's possible not compatible with your hardware. It's very unlikely though. I run out of ideas for the moment.

EDIT:

When everything seems not looking right, perform the "Update" steps. Just pretend you're updating the same kext.

If this resolves the issue, then most likely people have messed up some steps by not following the User Guide..

Hi, yeah I do mean that the PM was not enabled on my device when checking in terminal, as per your user guide.

I checked everything out and tried again, and it seems no luck. Elsewhere in this thread there have been reports of people achieving low idle states with the intel 660p so I'm doubting that the ssd is the issue. And it seems that another user has tried your kext on the Macbook 11,5 and with the same problem. So I think theres something about the newer PCIe interface in these models.

We'll probably have to wait for more reports to see where its working and where its not.

 

[terrazoids]

Might not apply in your case, but when I had an Intel 660p, it didn't reduce power consumption even with NVMeFix. Note, there is a firmware update for the Intel 660p SSD which may help though.

My experience is similar with the 660p. I tried NVMEfix with catalina and saw no benefit to this drive. I've also upgraded it to the latest firmware, and again NVMEfix did nothing. Idle stays consistently at .17A... which to be fair is not bad per say. I initially chose the intel 660p because it is a nice balance between power consumption and speed. I know that people advise against qlc drives but the large capacity versions of these drives, are actually rated for a lot of endurance with large write caches, so in practice I've only noticed the benefits really and have never run into problems. Mind you I don't write 80 GB a day. Also the the 660p has been rock solid with the sintech adapter. Never crashes. .... and its cheap

 

[saintmylife]

Some suggestions to all the new buyers...asking what to buy.. which is better etc. Others may have different opinions. So here is mine.


I have a back of the envelope sketch. I can write down in a few sentences. ssdpmEnabler KEXT doesn't shift the landscape much as all seem to benefit and end up using less power on average.

For 2TB SSDs, go with Phison E12/E12S. Seems not many choices but dark blue Sabrent Rocket, Silicon Power A80 (?), Corsair 510 (?). Read the last 20 pages. You'll get all the names. Sabrent Rocket's data is frequently posted. New buyers could kindly ask other owners to help you with some first hand data.

For 1TB and below, if you want absolutely bright idle power, go with Phison E12/E12S. Or else WD SN550 is bang-for-buck that no one should miss and in real world usage you actually end up using less power once passing the point of 30% RW 70% idle.

Hints: Use iStat Menus (SSD 3.3V or equivalent) 24h chart to gauge how busy your disk activities are _when_ you're operating the computer. I bet everyone will be surprised. I was..when I fount out our MBP was writing over 100GB everyday in the first few days with a newly installed SN550. Later we did successfully reduce it down to about 30GB write per day.

In both categories, if people could find a good deal on SM2262 based SSDs such as SX8200 Pro, just grab it, and install ssdpmEnabler. Profit.

For budget oriented buyers, simply get the best deal from one of the above.

Avoid QLC. Go with TLC. For both _worst-case_ speed (*1) and endurance.

EDIT:

clarification with emphasis

*1 such as after disk is half full, SLC cache runs out etc.

how about dramless durability ? its still worth to buy it ?
Im plan to but sn550

 

[MauriceG]

My experience is similar with the 660p. I tried NVMEfix with catalina and saw no benefit to this drive. I've also upgraded it to the latest firmware, and again NVMEfix did nothing. Idle stays consistently at .17A... which to be fair is not bad per say. I initially chose the intel 660p because it is a nice balance between power consumption and speed. I know that people advise against qlc drives but the large capacity versions of these drives, are actually rated for a lot of endurance with large write caches, so in practice I've only noticed the benefits really and have never run into problems. Mind you I don't write 80 GB a day. Also the the 660p has been rock solid with the sintech adapter. Never crashes. .... and its cheap

It did work for me. Intel 660p 2TB, NVMeFix+Lilu, Catalina, MBP 2015 13”. (Csrutil disabled). Did you measure the SSD’s current while running on battery?
I managed to upgrade the bootrom to version 425.0.0.0 via an upgrade from Big Sur 11.0.1 to 11.1 (original Apple SSD in the Mac). After reinstalling the 660p and upgrading to Big Sur 11.1 the idle current on battery is very low (iStat Menus reports 0,00 A, Intel claims 40mWatts, so it should read 0,01A) when running on battery. Via power adapter the idle current is 0,17 A. No more need for NvmeFix and Lilu. Csrutil is enabled (as it should be from a security point of view).
Speed unchanged (1280/1430MB/s measured with Blackmagic).
I hope this helps.

 

[BoPl]

Like some of you in this thread, these new & modern SSDs not showing the low idle power as advertised have been bugging me since day one after putting a SN550 1TB inside my family's 2015 13-inch MBP a month or two ago. We tried some suggestions from the web and none worked in MacBook's.

Curiosity has me digging deeper on and off in the past weeks to a point I felt like I probably should write my own KEXT (SsdPmEnabler.kext) in attempt to solve the problem. It's a success! Our SN550 1TB previously has an idle current of 0.26A. Now it idles at 0.16A. See attached screenshot from a test session.

This KEXT will enable power saving on the SSD/PCIe socket inside MacBook's. At the moment it's tested only on 2015 13-inch MBP + SN550 1TB. The design is generic enough to work on other MacBooks and SSDs of concern to this thread. I believe all of them should see some drop in idle power though it's difficult to predict to what extent.

I wrote the KEXT from scratch, and don't plan to publish source code for the time being. If there is interest from this thread, I'm happy to upload the binary and prepare a user guide in the coming days, and make them available for download on my github.

Cheers

EDIT:

SsdPmEnabler.kext is uploaded to my GitHub. Please follow this User Guide for install/update/removal/troubleshooting. The actual binary for download is on this page.

kvic thank you for impressive work.

I'm on rMBP 13" mid 2014 upgraded to Big Sur 11.1 (BootRom is 429.0.0.0.0) and installed new 1TB Corsair Force MP510 SSD with old version Phison E12. Have idles at 0.17A.
Today I tried to install your SsdPmEnabler.kext twice and twice my Mac didn't boot after that.
To undo typed in recovery mode in Terminal : cd "/Volumes/NAME/Library/Extensions"
rm -rf SsdPmEnabler.kext
touch .
Disabled in Terminal twice, don't know why didn't work to disable ones.
Still don't know why didn't work your SsdPmEnabler.kext on my Mac. I believe due to latest Big Sur 11.1.

Anywhere kvic great job!!!

 

[terrazoids]

It did work for me. Intel 660p 2TB, NVMeFix+Lilu, Catalina, MBP 2015 13”. (Csrutil disabled). Did you measure the SSD’s current while running on battery?

Hi, yeah I did. I never saw what you're seeing with the idle. I have the 2TB version as well, and I'm using it with the Sintech long adapter... so could there be something wrong with that? It works perfectly otherwise.

Now I'm on Big Sur 11.1 and one thing I've noticed is that my Boot rom did not change. Its currently 194.0.0.0.0, which I believe is the same as it was with Catalina. Maybe they haven't gotten around to updating or they don't feel they need to... after all, it fixed the hibernation issues on the older macs apparently.

I'm really suspecting theres something different about the pcie bus on these 11'5 models. Yes obviously we have four lanes vs two, and I'm getting slightly higher specs out of the 660p than you in Blackmagic. But thats really interesting that the idle works on your mac now after Big Sur, and not mine. And interesting that you had it working with nvmefix previously.

I have been measuring with istats on battery power, never drops below .17a.

 

[kvic]

how about dramless durability ? its still worth to buy it ?
Im plan to but sn550

WD guarantees 1TB SN550 600TBW for 5 years if I recall correctly. You can check manufacturers' spec pages for all brands and models.

DRAM has little correlation to durability. It's more to do with random access speed. The tiny DRAM size on SSDs aren't for caching data as most people might think they're.

 

[kvic]

To be frank, I read very few posts of this thread before my purchase and installation. Most what I read came up from Google: OP for what models work and power consumption in general, then google for models I'm interested in and look for any quirks. Perhaps new buyers could consider that strategy too.

So I'm not aware of lots of things in this thread nor I'm interested in. Looking for info related to 15-inch MBP. I just realize 2014 and 2015 could house the same i7-4870HQ (?). But then I haven't heard people said 2014 15-inch can do over 2000MB/s speed on their new SSDs while 2015 15-inch could.

Quite interesting on what might have happened inside 2015 15-inch MBP where Apple empowered PCIe 3.0. An exercise perhaps for a future owner to explore.

I'll indicate ssdpmEnabler as incompatible with 2015 15-inch on the User Guide (sorry to the few owners who tried).

 

[MauriceG]

Hi, yeah I did. I never saw what you're seeing with the idle. I have the 2TB version as well, and I'm using it with the Sintech long adapter... so could there be something wrong with that? It works perfectly otherwise.

Now I'm on Big Sur 11.1 and one thing I've noticed is that my Boot rom did not change. Its currently 194.0.0.0.0, which I believe is the same as it was with Catalina. Maybe they haven't gotten around to updating or they don't feel they need to... after all, it fixed the hibernation issues on the older macs apparently.

I'm really suspecting theres something different about the pcie bus on these 11'5 models. Yes obviously we have four lanes vs two, and I'm getting slightly higher specs out of the 660p than you in Blackmagic. But thats really interesting that the idle works on your mac now after Big Sur, and not mine. And interesting that you had it working with nvmefix previously.

I have been measuring with istats on battery power, never drops below .17a.

On my system the bootrom refused (with several major upgrades) to update the boot rom with the Intel 660p inside.
On the other hand, 0,17A x 3,3 Volt is just a bit more than half a Watt.
Unlikely that the adapter makes a difference, there is no logic (Integrated Circuits) on it, it’s just rerouting of the connections. With the long one there might be more risk of mechanical problems, e.g. short circuit if the ssd comes too close to the cover of the macbook).

 

[mlol]

Alright, this is how it looks. I changed the screw to the one provided by Sintech because it's longer to compensate for the longer distance because of the adapter. Should there be kapton tape underneath that screw, or on the other end at the NVMe-connector?


View attachment 1695585

Isolate the screw from the adapter plate. Or you should take the short one from sintech, its better solution. Maybe this one what you have isnt good part

 

[panomitrius]

Isolate the screw from the adapter plate. Or you should take the short one from sintech, its better solution. Maybe this one what you have isnt good part

From what I read the long adapter was suppose to be the right one for the Sabrent drive.

So, my old charger died. I bought a new one and since then I'm not running into any problems. The battery doesn't drain any more and the Macbook doesn't suddenly shut down any more either. It's kind of strange but no problems now, it runs smooth and well on the new drive!

 

[kvic]

kvic thank you for impressive work.

I'm on rMBP 13" mid 2014 upgraded to Big Sur 11.1 (BootRom is 429.0.0.0.0) and installed new 1TB Corsair Force MP510 SSD with old version Phison E12. Have idles at 0.17A.
Today I tried to install your SsdPmEnabler.kext twice and twice my Mac didn't boot after that.
To undo typed in recovery mode in Terminal : cd "/Volumes/NAME/Library/Extensions"
rm -rf SsdPmEnabler.kext
touch .
Disabled in Terminal twice, don't know why didn't work to disable ones.
Still don't know why didn't work your SsdPmEnabler.kext on my Mac. I believe due to latest Big Sur 11.1.

Anywhere kvic great job!!!

View attachment 1698214

Thanks for the feedback. Kinda sad to hear it doesn't work in your case. The KEXT loads fine for me in BigSur 11.1. So I would think it's less likely the cause.

The issue could be this model of Mac or the SSD. Would be good to cross check with another user of 2014 13-inch MBP.

 

[BoPl]

Thanks for the feedback. Kinda sad to hear it doesn't work in your case. The KEXT loads fine for me in BigSur 11.1. So I would think it's less likely the cause.

The issue could be this model of Mac or the SSD. Would be good to cross check with another user of 2014 13-inch MBP.

I don't know, I maybe miss something - most of the time when I'm browsing in Safari or watching Youtube IStat menus shows minimum Idles 0,0A on SSD 3,3V line when on Battery and 0,17A when Mac plugged to AC.
Maybe is not that bad for MBP 13" mid 2014 and Corsair Force MP510 1TB?

 

[kvic]

@BoPl .17A is good. Heck, our SN550 is at .16A even with ssdpmEnabler.

If you've been following me in the past 20 pages, idle power alone isn't decisive.

When you see 0.00A, from my research the actual current is unknown but somewhere between 0 and .17A.

At the moment a few lucky dudes get .05A idle power with ssdpmEnabler. That's very good and good to have. Not a must have IMO.

Give some patience perhaps we could get a fix if it's not SSD related.

 

[dantease]

Hi all, been lurking on this thread for some months now and I think I'm finally gonna pull the trigger on a 500GB Kingston A2000 for my base model 13" Early 2014 Air. My adapter shipped a few weeks ago and now all I need is the drive itself and some Pentalobe drivers

Before I do though, can anyone tell me if day-to-day performance is noticeably improved with NVMe, and if FileVault still works?

By "day-to-day performance" I mean mundane stuff like launching apps, handling multiple Safari tabs, etc. These things are horrifically slow for me on Big Sur, and while I suspect the paltry 4GB RAM is a big factor, I'm open to doing whatever I can to extend the life of this machine. Seems wasteful to dispose of something that works

I do have a more powerful desktop for most tasks, so this Air is really only for me to bring to school for PDFs and the occasional VSCode project. I can reimage to 10.13.6 as it was quite a bit faster, should NVMe make minimal improvements in this regard. The additional space is nice to have regardless.

Regarding FileVault - Not working with confidential data or anything, and my password manager encrypts my passwords for me, but it is nice to not worry about my data at rest.

 

[tak_vyshlo]

Perhaps me in another topic, but I will ask here. I have mbp 13 late 2013. I replaced ssd (128) in it with ssd (500) from mbp 2015. And now I am faced with the problem of installing Windows 10. Install goes fine until reboot, then after "getting ready" spinning dot screen for a few minutes, the dot stops spinning and the Macbook is frozen. Tell me how to be? I'm on Big Sur 11.1, BootRom 429.0.0.0.0. Thx.

 

[mlol]

MBP 11,5 here (mid-2015, 15"), same as you. Installed properly but doesn't load. kernel[0]: (SsdPmEnabler) Enabled PCIe PM on SSD is missing from the output. This is with a power hungry 2TB ADATA SX8200Pro (.24A idle) so getting something like this to work would be awesome.

a power hungry, you say... look at my 970 pro after SsdPmEnabler, before was a little worst

 

[MagicNinjaPotato]

In my 2014 15" a1398 with i7 4770hq and no dedicated gpu,

in which I put instead of the original 256 apple ssd a new Phison E12S 1 tb Pioneer NVMe drive,

the Wi-fi disconnects and goes in a "connected but without internet connection" state every once in a while, mostly every 1 hour of use or so. To temporarily solve the problem I manually switch off the wi-fi and turn it back on to reconnect, until it disconnects again.. and back to the beginning.

I also tried another slower dram-less nmve ssd, but no change.

I bought this MacBook used, and it came without any ssd so I had to buy a third party one.

I'm not able to determine wether this is a fault of the wi-fi card or the MacBook itself, or if it is cause by the new ssd (could it be because it takes more pci lanes.. or more power.. or something?)

I hope that it is just the wi-fi card that it is broken because is the cheapest part to replace.

 

[bubsdaddy]

Hi Kvic, my Sabrent rocket got some amazing results too as low as 0.03A, looks very promising indeed. thanks.

View attachment 1698993

What utility are you suing to display this information?

 

[terrazoids]

Finally🥂🍾🤗. Took the original Apple (rMBP 2015, 13") 500GB SSD out of the MBA 2015 11" of my daughter. Placed it (after about 2 years of separation) back into my rMBP 2015 13", booted without significant problems. Upgraded from Big Sur 11.0.1 to Big Sur 11.1
The boot rom of the rMBP 2015 13" (model 12,1) was upgraded instantly from 186.0.0.0 to 425.0.0.0 (!)
Placed the 500 GB SSD back in the MBA of my daughter, all still worked well. Reinstalled my 2 TB Intel 660p NVMe SSD in my rMBP 2015 13" (with short Sintech adapter). Checked SSD power usage when running on battery. Enabled Intel Power Gadget first (only required for CPU readings). Booted. After some minutes the idle current for the SSD dropped to 0.00A.

I think this is the missing piece for me. Clearly my boot rom wasn’t upgraded when I went to Big Sur, and yes I didn’t replace the original drive. So I’m going to try that. From your experience it sounds like the intel 660p will work perfectly with the new boot rom.

It sounds like kvic’s kext is working well with the phison’s.

 

[furqanmasmin]

Perhaps me in another topic, but I will ask here. I have mbp 13 late 2013. I replaced ssd (128) in it with ssd (500) from mbp 2015. And now I am faced with the problem of installing Windows 10. Install goes fine until reboot, then after "getting ready" spinning dot screen for a few minutes, the dot stops spinning and the Macbook is frozen. Tell me how to be? I'm on Big Sur 11.1, BootRom 429.0.0.0.0. Thx.

Read page 1..

 

[BoPl]

In my 2014 15" a1398 with i7 4770hq and no dedicated gpu,

in which I put instead of the original 256 apple ssd a new Phison E12S 1 tb Pioneer NVMe drive,

the Wi-fi disconnects and goes in a "connected but without internet connection" state every once in a while, mostly every 1 hour of use or so. To temporarily solve the problem I manually switch off the wi-fi and turn it back on to reconnect, until it disconnects again.. and back to the beginning.

I also tried another slower dram-less nmve ssd, but no change.

I bought this MacBook used, and it came without any ssd so I had to buy a third party one.

I'm not able to determine wether this is a fault of the wi-fi card or the MacBook itself, or if it is cause by the new ssd (could it be because it takes more pci lanes.. or more power.. or something?)

I hope that it is just the wi-fi card that it is broken because is the cheapest part to replace.

I had same problem, try to isolate pins with Kapton tape on adapter.