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

[kvic]

My MBA upgrade report & problems:

• Config: MBA 6.2 13” mid 2013
• Mojave 10.14.6
• Upgraded to Adata SX8200 PRO 1 TB

The upgrade about half a year ago went well. But I do run into occasional kernel panic, about once every two weeks. I’m thinking about putting Kapton tape on the system board under the SSD as suggested here #7,381. I’ll let you know if it helps.

With the security update of Mojave 10.14.6, my bootROM was upgraded to 429.0.0.0.0 and this happened with the Adata SSD inside! That’s the good news.

The bad news with my Adata SD8200 is that NVMeFix & Lilu won’t make any difference in SSD power consumption.

So I was thrilled to read @kvic SsdPmEnabler.kext solution as it would reduce the consumption about 50%.

This didn’t work out well:

• Followed the manual to the letter, checking the input before executing in Terminal
• It all went well until I tried to update the Kext cache. 10 sec after doing so I got a Kernal panic and it couldn’t even reload the MacOS completely anymore: the Apple logo screen loaded very slowly and near the end of the white band, it created a never ending circle of kernel panics.
• Turned it completely OFF, restarted and same thing happens.
• Uninstalled the kext in recovery mode using “If your Mac does not boot…”
• Rebooted normally
• Tried the entire process again starting at “Disable part of SIP”
• This time I got past the update of the kext cache, I got the signature warning (didn’t get that the first time as it takes a while to appear)
• I executed the kext load and when I was about to check if it loaded correctly, it had another kernel panic resulting in the same loop of kernel panics.
• Uninstalled it again and all was back to square one.

So as a conclusion: the SsdPmEnabler.kext doesn’t work for my configuration so far.

@kvic Hopefully you have some time to update your kext to make sure it will work for my configuration? I’m available for any assistance.

Would be great as it’s the only way I can get my power consumption under control with this SSD!

I don’t have iStat but I definitely notice less battery life with the CPU area being hotter than before.


Many thanks for helping!

Thanks a lot for your detailed report. You can rest assured that I've been pondering the kernel panic issue ever since I first learned of it, and even more so after I heard RKT303.3 didn't crash in High Sierra.

ADATA SX8200 Pro is proven well by a few folks in Big Sur. So at the moment I'm inclined to believe this sort of kernel panic in general is contributed from two sources: 1) SSD's firmware 2) MacOS's NVMe driver. In the case of SX8200 Pro firmware might be a possible candidate but somehow my gut feeling is more on the NVMe driver. So you could try a newer MacOS if you may. However, before that I had a wild guess for you to try:

1. Install NvmeFix & Lilu (I understand it didn't do any reduction in idle power for you), and then reboot
2. Install ssdpmEnabler as per the User Guide

See if you still get the kernel panic.

@BoPl, If you may, you could also try the above "wild guess" with your Corsair MP510, and additionally if possible a different MacOS version, say, Catalina.

For all folks, it turns out we had a very detailed review on Sabrent Rocket with RKT303.3 on Catalina from @dhull 👇. He seems not intend to install any third-party kexts. I'm wondering if he could try ssdpmEnabler and/or the above "wild guest" in the spirit of scientific research for the audience of this thread.

I recently upgraded my Late 2013 MacBook Pro's original 1 TB SSD based on information from this topic and I wanted to share my experience.

I bought a Sabrent SB-ROCKET-2TB (the version with the dark blue label that has TLC RAM) and a Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter.

The SSD module is covered by a label/heat-spreader that I did not remove, but it appears to be the same as the photo in post #7,853, meaning it has a Phison E12S controller. The module is populated on both sides. I believe the block size is 4K (diskutil says "Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes").

I am running macOS Catalina 10.15.7, but I ran the Big Sur installer on an external drive to upgrade my Mac's Boot ROM firmware to 427.0.0.0.0 before installing the new SSD.

After upgrading, the System Information NVMExpress Device Tree shows:

Generic SSD Controller:

  Sabrent:

    Capacity:           2.05 TB (2,048,408,248,320 bytes)
    TRIM Support:       Yes
    Model:              Sabrent
    Revision:           RKT303.3
    Serial Number:      XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
    Link Width:         x4
    Link Speed:         5.0 GT/s
    Detachable Drive:   No
    BSD Name:           disk0
    Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
    Removable Media:    No
    S.M.A.R.T. status:  Verified
    Volumes:
      EFI:
        Capacity:       209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)
        File System:    MS-DOS FAT32
        BSD Name:       disk0s1
        Content:        EFI
        Volume UUID:    0E239BC6-F960-3107-89CF-1C97F78BB46B
      disk0s2:
        Capacity:       2.05 TB (2,048,198,492,160 bytes)
        BSD Name:       disk0s2
        Content:        Apple_APFS

The idle power use appears to vary between 0.13A and 0.20A. I did not (and don't plan to) install the NVMeFix kext.

View attachment 1693354

Temperature

View attachment 1693357

AmorphousDiskMark shows that the read and write speeds are around 1500 MB/s.

View attachment 1693358

I also ran Blackmagic Disk Speed, and with its default settings it shows an initial read and write speeds of around 1300 MB/s, but interestingly after a minute or so the read and write speeds sometimes slow down for some runs, usually the read more than the write. I wonder if this is due to the module getting hot and throttling itself. (This is also the only speed test I ran on the Apple SSD before I replaced it.)

	Apple SSD		Sabrent Rocket
idle		0.1A		0.12A
write	842 MB/s	1.6A	1320/1200 MB/s	1.5A
read	800 MB/s	1.1A	1360/840 MB/s	1.4A

View attachment 1693360View attachment 1693362

I did the upgrade a week ago. Overall I'm happy; my SSD is now twice as large as the original, is around twice as fast (for smaller reads and writes, anyway), and uses about the same amount of power.

 

[macpro_mid2014]

Note: I have read the last 1000 posts or so over the last 6 hours. 😉
Nevertheless need one clarification: "without patching" means what exactly in this context?

That the significantly reduced wattage is possible with:
1) Newest firmware (=EFI) delivers that alone
2) Newest firmware + MacOS Big Sur
3) SsdPmEnabler alone is enough as this is an extension itself (which extends the kernel ofc) but does not really "patch anything" else in that sense
4) NVMeFix plugin inside lilu. I guess this is not needed anymore as it is patching by its nature, as I understood it.

What @gilles_polysoft meant was that the new BootRom introduced by Big Sur solved the hibernation problem for MacBooks Air/Pro 2013 and 2014. There is no need to patch the BootRom anymore.
It does not have anything to do with power management though.

 

[kvic]

To everyone: Feel free to share your total TB written over how many years of ownership or total power on years. And state your usage characteristics a bit. Would like to get some real numbers on this. I think TBW for SSD is not an issue for most users.

A Crucial MX100 inside my iMac has 35.4TB written in the past 5 years with SSD "power on hours" only 2081min. Crucial's firmware is pretty decent. I use the iMac for web, email, video and as a terminal to access other machines.

Another ADATA SX8200 Pro inside my linux dev/lab machine has 22.4TB written in the past 14 months with "power on hours" 24,866min (that's a bug in the firmware).

I figured NVMe SSDs are so fast that people tend to have lots of applications open for convenience. Less tech savvy users won't realize they're hitting the SSD hard with swapfile thrashing. Their disks could be easily accumulating over 100GB write everyday. So IMO average users and video editors need high TBW disks. lol.

 

[spockers]

hey this may seem like a dumb question but how do i create a bootable big sur drive to be put into the new ssd after i put it in?
also, with the soon to be old original ssd, would it be possible to put that in an external enclosure and run windows off of it? maybe through bootcamp or something

 

[mdgm]

hey this may seem like a dumb question but how do i create a bootable big sur drive to be put into the new ssd after i put it in?
also, with the soon to be old original ssd, would it be possible to put that in an external enclosure and run windows off of it? maybe through bootcamp or something

You can use a free trial of Carbon Copy Cloner (SuperDuper isn't yet compatible with Big Sur) if you wish to do a clone. Or you could do a Time Machine backup and restore that.

You can put the original SSD in an external enclosure. You can boot Windows off an external but it does involve more steps. Though if you don't need portability when running Windows (i.e. always run it when at your desk) for fastest performance using an external drive it would be best to get a new external drive e.g. have MBP -> Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter -> TB3 Hub or Dock -> TB3 NVMe drive.

 

[spockers]

You can use a free trial of Carbon Copy Cloner (SuperDuper isn't yet compatible with Big Sur) if you wish to do a clone. Or you could do a Time Machine backup and restore that.

You can put the original SSD in an external enclosure. You can boot Windows off an external but it does involve more steps. Though if you don't need portability when running Windows (i.e. always run it when at your desk) for fastest performance using an external drive it would be best to get a new external drive e.g. have MBP -> Apple TB2 to TB3 adapter -> TB3 Hub or Dock -> TB3 NVMe drive.

thanks, i found the time machine backup article on the apple website
would you be able to direct me to the steps necessary to put the ssd in an enclosure? i dont really need the fastest speeds, just the ability to use windows while at uni

 

[mdgm]

There are a few options. One is an OWC enclosure. I think there may be one or two other options as well.

The OWC one has three Torx T5 screws (two long and one short) and comes with instructions on how to install it. It's much simpler than the steps to replace the SSD in the MBP so if you can do that you'll be fine with the few extra steps to put the Apple OEM SSD in an external enclosure.

The OWC enclosure will take the stock Apple drive but you can't put OWC's SSD in it.

 

[spockers]

There are a few options. One is an OWC enclosure. I think there may be one or two other options as well.

The OWC one has three Torx T5 screws (two long and one short) and comes with instructions on how to install it. It's much simpler than the steps to replace the SSD in the MBP so if you can do that you'll be fine with the few extra steps to put the Apple OEM SSD in an external enclosure.

The OWC enclosure will take the stock Apple drive but you can't put OWC's SSD in it.

thanks for all the help, ill be sure to keep this in mind

 

[mdgm]

If you go with an ordinary NVMe drive with an adapter, the NVMe drive you put in the MBP could be put in a much wider range of external enclosures (without the adapter) though you may not want to buy an external enclosure to only use it hopefully once.

If you went with the OWC enclosure you'd probably put the factory SSD in the external enclosure, new SSD (whichever you choose) in the MBP, hold down option key on boot and select the external SSD and clone to the new internal drive.

 

[jerris86]

Short answer: If you are an avarage user you do not need to worry.

Detailed answer:

• With the OEM Apple SSD inside use a utility which shows you the SMART values of your SSD, i.e. smartmontools on the command line or there are also graphical apps.
• Check values 175 Host_Writes_MiB and 9 Power_On_Hours
• On my MacBook Pro 15 Mid 2014my relevant SMART values are currently:
  • 9 "Power_On_Hours" is 13852​
  • 175 Host_Writes_MiB is 36687538 which are 36 TB written after ca. 6 years total ownership!​
  • So I have used it 6.3 hours every day on average! I am quite a frequent user (professional and private) though not ultra heavy write applications (video cutting, code compiling, etc), but still, quite a lot.​
  • 6 years of professional+private totalling 36 TB write operations are only 12% usage of the maximum 300 TB write maximum of your prospected SSD. So plenty of overhead!​

To everyone: Feel free to share your total TB written over how many years of ownership or total power on years. And state your usage characteristics a bit. Would like to get some real numbers on this. I think TBW for SSD is not an issue for most users.

Hi Porg,

My 175 Host_Writes_MiB is approximately 21TB

I am not sure how much more it will be if I start to work on small data science projects.

Based on 300 TBW, I think the rest of the macbook air might give up before the P2 SSD does.

Thanks for the tip on where to look for such information

For those interested to try:
- You might need to find instructions online on how to install homebrew on your mac
- Assuming homebrew is installed, enter "brew install smartmontools" in terminal
- Once installed check for the disk name in Disk Utility.app in my case it is "Device: disk1s1"
- Return to terminal and enter "smartctl -a disk1s1"
- Look for the last column value in the line
175 Host_Writes_MiB 0x0030 100 100 000 Old_age Offline - 21254226

 

[mork4]

Hi @kvic
I've just noticed that Sabrent with RKT303.3 firmware should be incompatible with ssdpmEnabler.
But I'm using it on Big Sur 11.1 MBP15 2015 425.0.0.0.0 bootroom - and it seems to work relative to the power management.
So should I remove it (I really need stable system) - is there any problems "under the hood" which may cause system fail or got unresponsive ? Because my MBP sometimes behave little unresponsive, slower then expected - but I'm not sure if it's because of Big Sur or some other problem. Thanks.

GitHub - kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler

Contribute to kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[kvic]

Hi @mork4

Great to hear from you. You should continue to use ssdpmEnabler to benefit from lower power consumption. There is no problem or harm whatsoever under the hood except helping you save battery power.

I should thank you for providing this data point. In fact, would have be superb if you had done so a week or so ago! Could you provide the idle current before and after ssdpmEnabler? So that I could add your data point to my User Guide.

Also, NvmeFix & Lilu is usable on Big Sur now. For the benefit of others, you might additionally install it and see if you could get a bit more power savings on idle. Otherwise, they aren't needed for you.

The issue with Sabrent Rocket with RKT303.3 (and other Phison E12S with ECFM22.6) were seen and reported by folks here on 2014 13-inch MacBook Pro (MacBookPro11,1) only so far. It kernel panics once lower power mode is enabled. I expected it also to crash on 2015 13-inch MacBook Pro (MacBookPro12,1) with RKT303.3 but no experimental result has been reported yet as far as I'm aware.

I appreciate you reporting this to us. It really helps me to understand the issue better.

EDIT:

So yours is the newer Sabrent Rocket 1TB, re-branded Phison E12S reference design as follows:

• 0.20A stock in Catalina
• 0.12A with NvmeFix & Lilu in Catalina
• 0.04A with ssdpmEnabler in Big Sur

I'll take 0.20A as idle power without any kexts. Added your data to Confirmed Mac & SSD Models.

Looks like Phison E12S responds to ssdpmEnabler very well, a reduction of 80%!

 

[MauriceG]

thanks for all the help, ill be sure to keep this in mind

You could also install VMware Fusion (free for private use). Fusion is as good as Parallels. And install a 32 bit version of Windows 10 (32 bit versions is modest re system resources). Don’t assign more than 4 GB of memory and half of your cores to the Windows client.
I use it on a MBP 2015, it works like a charm for light & medium weight tasks. Big advantage is that you run both OS simultaneously, it allows you to e.g. exchange files between MacOS and Windows on the fly.
Fusion supports Big Sur.

 

[quaresma]

RKT303.3 with ssdpmenabler on early 2015. Working just fine on Mojave

 

[jerris86]

Can anyone tell me if the error message I am getting is related to having the 429.0.0.0.0 bootrom on my 2013 Macbook Air with High Sierra OS?

I got a eficheck.dump error message and if you look at the folder path it says, "private/tmp/eficheck_MBA61.88z..."

Note: My macbook air has been running ok since I upgraded to 429.0.0.0.0 bootrom, no crashes so far.

 

[kvic]

RKT303.3 with ssdpmenabler on early 2015. Working just fine on Mojave

Thank you

So based on recently updated reports, we could narrow down the kernel panics on RKT303.3/ECFM22.6 to MacBookPro11,1 and/or Big Sur. I'll update the User Guide to clarify.

EDIT:

Updated Confirmed Mac & SSD Models in the User Guide.

 

[spockers]

hi i put a new a2000 ssd in my mac but after i go into internet recovery the new ssd is not showing up? any suggestions would help pls

 

[mdgm]

hi i put a new a2000 ssd in my mac but after i go into internet recovery the new ssd is not showing up? any suggestions would help pls

Is that Internet Recovery for High Sierra (or later)? You need at least High Sierra to use a NVMe SSD.

 

[spockers]

Is that Internet Recovery for High Sierra (or later)? You need at least High Sierra to use a NVMe SSD.

yes it is for big sur, the ssd is in the slot yet disk utility nor terminal will see it

update: i put the original ssd back and it is shown so the slot itself is not damaged, now how am i to know if it is the ssd that is the issue or the adapter?

update 2: sorry i am dumb the adapter and ssd had not fully gone into the slot, i had not realised this. they are proper now and i will update if more complications arise

 

[BoPl]

Thank you

So based on recently updated reports, we could narrow down the kernel panics on RKT303.3/ECFM22.6 to MacBookPro11,1 and/or Big Sur. I'll update the User Guide to clarify.

EDIT:

Updated Confirmed Mac & SSD Models in the User Guide.

Updated two issue trackers:
KP on reboot: 2013 13-inch MBA + ADATA SX8200 Pro
KP on reboot: 2014 13-inch MBP + Corsair MP510

Hi kvic,

Tested the SsdPmEnabler.kext with Corsair Force MP510 1TB and Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB SSDs on macOS Mojave and macOS Catalina. Got Kernel Panics on both macOS and both SSDs.
Latest KP with Corsair MP510 on macOS Catalina:

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f8e459231): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0xffffffff US[1]=0x0 US[0]=0x15 VID=0xffff DID=0xffff


. FW Revision=ECFM22.6\n"@/AppleInternal/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-470.100.17/IONVMeController.cpp:5320


Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address


0xffffff8118db39e0 : 0xffffff800c71868d


0xffffff8118db3a30 : 0xffffff800c852ab5


0xffffff8118db3a70 : 0xffffff800c84463e


0xffffff8118db3ac0 : 0xffffff800c6bea40


0xffffff8118db3ae0 : 0xffffff800c717d57


0xffffff8118db3be0 : 0xffffff800c718147


0xffffff8118db3c30 : 0xffffff800cebf2bc


0xffffff8118db3ca0 : 0xffffff7f8e459231


0xffffff8118db3cc0 : 0xffffff7f8e444362


0xffffff8118db3e20 : 0xffffff800ce2fb29


0xffffff8118db3e90 : 0xffffff800ce2fa49


0xffffff8118db3ec0 : 0xffffff800c75a645


0xffffff8118db3f40 : 0xffffff800c75a171


0xffffff8118db3fa0 : 0xffffff800c6be13e


Kernel Extensions in backtrace:


com.apple.iokit.IONVMeFamily(2.1)[2D554F70-092B-3B6B-B2AD-5C09EDB5B4F8]@0xffffff7f8e436000->0xffffff7f8e478fff


dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity(1.0.5)[4159DFFE-7746-3327-9752-C161DC295828]@0xffffff7f8d187000


dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[2F37AE58-E6B9-3B18-9092-3B80D34C334B]@0xffffff7f8d302000


dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM(2.1)[10E46031-889C-3FB7-8B4B-0DECAB5AE325]@0xffffff7f8d50a000


dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(2.1)[CB3CB8CA-881A-37F3-A96B-8063CAF0476D]@0xffffff7f8d065000


dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily(47)[72B53B80-5713-30C1-BAD8-9D55FD718DA2]@0xffffff7f8d230000





BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task





Mac OS version:


19H15





Kernel version:


Darwin Kernel Version 19.6.0: Thu Oct 29 22:56:45 PDT 2020; root:xnu-6153.141.2.2~1/RELEASE_X86_64


Kernel UUID: 9B5A7191-5B84-3990-8710-D9BD9273A8E5


Kernel slide: 0x000000000c400000


Kernel text base: 0xffffff800c600000


__HIB text base: 0xffffff800c500000


System model name: MacBookPro11,1 (Mac-189A3D4F975D5FFC)


System shutdown begun: NO


Panic diags file available: YES (0x0)





System uptime in nanoseconds: 60641126472

BTW - with NVMeFix and Lilu kext I have Idle 0,11A with MP510 on Big Sur 11.1

 

[kvic]

Hi @BoPl

That's lots of time spent on testing! Thank you vm. I hope other folks here will offer you some appreciation. I've updated the User Guide to incorporate your latest findings.

Originally I thought you're waiting for @BitMac to respond with the result on the "wild guess" and carry out your next move..

Let's wait for a bit longer. In the coming days, I could give you private builds of NvmeFix to try. Maybe we'll be able to nail it..maybe not.

Cheers

 

[BitMac]

Originally I thought you're waiting for @BitMac to respond with the result on the "wild guess" and carry out your next move..

Thanks for your much appreciated answer & advice @kvic!

Haven't been able to do so due lack of time. Hope to find some spare time in the coming days!

 

[BoPl]

Hi @BoPl

That's lots of time spent on testing! Thank you vm. I hope other folks here will offer you some appreciation. I've updated the User Guide to incorporate your latest findings.

Originally I thought you're waiting for @BitMac to respond with the result on the "wild guess" and carry out your next move..

Let's wait for a bit longer. In the coming days, I could give you private builds of NvmeFix to try. Maybe we'll be able to nail it..maybe not.

Cheers

kvic,

I also tried to use Samsung 970 Evo plus on my MacBook Pro to install Windows 10 as the second OS to update Corsairs firmware to ECFM22.7, Corsair SSD Tool doesn't support MacOS. But no luck trying to install Windows with Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur, always stoped installation on Blue Screen of Death.


So far no luck to upgrade MP510 firmware.

 

[MauriceG]

kvic,

I also tried to use Samsung 970 Evo plus on my MacBook Pro to install Windows 10 as the second OS to update Corsairs firmware to ECFM22.7, Corsair SSD Tool doesn't support MacOS. But no luck trying to install Windows with Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur, always stoped installation on Blue Screen of Death.
View attachment 1712795

So far no luck to upgrade MP510 firmware.

Have you consulted page 1? (Bootcamp installation issues section)

 

[Huberer]

@All
If you have problems with Lilu.kext under Big Sur, like I had (permanent reboot - under Catalina everything was ok)
With this command in terminal

sudo nvram boot-args="keepsyms=1"

I could solve the reboot-loop and I was able to install nvmefix.kext. I was a hard way to find out this solution.
Maybe someone could use this tip