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

[padams35]

Has anyone used or known someone who used the OWC Aurora N2?

I've finally given up on the original 128GB SSD in my 2015 Air. For years I parked a 128GB SD card as extra storage and told myself that was good enough... except that starting with High Sierra having an SD card connected has blocked Hibernation causing 1-2%/hour battery drain even when 'sleeping' while Mojave's 'security' has made installing and running applications on external drives pure pain.

So back to the Aurora N2, that drive seems to be advertised as ultra-low power (1.7W max write, <0.1W idle) in contrast to the Pro X2 that is marketed for speed.

Otherwise I'm reading good things about Sintec adapter with Crucial P2 from this thread.

 

[AstroZero]

My Setup:
Mojave 10.14.6 (18G7016)
MacBookAir7,2
Intel Core i5 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 425.0.0.0.0
Sabrent Rocket 1TB + Sintec short adapter

iStat indicated the following for idle power draw.
No kexts - 0.16 A
(Not so worried about power draw as the crash issues)

FYI, I have installed both SsdPmEnabler / NVMeFix :

My Setup:
Mojave 10.14.6 (18G7016)
MacBookAir7,2
Intel Core i5 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 425.0.0.0.0
Sabrent Rocket 1TB + Sintec short adapter

iStat indicated the following for idle power draw.
No kexts - 0.17 A
NVMeFix - 0.16 A
SsdPmEnabler - 0.02 A

Impresive power savings and I have reset pm settings via:

sudo pmset restoredefaults

Now I will just wait and see if I get any IONVMeController:5334 crashes

 

[AstroZero]

Now I will just wait and see if I get any IONVMeController:5334 crashes

just to add this is a Sabrent Rocket 1TB on a Phison E12 based drive running ECFM12.3

Other people in this thread refer to this issue as the IONVMeFamily-387.270.1 Kernel panic, in case someone gets here from google.

here is a similar crash:

IGP causes NVMe Kernel Panic CSTS=0xffffffff · Issue #1193 · acidanthera/bugtracker

Let me start with the fact that this is not a bug in NVMeFix or Whatevergreen but this seems like the best place to document the issue. I have an Intel 9600K/H370 system that experiences kernel pan...

github.com

 

[Michaela_]

Hi. First-time poster, long-time lurker here. I really wanted this to be a post celebrating my success, nevertheless, this isn't one.

TL;DR: My Sintech adapter was faulty and it took me quite some time to figure out so I'm just letting you know that this is possible and it can happen.

I wanted to upgrade my MacBook Pro Retina 13" mid 2014 (11,1) with a Crucial P2 1TB drive using Sintech short adapter. Since I'm based in Europe and Amazon is poorly stocked here, I chose to order directly from Sintech. It took about 2 weeks for it to arrive, noting the tracking info got stuck as soon as it landed in the UK, then a week passed and it suddenly showed up in the mail, while the tracking still stated "Heathrow". Anyway, it was packed nicely, so far all good. Then I got into a perilous process of backing up everything important, which took forever since my hard drives are virtually ancient (and tiny).
Fun fact: my bootable USB died mid-process, so I had to get a new one, which proved to be one of the "2.4GHz WiFi signal killers" and it's annoying.
Not so fun fact: the Sintech adapter died as well. It worked for an hour or so, then after a restart, I've got the infamous "question mark folder" screen and my MacBook wasn't able to recognize the SSD anymore. After some lengthy troubleshooting, the adapter proved to be the culprit. I contacted Sintech for their opinion on this and will update this post as soon as I get a response from them. Until then I wish y'all better luck❤️.

Takeaways are: get disks that are big enough, fast enough, and properly shielded and when ordering from the other end of the world, order a spare.

 

[Baptiste261]

Hello,

I have a MacBook Pro retina 13" 2015 with crucial P2 500gb.
I installed SSDPmEnabler only.

But I am quite disappointed because write and read speeds are not high.

View attachment 1733701

But we can see the difference with SSDPmEnabler.
View attachment 1733709

Hello,

Nobody can help me about disk speed with crucial p2 ?

Thanks in advance

 

[BoPl]

Hello,

Nobody can help me about disk speed with crucial p2 ?

Thanks in advance

What adapter do you use?

 

[Baptiste261]

I have this one :
Sintech NGFF M.2 nvme SSD.

Sintech M.2 nVME SSD card for Upgrade Macbook Air(2013-2017) PRO(late 2013-2015) | eBay

Les meilleures offres pour Sintech M.2 nVME SSD card for Upgrade Macbook Air(2013-2017) PRO(late 2013-2015) sont sur eBay ✓ Comparez les prix et les spécificités des produits neufs et d'occasion ✓ Pleins d'articles en livraison gratuite!

www.ebay.fr

 

[AstroZero]

Hello,

Nobody can help me about disk speed with crucial p2 ?

Thanks in advance

I experienced similar (Sabrent Rocket uses a similar controller to the P2, I think), I have:

Mojave 10.14.6 (18G7016)
MacBookAir7,2 (early 2015)
Intel Core i5 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 425.0.0.0.0
Sabrent Rocket 1TB + Sintec short adapter

iStat indicated the following for idle power draw:
No kexts - 0.17 A
NVMeFix - 0.16 A
SsdPmEnabler - 0.02 A

before the kexts I used to get ~1500+MB/s if I recall. after, speed was ~600-700MB/s for both read and write on first start. Anyway, after 21 hours or so of uptime the speed has come back up to 1200MB/s, read speeds are still a little slow though.

I would take the slower read/write speeds for stability and low-cost 1TB+ drives

 

[egalitarian]

What do you guys use to measure current power consumption?

 

[Semente]

Hi!

I'm with Big sur and a 1TB SX8200PNP SSD:

The battery lasts arround 3h.

When I was on Catalina it lasted for much more.

Any help?

 

[BoPl]

I have this one :
Sintech NGFF M.2 nvme SSD.

Sintech M.2 nVME SSD card for Upgrade Macbook Air(2013-2017) PRO(late 2013-2015) | eBay

Les meilleures offres pour Sintech M.2 nVME SSD card for Upgrade Macbook Air(2013-2017) PRO(late 2013-2015) sont sur eBay ✓ Comparez les prix et les spécificités des produits neufs et d'occasion ✓ Pleins d'articles en livraison gratuite!

www.ebay.fr

I had similar problem with nonane adapter. Did you use Kapton tape to isolate contacts on the Adapter? Also I know Crucial released Firmware Update for P2 500Gb SSD, unlikely but also may help if update the SSD Firmware.

 

[mork4]

Anyone noticed bootrom update with macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 release? Thx.

 

[vince22]

Hello,

Nobody can help me about disk speed with crucial p2 ?

Thanks in advance

post your link speed, make sure its running 4x lanes.

 

[herb2k]

Anyone noticed bootrom update with macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 release? Thx.

Nothing on my 2015 13" MBP

 

[Baptiste261]

I had similar problem with nonane adapter. Did you use Kapton tape to isolate contacts on the Adapter? Also I know Crucial released Firmware Update for P2 500Gb SSD, unlikely but also may help if update the SSD Firmware.

This adapter is isolate with tape in factory.

Can I update the firmware from my Mac ? Because I haven't a PC for that.
My firmware is : P2CR010

 

[Baptiste261]

post your link speed, make sure its running 4x lanes.

View attachment 1735625

Its running 4x lanes

 

[Earl Urley]

Anyone noticed bootrom update with macOS Big Sur 11.2.2 release? Thx.

Nope, not on two 2013 and 2015 machines. According to Howard Oakley at the Eclectic Light website, 11.2.2 only updated the iBridge firmware on T2 machines and nothing else on all other Macs.

 

[BoPl]

This adapter is isolate with tape in factory.

Can I update the firmware from my Mac ? Because I haven't a PC for that.
My firmware is : P2CR010

Unfortunately update SSD firmware you can on Windows only. But I'm not 100% sure that will fix your problem.

 

[just_a_tiny_question]

Hello everyone. I'm about to upgrade my MacBook Pro early 2015 with the ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1Tb, but before I do it, I've have few questions that I'm hoping some of you might have the answer to.
I have tried reading through the many already posted answers, but it seems to make me more confused than smarter. I've also read the beginning post that help to set it all up, but while comparing it to the newer posts, it's seems in need of quite an update.

My first question is, which OS should I install? Catalina, Mohave or Big Sur? I'm imagining that the newest versions of Big Sur have possible bugs, but I truly have no clue. It seems, as far as I've read, that many are installing additional software to stabilise these bugs, but I guess I'm confused as for which are necessary for my specific computer, as it seems many of the problems occur in the 2014 model.

My second question is, when I've selected an OS to install, is there any way to find out if the next OS update is good to install? Does Apple realise information about this or are many of you just hoping that your Mac still works afterwards?

My third question is, what software should be installed with whatever OS version I end up installing? I think this is the one I'm most nervous about, as I'll probably just install Catalina, if no one has time for this question 😅

My reason for updating my computer is mostly that I only have 128 gb, and that I'd like to be able to run both windows, linux and Mac OS on the computer. I only have 30 gb left

Thanks in advance!

 

[xboxbml]

Hello everyone. I'm about to upgrade my MacBook Pro early 2015 with the ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1Tb, but before I do it, I've have few questions that I'm hoping some of you might have the answer to.
I have tried reading through the many already posted answers, but it seems to make me more confused than smarter. I've also read the beginning post that help to set it all up, but while comparing it to the newer posts, it's seems in need of quite an update.

My first question is, which OS should I install? Catalina, Mohave or Big Sur? I'm imagining that the newest versions of Big Sur have possible bugs, but I truly have no clue. It seems, as far as I've read, that many are installing additional software to stabilise these bugs, but I guess I'm confused as for which are necessary for my specific computer, as it seems many of the problems occur in the 2014 model.

My second question is, when I've selected an OS to install, is there any way to find out if the next OS update is good to install? Does Apple realise information about this or are many of you just hoping that your Mac still works afterwards?

My third question is, what software should be installed with whatever OS version I end up installing? I think this is the one I'm most nervous about, as I'll probably just install Catalina, if no one has time for this question 😅

My reason for updating my computer is mostly that I only have 128 gb, and that I'd like to be able to run both windows, linux and Mac OS on the computer. I only have 30 gb left

Thanks in advance!

I have what you have, but I got the 2TB... And the Syntec small adapter. I'm currently running Catalina 10.15.7. I don't want to go up to Big Sur cuz of the issues that have been reported, as well as Apple is locking things down more and more every time. Pretty soon you won't even be able to do anything in the terminal, or even have a terminal.. I've thought about going back down to Mojave, but don't want to have to go thru all the hassle of reloading software. I have MS Office, as well as LibreOffice. Not sure what other software you're talking about.. I don't do much else on this.

 

[developeralioz]

Hi folks (and @kvic !)

Thanks for a great thread with lots of detail So I have a Kernel Panic issue with my aftermarket SSD.

My Setup:
Mojave 10.14.6 (18G7016)
MacBookAir7,2
Intel Core i5 1.6 GHz
Boot ROM Version: 425.0.0.0.0
Sabrent Rocket 1TB + Sintec short adapter

iStat indicated the following for idle power draw.
No kexts - 0.16 A
(Not so worried about power draw as the crash issues)

Every so often I get a reboot with a kernel panic on "IONVMeController.cpp:5334" always exactly that kext/line. (googled it, many people with aftermarket NVMe SSDs have this issue, not just my SSD either 😔 ) . It is at random times, last time it happened I was renaming a file- the machine froze for ~30s and rebooted. The file was renamed. I have been saving some of the panics in my Apple™️ Notes app 😆 on every reboot. Several panic dumps are provided below.

I tried

sudo pmset -a standby 0

around May and October 2020.

Hopefully I can get some helpful advice from you. n.b. I have not yet tried SsdPmEnabler / NVMeFix. I will try NVMeFix kext first and hopefully that will help.

In this git issue there seems to be some similar panics in IONVMeController:5334 (there are other panics in IONVMeController on that issue with different line numbers):

Random panic in IONVMeController · Issue #22 · osy/HaC-Mini

*** Panic Report *** panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff7f89076c0c): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x1 US[1]=0x0 US[0]=0x10 VID/DID=0x2262126f . FW Revision=SVN163\n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.appl...

github.com

Sadly people are still experiencing this issue, and apparently, there will not be any other attempt to address in NVMeFix as it is out of scope does anyone know what is happening around line 5334 in IONVMeController.cpp? This related comment and this related patch talk about timeouts, is line 5334 related to timeouts? [I wonder how long it should be without a panic that I can consider this issue fixed with confidence interval 0.001...]

(side note: I have experienced the issue since Mojave 18G103 and BootROM 188.0.0.0.0 currently I am on 18G7016 with BootROM 425.0.0.0.0. Interestingly since around November 2019, I have not reinstalled OSX and not put the original SSD back, yet I've been getting bootrom updates. Not sure how, my Mojave install date is Sat 24 Aug 2019 18:34:21 BST (checked via stackoverflow). Th issue used to be triggered more often with BootROM 188.0.0.0.0.)

Kernel Panic (n.b. not every one was saved):

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I am having the same problem. NVMeFix, SsdPmEnabler, Lilu installed. But I'm still getting the panic error.

 

[AstroZero]

I am having the same problem. NVMeFix, SsdPmEnabler, Lilu installed. But I'm still getting the panic error.

Hi! Thanks for replying Nice to know I am not alone.

Can you post your setup and any Kernel Panic dumps? How often do you get this issue?

In my case NVMeFix, SsdPmEnabler may have fixed the issue I have not experienced any crashes since these were installed (so far!).

I checked my logs and the crash would happen to me between ~30 minutes and 4d 20h after bootup:

Spoiler

$ cat kp-nvme.txt | grep uptime
System uptime in nanoseconds: 33855789329764
System uptime in nanoseconds: 2087773860540
System uptime in nanoseconds: 30905369385053
System uptime in nanoseconds: 131723330659273
System uptime in nanoseconds: 32007630172
System uptime in nanoseconds: 142488114283417
System uptime in nanoseconds: 3256836841426
System uptime in nanoseconds: 418031993376019
System uptime in nanoseconds: 64680443225
System uptime in nanoseconds: 14912135267264
System uptime in nanoseconds: 191590566078998
System uptime in nanoseconds: 32423915462535
System uptime in nanoseconds: 22176681559667
System uptime in nanoseconds: 52706238208914

(average uptime at crash: 21h 21m ; sdev: 1d 6h )

However, since installing NVMeFix and SsdPmEnabler my current uptime is over 5 days:

$ uptime
15:15  up 5 days,  1:37, 2 users, load averages: 1.86 2.76 3.24

According to Chebyshev's inequality, getting ~5 days of uptime (4 * standard deviation), I can be 94% sure that the lack of a crash is not an anomaly. After about 11 days of uptime I will be 99% sure. I will check back in a couple of days how far I make it without an IONVMeController kernel panic. If crashes are normally distributed, then the confidence can be much higher (99.99...% and sooner (~7 days)), but I have not checked the distribution of my crashes.

A quick google search reveals that this issue happens in almost all versions of MacOS including in the newer Catalina and Big Sur. I'm glad I never upgraded to Catalina. In those only the kext/kernel versions and line number of the panic are different. Interestingly, the issue happens to both aftermarket and genuine nvme ssd sticks, although more common with aftermarket sdds and around sleep/wake. (This is why editing sleep settings helps.) So it points to a bug in the Apple IONVMeFamily driver with timeouts, that is more often triggered by aftermarket SSDs. Many SSD manufacturers controller builders have no motivation to offer us a fix as they do not support macs.

IONVMeController Mojave crashes "IONVMeFamily-387.260.15/IONVMeController.cpp:5334" (100+ results), e.g. with both Apple and non Apple SSDs https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250380026

IONVMeController Catalina panic "IONVMeFamily-470.100.17/IONVMeController.cpp:5320" (1000+ results), e.g. with Apple SSD https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251202030

IONVMeController Bug Sur panic "IONVMeFamily-557.40.12/Common/IONVMeController.cpp:5471" (~10 results), e.g. with Apple SSD https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252100672

I'm sure those lines point to some kind of timeout trap and I assume there are many more with this issue out there who have not posted anything online. I only posted after 2+ years, once I realised that I had saved some of the kp dumps in Notes.

edit: fixed typos.

 

[Skypalace]

I’m running a late 2013 15” MacBook Pro, a couple of years ago I upgraded to a 2TB Sabrent w short Sintech, of course w help out this group and thread. I’m happy, all has been working fine, I just ensure I don’t go too long w/o power as I haven’t hacked rom to fix the hibernate issues.

My Q: I’m on an old OS (Mojave 10.14.6) and bootrom (153.0.0.0.0) and was thinking of upgrading, my Mac is showing me Big Sur 11.2.1 as an upgrade.

1) Any reason not to?

2) What steps and in what order?

3) I read a few hundred posts this morning but not all- from post #1, am I correct in reading that upgrading to Big Sur and recent boot rom will actually fix the hiber issues that we struggled with for so long? If so, awesome! What power setting mods would I need to make to get back to ’normal’, as I’ve disabled hiber etc. per state of the world at the time.

A few notes:
a) I have a couple empty 32GB SD cards handy but not a spare large USB, though Amazon could fix that.
b) I will be traveling to the location that has my original Mac SSD shortly, but it has a VERY slow internet connection, so I’d like to do any large downloads (OS etc.) in advance, and would prefer to use physical Time Machine backups (I have a couple of large external USB drives I alternate between) vs internet downloads.

Here’s my info:

 

[just_a_tiny_question]

I have what you have, but I got the 2TB... And the Syntec small adapter. I'm currently running Catalina 10.15.7. I don't want to go up to Big Sur cuz of the issues that have been reported, as well as Apple is locking things down more and more every time. Pretty soon you won't even be able to do anything in the terminal, or even have a terminal.. I've thought about going back down to Mojave, but don't want to have to go thru all the hassle of reloading software.

Hello! Thanks for your answer!

May I ask you why you're thinking about going back to Mojave?

I have MS Office, as well as LibreOffice. Not sure what other software you're talking about.. I don't do much else on this.

I'm talking about NVMeFix, SsdPmEnabler, Lilu that a lot of people seem to be installing.

 

[kvic]

I have a MacBook Pro retina 13" 2015 with crucial P2 500gb.
I installed SSDPmEnabler only.

But I am quite disappointed because write and read speeds are not high.

I've seen quite a number of people having reported here substantially less than 1500MB/s read/write speed but only one guy being able to pin down the cause (a corroded SSD socket).

Slow speed could be caused by:

• thermal throttle by NVMe SSD itself. Monitor your temp if that's the case
• poor mechanical/electrical contacts caused by bad installation, 'cheap' adaptor, corroded/bad SSD socket & etc

I am having the same problem. NVMeFix, SsdPmEnabler, Lilu installed. But I'm still getting the panic error.

However, since installing NVMeFix and SsdPmEnabler my current uptime is over 5 days:

First of all, I wish you good luck that indeed solves your crash.

I think crashes in Apple's NVMe driver could be caused by many reasons but all people will see is the very similar panic log that you've pulled together from different sources.

Since MacBookAir7,2 is proven to be okay by other folks, if the problem persists, I would check mechanical/electrical contacts in the SSD/adaptor/SSD socket.

Fun fact: my bootable USB died mid-process, so I had to get a new one

Is it dead or just extremely slow? Try to perform secure erase (in Disk Utility) on your 'dead' USB stick if it's just extremely slow.

I brought my 'dead' USB stick to full speed like new that way.

My second question is, when I've selected an OS to install, is there any way to find out if the next OS update is good to install? Does Apple realise information about this or are many of you just hoping that your Mac still works afterwards?

While Apple doesn't test MacOS on most 3rd-party hardware, NVMe SSDs are the least you should worry about. If it works now, there is no reason to fear it will stop working in new versions for the foreseeable future.

I would install both ssdpmEnabler & NVMeFix (+Lilu) for ADATA SX8200 Pro.

3) I read a few hundred posts this morning but not all- from post #1, am I correct in reading that upgrading to Big Sur and recent boot rom will actually fix the hiber issues that we struggled with for so long?

Not just Big Sur, all MacOS versions still supported by Apple should have received the same BootROM updates. According to people here, recent BootROM's indeed fix the hibernation issue in 2013/14 models.

Your BootROM seems a few years out of date . Very likely you need to put back the original Apple SSD to succeed in the BootROM update.