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

[Aurora112]

Thanks for your reply. Hm, based on what is your guess?
“Phison flash id” requires Windows just to read out the controller. Running it in Wine didn't work.
As for the 1.7A or 2.5A: The Amazon photo shows the 2TB Crucial P2 with 1.7A.
And in this review you can see a 1TB with 2.5A. – Just the opposite.

Crucial P2 1TB PCIe Gen3 NVMe M.2 SSD Review

In our Crucial P2 1TB review, we see how this PCIe Gen3 NVMe SSD fares compared to other M.2 drives we have tested, and the answer is not well

www.servethehome.com

I have installed the 2TB Crucial P2 finally.

So far I am impressed with the speed, which is double of the Apple SSD. Temperature is 40°C in 23°C room temperature. Apple Diagnosis has recognized the SSD (no problems found) and also SmartReporter. I can post details here, if somebody wants to know more.

The only problem at the moment is that I had planned to use Sierra on a 2nd partition. But the drive is not visible at all from the Sierra installer. (Boot-ROM-Version: 431.0.0.0.0)

I read through the WikiPost again and found this info:
“ •NVMe drives with 512b sectors don't work on macOS older than 10.13
• NVMe drives with 4K sector size (ex. : Sabrent Rocket) do work natively with macOS 10.12, of course you need to have your BootRom up to date before installation”

So I checked the sector size of all volumes with Terminal:

#!/bin/bash

for disk in /dev/disk*s*
do
diskutil info $disk
echo "**************************************************************************************"
echo " "
done

If I read the output correctly, the SSD uses 512 bytes sector size.
Disk Size: 2.0 TB (2000189177856 Bytes) (exactly 3906619488 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes
Volume Total Space: 2.0 TB (2000189177856 Bytes) (exactly 3906619488 512-Byte-Units)
Volume Used Space: 25.2 GB (25211752448 Bytes) (exactly 49241704 512-Byte-Units) (1.3%)
Volume Free Space: 2.0 TB (1974977425408 Bytes) (exactly 3857377784 512-Byte-Units) (98.7%)
Allocation Block Size: 4096 Bytes

Is there a way to change that?

good to know! Thank you!

maybe the following will help you out - didn’t have the need to try because of sabrents tool which provides 4k formatting :

https://forum.corsair.com/v3/showthread.php?p=1070606

PS: i think you are running on 4k cluster size

 

[Aurora112]

A summary of my email exchange with Crucial Customer Support, is that after they confirmed several times that "Crucial P2 SSDs are based on TLC NAND flash", they finally stated:

Currently the P2 is primarily based on QLC NAND. However, different NAND technologies like TLC may be used depending on material availability.

We will not be able to get you a 2TB TLC P2 drive as it has never been produced.

Unfortunately previous comments, as the ones below, were ignored:

We encourage Micron to be more transparent about their controller and NAND choices and especially any post-launch changes.

Sending out faster TLC drives for review, then releasing versions with QLC under the same product name at a later date seems rather shifty.

The Crucial P2 is "designed" to use TLC NAND flash, and initially it did (I guess that all the third-party benchmarks has been conducted with the TLC versions, so the performance figures were very close as the advertised), but taking advantage of the clause "specifications are subject to change without notice" now uses QLC (N28A), as the output (trimmed) of a Phison's diag tool shows:

Model : CT2000P2SSD8
Fw : P2CR033
Size : 1907729 MB [2000.4 GB]
LBA Size: 512
...
F/W : EDFN70.0
P/N : 00000000
Bank00: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank01: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank02: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank03: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank04: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank05: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank06: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank07: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank08: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank09: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank10: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank11: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank12: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank13: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank14: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Bank15: 0x2c,0xd3,0x1c,0x32,0xc6,0x0,0x0,0x0 - Micron 96L(N28A) QLC 1024Gb/CE 1024Gb/die
Controller : PS5013-E13 [PS5013AA]
CPU Clk : 667
Flash CE : 16
Flash Channel : 4
Interleave : 4
Flash CE Mask : [++++++++ ++++++++ -------- --------]
Flash Clk,MT : 800
Block per CE : 1968
Page per Block: 4608
Bit Per Cell : 4(QLC)
PMIC Type : PS6103
PE Cycle Limit: 40000/1500
ParPage : 00

It's a real pity, when P2 (DRAMless + TLC) replaced P1 (DRAM cache + QLC), it made sense for several scenarios.
But the change to DRAMless + QLC looks like a "P0" or "P-2" (it looks like they are walking as a crab...backwards)

Companies behave only in that way if they know they dont face unwanted customer reaction.

The thing is not if QLC makes sense or not.... would it be ok if your car ordered several weeks ago comes with 3 insteed of 4 wheels because VW told you there might be scenarios for it *höhö*

what the heck is wrong with those business guys?!

Save the best what you have, your time... get a real NVM SSD from a trustworthy company.

 

[J3G]

Companies behave only in that way if they know they dont face unwanted customer reaction.

The thing is not if QLC makes sense or not.... would it be ok if your car ordered several weeks ago comes with 3 insteed of 4 wheels because VW told you there might be scenarios for it *höhö*

what the heck is wrong with those business guys?!

Save the best what you have, your time... get a real NVM SSD from a trustworthy company.

100% agree, the feeling is dealing with 🤥

Another public comment:

It has a basic controller (Phison E13), no DRAM and Micron 96L QLC NAND, so it's quite slow. The uSLC cache is small and after a few GB of writes it will start writing direct-to-NAND, which will lower write speeds all the way down to ~65MB/s on the 1TB version.
Pretty disappointing overall since I expected more from Crucial, even a larger game update will completely bog the drive down, it's just not great compared to alternatives.

So QLC in a DRAMless SSD doesn't make sense at all for a primary drive, as it will go down the cliff with a minimum push...
Endurance is another key concern, so don't even think to use it for ChiaCoin 💥💥💥

 

[bokehthelion]

Hello again guys! Just got my Sintech adapter. I'm going to check out local computer shops tomorrow for NVME SSDs. Most probably it would be Samsung Evos and WD which are readily available here. Which is better for a "plug & play" option?

edit: to add my original apple SSD died. So it would be near impossible to upgrade my boot firmware

update: Here are my choices for SSDs


WD black S500G 3x0C-00SJGO
WD black S500G 1X0E
WD Blue S500G 2B0C-00PXHO

Kingston SA2000 M8

Which would be most compatible with the sintech adapter?

 

[bokehthelion]

sabrent rocket blue/black version, the REAL NVME SSD with TLC 3D Nandt, check it out if you have got one. Have a look earlier in this thread for the phison software to read out your nmve sdd setup (Type of Nandt, DRAM, Firmware, Type of Controller etc.pp)

Sorry haven't heard of the software. I'll try to check on it

 

[Aurora112]

Hello again guys! Just got my Sintech adapter. I'm going to check out local computer shops tomorrow for NVME SSDs. Most probably it would be Samsung Evos and WD which are readily available here. Which is better for a "plug & play" option?

edit: to add my original apple SSD died. So it would be near impossible to upgrade my boot firware

maybe i’m wrong but i remember their was a way to update the rom without an apple ssd - earlier in this thread?!

how about a used apple ssd?
From my point of view to update the bootroom is much more important than the vendor of the ssd.

the phison software doesn’t run on macos. Need to get bootcamp on your mac,
have not managed with windows Pe on a USB drive :-(

 

[BaneDark]

I'm not sure if it may be related, latest Mojave update aka macOS 10.14.6 (18G9216) uses the same Boot ROM Version:431.0.0.0.0, but my SSD is working 3-4º C hotter than before install this update.

Wait, if the latest Mojave update uses same boot rom as big sur, does it mean I can update boot rom (to get rid of the hibernation issues on the late 2013 MacBook Pro), by just this recent Mojave update? So no need to instal big sur at all? Since I’ve already been running Mojave for over a year

 

[Aurora112]

Wait, if the latest Mojave update uses same boot rom as big sur, does it mean I can update boot rom (to get rid of the hibernation issues on the late 2013 MacBook Pro), by just this recent Mojave update? So no need to instal big sur at all? Since I’ve already been running Mojave for over a year

if u have an apple ssd, yes! thats what i faced. Got the rom update with the latest mojave update.

 

[bokehthelion]

maybe i’m wrong but i remember their was a way to update the rom without an apple ssd - earlier in this thread?!

how about a used apple ssd?
From my point of view to update the bootroom is much more important than the vendor of the ssd.

the phison software doesn’t run on macos. Need to get bootcamp on your mac,
have not managed with windows Pe on a USB drive :-(

Can I run the phison software on a different machine? I have a PC that accepts M.2

 

[BaneDark]

if u have an apple ssd, yes! thats what i faced. Got the rom update with the latest mojave update.

Wow! Just done it! Thanks man! This really helped me as I was worrying Big Sur could mess up my MacBook as reported by some people, running newest boot rom now on Mojave 😃🙌

 

[Aurora112]

Can I run the phison software on a different machine? I have a PC that accepts M.2

u need to check if your wintel machine supports nvme protocol with the m2 slot.
m2 is the standard of the slot
nvm is a protocol like sata.

m2 sata slot will not work!

if your machine does fit the requirements, choose a win pe usb image in the net, flash onto an usb stick, put the phison software (if your nvme card has a phison controller ) on the stick and voila

 

[bokehthelion]

u need to check if your wintel machine supports nvme protocol with the m2 slot.
m2 is the standard of the slot
nvm is a protocol like sata.

m2 sata slot will not work!

if your machine does fit the requirements, choose a win pe usb image in the net, flash onto an usb stick, put the phison software (if your nvme card has a phison controller ) on the stick and voila

Got it. Yeah my mobo supports NVME. Here are my choices for SSDs which are available in my place locally:


WD black S500G 3x0C-00SJGO
WD black S500G 1X0E
WD Blue S500G 2B0C-00PXHO

Kingston SA2000 M8

I've read that the WD blue needs firmware update but as long as I can update it using my PC then everything is okay.

But what would work best among these choices?

 

[Aurora112]

Wow! Just done it! Thanks man! This really helped me as I was worrying Big Sur could mess up my MacBook as reported by some people, running newest boot rom now on Mojave 😃🙌

great!

 

[Aurora112]

Got it. Yeah my mobo supports NVME. Here are my choices for SSDs which are available in my place locally:


WD black S500G 3x0C-00SJGO
WD black S500G 1X0E
WD Blue S500G 2B0C-00PXHO

Kingston SA2000 M8

I've read that the WD blue needs firmware update but as long as I can update it using my PC then everything is okay.

But what would work best among these choices?

no one knows your requirements except yourself

Kingston would be _my way_ to go, performance midrange, power consumption good (write power consumption higher as WD blue) an additional features like TCG Opal, XTS-AES 256-bit

 

[bokehthelion]

no one knows your requirements except yourself

Kingston would be _my way_ to go, performance midrange, power consumption good (write power consumption higher as WD blue) an additional features like TCG Opal, XTS-AES 256-bit

Gotcha. Actually I'm not looking to juice out performance on my old MBP 15 late 2013. It just sad that the old SSD died and I need to replace it. Lol. I'm just looking for something that would surely work.

 

[olfo]

Sure, TLC is better than QLC and it is not ok at all from Crucial to change the specs on which people are making their buying decisions.
I don’t want to sugarcoat Crucial`s strange product policy, just share some thoughts with you.
Regardless what’s happening behind the scenes I assume that the sparse specs that Crucial makes public are still correct. So, regarding the 2TB SSD model, that I have bought, the specs are, as of their product flyer from March 18, 2021 – in short:
2TB CT2000P2SSD8
600TBW
Seqential Read: 2400MB/s
Sequential Write: 1900MB/s
Link to their flyer:

https://www.crucial.de/content/dam/crucial/ssd-products/P2/flyer/crucial-P2-productflyer-consumer.pdf

1. Endurance
In my previous Macbook Pro, I had a Samsung 1TB 850 EVO 2,5“ SATA SSD, that offers TLC and 150TBW endurance. Within 4 years of heavy video and photo editing, I have reached only a fraction of this value. The 2TB Crucial P2 has 600TBW.

2. Speed
The main goal is to reach an improvement over the old Apple SSD. In my tests this has worked, although I can’t say what will happen when the Crucial P2 fills up. See my screenshots. Maybe I’ll try to simulate this by creating a 100GB partition and do the tests on that. Note that I have done the tests on a Macbook Pro 15" late 2013 (MacBookPro11,3).

3. Compatibility
So far, the SSD runs a bit warmer without read/write operations. 39°C vs. Apple SSD 35°C.
During heavy AJA bench testing, the SSD reached 42°C vs. Apple 45°C.
Lack of pre-MacOS 10.13 compatibility is a downside for me.
But which SSD has that out-of-the-box?

4. Competitive brands
(in my humble opinion, based on what I have read here and elsewhere):
- Apple SSD, hard to get, especially the larger capacity, and expensive. Unclear how “worn” it is, because it is years old when you buy it. But it offers pre-MacOS 10.13 compatibility.
- Corsair MP510 very attractive as of the WikiPage table in this forum. But hard to get at the moment, prices are going up. Technical changes have been made on the controller as I’ve read.
- Sabrent Rocket (black/blue label version). As with Corsair, the firmware can’t be updated on MacOS. And as of a German Amazon (3-star) review, the TLC are of lower quality now.
- OWC Aura Pro X2 While the “old” Aura SSD was critisized, this version seems to be o.k.. It uses a Silicon Motion controller. Only the older OS compatibility is lacking for me, and the power consumption seems high. Apart from the Apple connector on the SSD, I don’t know what benefit I would get over the Corsair, for example.

So after all, at least for the MacBook Pro late 2013 and mid 2014, I think the Crucial 2TB P2 seems quite appealing.
Still the SSD is new in my computer and I don’t know what may happen in the next weeks. At least it was cheap.

What do you think?

These screenshots are from the “AJA System Test” in “Run continously” mode.
New, empty Crucial P2 2TB CT2000P2SSD8 compared to old 80% full Apple (Samsung) SSD 500GB SM0512F

 

[RedTomato]

I have installed the 2TB Crucial P2 finally.

So far I am impressed with the speed, which is double of the Apple SSD. Temperature is 40°C in 23°C room temperature. Apple Diagnosis has recognized the SSD (no problems found) and also SmartReporter. I can post details here, if somebody wants to know more.

The only problem at the moment is that I had planned to use Sierra on a 2nd partition. But the drive is not visible at all from the Sierra installer. (Boot-ROM-Version: 431.0.0.0.0)

I read through the WikiPost again and found this info:
“ •NVMe drives with 512b sectors don't work on macOS older than 10.13
• NVMe drives with 4K sector size (ex. : Sabrent Rocket) do work natively with macOS 10.12, of course you need to have your BootRom up to date before installation”

So I checked the sector size of all volumes with Terminal:

#!/bin/bash

for disk in /dev/disk*s*
do
diskutil info $disk
echo "**************************************************************************************"
echo " "
done

If I read the output correctly, the SSD uses 512 bytes sector size.
Disk Size: 2.0 TB (2000189177856 Bytes) (exactly 3906619488 512-Byte-Units)
Device Block Size: 4096 Bytes
Volume Total Space: 2.0 TB (2000189177856 Bytes) (exactly 3906619488 512-Byte-Units)
Volume Used Space: 25.2 GB (25211752448 Bytes) (exactly 49241704 512-Byte-Units) (1.3%)
Volume Free Space: 2.0 TB (1974977425408 Bytes) (exactly 3857377784 512-Byte-Units) (98.7%)
Allocation Block Size: 4096 Bytes

Is there a way to change that?

Rather than fiddling with your drive, maybe you could run Sierra in a virtual machine?

Easier to back up the entire VM and move it from drive to drive. Any modern mac should be able to run Sierra pretty quick in a VM. (Even older games should be fine).

VMWare offers a free license for personal use of their fully featured VMWare Fusion Player - registration required.

VMware Fusion Player – Personal Use License

This page will allow users to obtain free ‘Personal Use’ license for VMware Fusion Player

my.vmware.com

I use it for running both Windows and other versions of OSX in virtual machines, but be warned there are a couple of snags between VMWare Fusion and Big Sur. I *think* you should be fine for running a Sierra VM. Parallels is the other big player but it's more expensive.

 

[Aurora112]

Sure, TLC is better than QLC and it is not ok at all from Crucial to change the specs on which people are making their buying decisions.
I don’t want to sugarcoat Crucial`s strange product policy, just share some thoughts with you.
Regardless what’s happening behind the scenes I assume that the sparse specs that Crucial makes public are still correct. So, regarding the 2TB SSD model, that I have bought, the specs are, as of their product flyer from March 18, 2021 – in short:
2TB CT2000P2SSD8
600TBW
Seqential Read: 2400MB/s
Sequential Write: 1900MB/s
Link to their flyer:

https://www.crucial.de/content/dam/crucial/ssd-products/P2/flyer/crucial-P2-productflyer-consumer.pdf

1. Endurance
In my previous Macbook Pro, I had a Samsung 1TB 850 EVO 2,5“ SATA SSD, that offers TLC and 150TBW endurance. Within 4 years of heavy video and photo editing, I have reached only a fraction of this value. The 2TB Crucial P2 has 600TBW.

2. Speed
The main goal is to reach an improvement over the old Apple SSD. In my tests this has worked, although I can’t say what will happen when the Crucial P2 fills up. See my screenshots. Maybe I’ll try to simulate this by creating a 100GB partition and do the tests on that. Note that I have done the tests on a Macbook Pro 15" late 2013 (MacBookPro11,3).

3. Compatibility
So far, the SSD runs a bit warmer without read/write operations. 39°C vs. Apple SSD 35°C.
During heavy AJA bench testing, the SSD reached 42°C vs. Apple 45°C.
Lack of pre-MacOS 10.13 compatibility is a downside for me.
But which SSD has that out-of-the-box?

4. Competitive brands
(in my humble opinion, based on what I have read here and elsewhere):
- Apple SSD, hard to get, especially the larger capacity, and expensive. Unclear how “worn” it is, because it is years old when you buy it. But it offers pre-MacOS 10.13 compatibility.
- Corsair MP510 very attractive as of the WikiPage table in this forum. But hard to get at the moment, prices are going up. Technical changes have been made on the controller as I’ve read.
- Sabrent Rocket (black/blue label version). As with Corsair, the firmware can’t be updated on MacOS. And as of a German Amazon (3-star) review, the TLC are of lower quality now.
- OWC Aura Pro X2 While the “old” Aura SSD was critisized, this version seems to be o.k.. It uses a Silicon Motion controller. Only the older OS compatibility is lacking for me, and the power consumption seems high. Apart from the Apple connector on the SSD, I don’t know what benefit I would get over the Corsair, for example.

So after all, at least for the MacBook Pro late 2013 and mid 2014, I think the Crucial 2TB P2 seems quite appealing.
Still the SSD is new in my computer and I don’t know what may happen in the next weeks. At least it was cheap.

What do you think?

These screenshots are from the “AJA System Test” in “Run continously” mode.
New, empty Crucial P2 2TB CT2000P2SSD8 compared to old 80% full Apple (Samsung) SSD 500GB SM0512F

View attachment 1782645View attachment 1782646

the evaluation whether something is good or bad always depends on the context.

I don't want to play the usual TLC versus QLC game at this point.
What performance - what exactly do YOU mean by that? - The performance that an SSD achieves is basically the result of several factors...

The information about the durability and endurance of memory modules is basically statistical as far as I know.
I also basically share your statement about this, and don't see that anyone will have a problem with the durability - because I see it that way, I had also purchased the Crucial P2...more about that later.

The question may be much more about the architecture of the SSD itself, and in particular there is an SLC cache, how big is it, how is this cache addressed in the write case, how is this organized.

I tested the Crucial P2 1Tb with Mojave as well as with Big Sur, test platform MacBook Pro 11.1, in both cases complete reinstallation, bootrom 431, without kext.
Testing done with Blackmagic, 5GB file size.

The result already on the third run was catastrophic, below 40MB/s.
repeatable always on the third run.

I can rule out technical problems with the Sintech adapter or the Macbook at this point.

I suspect firmware issues or even major technical issues with the SSD, since I have no reliable verified facts of the technical architecture of the Crucial P2, then unfortunately it can only be speculated. It may simply have been a defective SSD...

By the way, the assumption that the Sabrent TLC devices are of poor quality is an assumption! And I work neither for nor with Sabrent
Isn't it so that there are only a small handful of memory manufacturers worldwide anyway, on my Sabrent Rocket 1 Tb Toshiba was soldered (are now called Kioxa or so), there I would now certainly not speak of worse quality. But maybe the memory simply works differently than for example the one from Micron...cheaper - I wouldn't attest a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer from my own experience.

I think that most of the reviews on the mentioned portals can't really be taken seriously...

But indeed I am interested in the "failure" of the Crucial P2, if I had the opportunity to analyze the problem more precisely e.g. with other variants of the P2, I would invest the time.

 

[BaneDark]

Guys, I was just offered Apple genuine SSD 512gb from 2015 MBP for only £50 (second hand but fully working) should I go for it? I understand it will be faster than my late 2013 256gb stock ssd (unless my late 2013 will work as a bottle neck) and it should work in my late 2013 as I suppose? I’m a DJ and music producer so reliable ssd is a priority for me (with other NVMe and adapter I can’t really risk any crashes in real life djing situations) price wise it’s a bit cheaper than new 3rd party nvme with sintech adapter, what do you think?

 

[Pistiku]

Guys, I was just offered Apple genuine SSD 512gb from 2015 MBP for only £50 (second hand but fully working) should I go for it? I understand it will be faster than my late 2013 256gb stock ssd (unless my late 2013 will work as a bottle neck) and it should work in my late 2013 as I suppose? I’m a DJ and music producer so reliable ssd is a priority for me (with other NVMe and adapter I can’t really risk any crashes in real life djing situations) price wise it’s a bit cheaper than new 3rd party nvme with sintech adapter, what do you think?

I just upgraded my mac pro 2015 early 2 weeks ago with a wd sn550 nvme drive and I don't suffer from any disadvantage. I was sceptical before the upgrade because I saw a lot of comments here regarding the crashes and etc. For me worth the upgrade because it is faster, I bought a 1 Tb drive so now the lack of space is not an issue anymore. No crashes, smooth like original. Only a little battery drain during sleep mode, but I can live with it. You can buy a brand new 512 gb nvme ssd for around £50 and will work fine. You never know when that old drive will fail. I bought an unbranded adapter first for 2 USD and now my sintec arrived and I replaced but both works same, I don't see any difference. I was also thinking about to buy a used apple or buy nvme and I don't regret my choice. Moreover I have 5 years of warranty now for the nvme. Totally up to you which way you go.

 

[Aurora112]

Guys, I was just offered Apple genuine SSD 512gb from 2015 MBP for only £50 (second hand but fully working) should I go for it? I understand it will be faster than my late 2013 256gb stock ssd (unless my late 2013 will work as a bottle neck) and it should work in my late 2013 as I suppose? I’m a DJ and music producer so reliable ssd is a priority for me (with other NVMe and adapter I can’t really risk any crashes in real life djing situations) price wise it’s a bit cheaper than new 3rd party nvme with sintech adapter, what do you think?

I understand your thoughts.

you never know what you get with a used one, you don’t now how it was used.
You can check with several tools, at the end, it’s used.

Keep in mind that the guys in this forum are not the only ones who uses nvme devices in macs.
So the impression that it is complicated and it is not safe does not correspond to the complete picture.

If you still have no confidence in the NVME modification, I understand that absolutely, but then just in view of your professional use it would be better if you buy a new Apple SSD...

What i can tell you from my point of view, i did not face any issue with my first nvme device over 3 years!
Not one crash or unexpected reboot.

 

[BaneDark]

I just upgraded my mac pro 2015 early 2 weeks ago with a wd sn550 nvme drive and I don't suffer from any disadvantage. I was sceptical before the upgrade because I saw a lot of comments here regarding the crashes and etc. For me worth the upgrade because it is faster, I bought a 1 Tb drive so now the lack of space is not an issue anymore. No crashes, smooth like original. Only a little battery drain during sleep mode, but I can live with it. You can buy a brand new 512 gb nvme ssd for around £50 and will work fine. You never know when that old drive will fail. I bought an unbranded adapter first for 2 USD and now my sintec arrived and I replaced but both works same, I don't see any difference. I was also thinking about to buy a used apple or buy nvme and I don't regret my choice. Moreover I have 5 years of warranty now for the nvme. Totally up to you which way you go.

Thank you! What MacBook have you got? Did you have to do any firmware updates on your sn550? Also, what was the 2 dollars adapter that worked for you? Cheers!

 

[Pistiku]

Thank you! What MacBook have you got? Did you have to do any firmware updates on your sn550? Also, what was the 2 dollars adapter that worked for you? Cheers!

I have a Macbook pro retina 13" 2015 early. I didn't upgrade the firmware, just plug and play. https://www.ebay.com/itm/133458046990
I bought this adapter which worked fine, supported 4 lane and don't had any crush. Just in case I ordered a sintec during delivery because in the first post mentioned this nfhk adapters are not working properly, but this type was fine. Read/write was 1000+ almost 3 times faster than my original apple ssd. So basically I replaced for the sintec to check there is any difference, but don't see any. From the sintec site you can order the adapter cheap, it was around 10 EUR or something with delivery.

 

[RedTomato]

Guys, I was just offered Apple genuine SSD 512gb from 2015 MBP for only £50 (second hand but fully working) should I go for it? I understand it will be faster than my late 2013 256gb stock ssd (unless my late 2013 will work as a bottle neck) and it should work in my late 2013 as I suppose? I’m a DJ and music producer so reliable ssd is a priority for me (with other NVMe and adapter I can’t really risk any crashes in real life djing situations) price wise it’s a bit cheaper than new 3rd party nvme with sintech adapter, what do you think?

If reliability is more important than speed, and it is for you, maybe just keep your macbook as it is? What's the problem you're trying to fix?

Personally, I have replaced 3x SSDs in 3 macbooks with new 1TB NVME versions. 2 were for my own (MBP and MBA) and have been 100% reliable for my work. The third one was for my young daughter's MBA, and she complained about freezing and crashing. So I reverted it to the stock 128gb SSD and eventually replaced it with another Apple stock 512GB, and it's been fine since.

Your choices are:

- keep it as it is
- go for the 512GB apple SSD for £50, which will be a SATA SSD and a bit slower than NVME, but more likely to be faultless (because it's Apple stock not because it's SATA)
- as above and pay for a third party Apple repair store to install it for you.
- get a new, guaranteed 100% working SSD from a third party store (very expensive)
- sell your system and put the money towards buying a M1 macbook.

If you use it for making money, I'd look at buying a M1 macbook, maybe a used one if the new ones are unafforadable.

If you don't make money with it, then sure go for a 1tb nvme SSD or the 512gb Apple one, especially if you're happy poking around in the innards of your macbook. If it freezes in the middle of a gig they can't complain if they're not paying you.

 

[J3G]

the evaluation whether something is good or bad always depends on the context.

I don't want to play the usual TLC versus QLC game at this point.
What performance - what exactly do YOU mean by that? - The performance that an SSD achieves is basically the result of several factors...

The information about the durability and endurance of memory modules is basically statistical as far as I know.
I also basically share your statement about this, and don't see that anyone will have a problem with the durability - because I see it that way, I had also purchased the Crucial P2...more about that later.

The question may be much more about the architecture of the SSD itself, and in particular there is an SLC cache, how big is it, how is this cache addressed in the write case, how is this organized.

I tested the Crucial P2 1Tb with Mojave as well as with Big Sur, test platform MacBook Pro 11.1, in both cases complete reinstallation, bootrom 431, without kext.
Testing done with Blackmagic, 5GB file size.

The result already on the third run was catastrophic, below 40MB/s.
repeatable always on the third run.

I can rule out technical problems with the Sintech adapter or the Macbook at this point.

I suspect firmware issues or even major technical issues with the SSD, since I have no reliable verified facts of the technical architecture of the Crucial P2, then unfortunately it can only be speculated. It may simply have been a defective SSD...

By the way, the assumption that the Sabrent TLC devices are of poor quality is an assumption! And I work neither for nor with Sabrent
Isn't it so that there are only a small handful of memory manufacturers worldwide anyway, on my Sabrent Rocket 1 Tb Toshiba was soldered (are now called Kioxa or so), there I would now certainly not speak of worse quality. But maybe the memory simply works differently than for example the one from Micron...cheaper - I wouldn't attest a Japanese semiconductor manufacturer from my own experience.

I think that most of the reviews on the mentioned portals can't really be taken seriously...

But indeed I am interested in the "failure" of the Crucial P2, if I had the opportunity to analyze the problem more precisely e.g. with other variants of the P2, I would invest the time.

Hi All,

ScaleFlux is working on advanced solutions based on Micron N28A QLC NAND (the same that Crucial use for P2, at least for 1 and 2 TB models) their comments are meaningful 👀:

QLC flash has an average 15-20 per cent lower price 💲💲💲 than the triple-level cell (TLC) equivalent but worse performance and endurance.

ScaleFlux chief scientist and co-founder Tong Zhang says QLC NAND has ~1,000 cycling endurance 👎👎👎, in contrast to the ~5,000 cycling endurance of its TLC counterpart.
He also says the TLC-to-QLC SSD transition will cause noticeable SSD random IOPS performance degradation 🤭. The arrival of the PCIe Gen4 I/O interface will make the random IOPS difference between TLC SSDs and QLC SSDs even larger.

Crucial == 🙈🙉🙊