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Upgrading 2013-2015 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
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Very good work. Thanks!CORRECTIONS WELCOMED, ALL ERRORS ABOVE ARE MINE, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK... etc.
I think WD Black v3 = SN850. Not 100% sure, it might also be the SN750 (the full-fat version, not the SN750 SE).
The SN850 is almost certainly way too much drive for this application. I believe that max read/write capability for your computer is 1500 MB/s, whereas the SN850 is a top-of-the-line 7000 MB/s drive.
From a speed standpoint, you need a Toyota Corolla or a Honda Civic, whereas the SN850 is a Ferrari. This is an opportunity to get a quality lower-cost drive because you for sure are leaving money on the table if you use the SN850.
A things to consider when you are thinking about NVME drives and Macbook Pro/Air retrofits, beyond just whether they will work. These were nonobvious to me, but over the last week or so I have become enlightened:
(1) Power consumption. NVME drives power consumption is actively managed by Windows systems and that doesn't come standard in MacOS. There have been a lot of unhappy experiences with folks finding their computers draining the batteries by (it seems to me) ~20% overnight. Some have even ripped out the NVME and gone back to their old Apple drives.
There are two ways to handle this.
(1.a) Choose a drive that sips power, even when unmanaged. Based on reading the 390 pages of posts, the two I have noticed that fit that category are the Kingston A2000 (there may be others, I am not claiming this is a comprehensive statement) and the SK Hynix P31. iKalamaZoo wrote about her experiences with the A2000 here:
Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
Performance Report For those who as thinking about what NVMe to buy in order to get a good battery usage for daily use and a decent read/write speed to work with at least 2x Apple original SSD performance Kingston A2000 1TB SA2000M8/1000G Without Thermal Pad NO KERNEL PANIC AT ALL Perform a...forums.macrumors.com
(she replies to enquiries in the course of the next few posts - it's very complete and worth reading).
She ran the A2000 without any further mods to her OS, and has had a good experience. The one thing that gives me pause, however, is the read/write times on her drive, which are slow.
The SK Hynix P31 is widely lauded for its exceptionally low power consumption. Vince22 wrote of his experiences here:
Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
after a week of Monterey Beta 3, no spotlight indexing, no Lilu and NVMefix kext loaded, only ssdpmEnabler installed, this Hynix P31-gold really shines in speed and very low power idle consumption on my Early 2015 13" Macbook Pro.
He got a lot higher disk read/write speed - close to the theoretical max for his computer, I believe.
(1.b) apply a kernel extension ("kext") that gives your MacOS the NVME power management it otherwise lacks. Folks have had a lot (but not uniform) success with this. A list of working models and the reduction is here:
Confirmed working Mac models
Contribute to kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler development by creating an account on GitHub.github.com
The kext in question is called SsdPmEnabler. How to install this is beyond the scope of this post - I haven't done it myself yet. You can start reading about it here:
GitHub - kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler
Contribute to kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler development by creating an account on GitHub.
There are a couple of Mac models for which SsdPmEnabler won't work.
(2) DRAM vs DRAM-less NVMEs. NVMEs get a lot of their write speed by having fast DRAM to maintain (while operating) a lookup table for the data contained in the drive, usually at a ratio of about 1 byte of DRAM for every Kb of NVME NAND memory. To reduce the cost of NVMEs and make them more compact, a lot of cheaper drives have come out recently with DRAM-less designs.
Instead, many of them rely on using Host Memory Buffers - basically, the NVME drive carves out a small section of computer main memory for itself. Of course, this has to be enabled by the OS, and my understanding is that it's not in MacOS. So, my takeaway is that you want a drive that has it's own DRAM, but that said, I've seen OK (but not exceptional) write speeds quoted for Macs retrofitted with drives that I know are DRAM-less.
Still, a DRAM drive is on my personal checklist.
(3) TLC (or MLC) vs QLC. QLC NVME drives are cheaper because they fit more memory into less space, but QLC drives are also less durable. All NVME drives will ultimately die - you can only rewrite to memory so many times. QLC drives die faster than TLC drives. It wouldn't surprise me if, over time, semi conductor engineers figure out how to make QLC more durable, but it's not yet the case. So for me, TLC (or MLC) is still on my checklist.
Here's a list, maintained by a subreddit, of NVMEs and their characteristics. It's not fully comprehensive, but it's pretty wide:
SSDs
docs.google.com
maintained by: https://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales/
(that subreddit is public and it does routinely provide a link to this list, so I feel OK sharing it).
Anyway, I am on the verge of upgrading a MBP 11,1 and a MBP 11,4 using the info in this thread, so I did a deep-ish dive into this stuff.
Based on what I know, I am at this point about 90% sure that I'll go with a SK Hynix P31 for both of them. It's a bit too much drive (in terms of speed) for the 11,1 (but still has the advantage of being low power) but I think just about right for the 11,4, which has a theoretical read/write maximum of about 3000 MB/s. Note that I have a Windows machine too, which is important because you need to install a firmware update on the P31 which I think is easier to do (perhaps is required to be done) on a Windows box.
So far in this Black Friday season, the cheapest for this drive is Amazon with a 15% off coupon on a list of $130 for the 1 TB. We'll see if that gets better once the true BF craziness starts tomorrow.
On the subject of adapters, the one everyone swears by is the Sintech:
Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter Card for Upgrade MacBook Air(2013-2016 Year) and MacBook PRO(Late 2013-2015 Year)
NOTICE:because too many customers can use it,I suggest you to try it again if your MAC can't detect nVME SSD. Pls notice to insert card fully into SSD slot and you must prepare bootable USB disk(see third point) with High Sierra to format M.2 SSD first, it can't support recover from internet. mai...www.amazon.com
There's zero intelligence in these adapters. They simply map the standard NVME pins to the pins of the Apple socket. Yeah, all this time, Apple could have just used a standard m.2 socket but they chose not to. To the extent that some adapters work and others don't, it appears to be simple electrical arcing or other stray signals. People have had a lot of success with the Sintech in this regard.
You'll also need a pentalobe screwdriver and Torx T5 screwdriver to get into the Mac and to remove the screw holding in the device.
It's also worth looking at Youtube videos of people doing this, to get a sense of what's involved, if you've never gone into a machine yourself. For instance:
But there's also some bad info in some of these. For instance, Luke Miani has a very successful Mac-oriented channel, and he does an upgrade video here:
But he says some things that are wrong - for instance, that any NVME drive will work. Nope, definitely not true.
Watch some others as well - there are a number of ways to do the necessary software re-install, it appears. I think you'll want a version of MacOS on a bootable USB drive, but I've seen other installs that don't go this route.
ONE LAST THING - if you are still receiving operating system upgrades from Apple, you'll want to keep your original Apple SSD because some upgrades try to install a firmware upgrade for the SSD, and if it doesn't find an Apple drive, the whole install fails. So, yeah, thanks Apple. So you might need to re-install the original SSD to get a future MacOS upgrade - such is my understanding.
ONE LAST LAST THING - if you open up your Mac, you may as well give it a clean (if you find a lot of dust in there, and you probably will), particularly the fans (to make sure you keep the air flowing) and re-do the thermal paste, which by now has probably lost its efficacy, if it's never been changed since birth. There are many videos on how to do these things.
Happy Black Friday to all...
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Sure. Mine is also P2CR033 firmware, and DO have UK/CA on the label.
Attachments
I just bought a slightly knocked about mid-2015 MBP at a really great price on eBay. With a £60 Black Friday discount it cost just under £245 for a model with 16GB & a 256GB SSD. It doesn't suffer from Staingate like my 2014 MBP. There is a 1" vertical scratch on the screen that is invisible in use. It has a dented corner by the right hand USB port but both that & the HDMI next to it work OK. I couldn't see any internal damage when I had the bottom case off.
I upgraded with this £186.89 2TB SSD https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07MTQTNVR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
& this £15.99 Sintech adapter https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07FYY3H5F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Both items delivered next day.
The performance is great with benchmark figures better than any others that I have seen in this thread. When I upgraded my 2014 MBP I used a 2TB Apple SSD that cost over £500. It's great but not as fast as this Sabrent SSD. The mid-2015 MBP has the advantage of PCI 3.0 so it may well be that the Sabrent would be no faster in the 2014 MBP. The other advantage of the mid-2015 MBP is that there is no need for extra kexts or other hacks to save power. Finally& the reason why I bought it that it is supported running Monterey. Last night the battery charge dropped from 98% to 94%. Mac fan control tells me that the Sabrent disk got up to 32C during my benchmarking.
iStat Menus tells me that SSD power consumption is 0.2A idling & up to 1.4A while benchmarking.
Are there any other tests or benchmarks I can run to assess performance?
I upgraded with this £186.89 2TB SSD https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07MTQTNVR/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1
& this £15.99 Sintech adapter https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07FYY3H5F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Both items delivered next day.
The performance is great with benchmark figures better than any others that I have seen in this thread. When I upgraded my 2014 MBP I used a 2TB Apple SSD that cost over £500. It's great but not as fast as this Sabrent SSD. The mid-2015 MBP has the advantage of PCI 3.0 so it may well be that the Sabrent would be no faster in the 2014 MBP. The other advantage of the mid-2015 MBP is that there is no need for extra kexts or other hacks to save power. Finally& the reason why I bought it that it is supported running Monterey. Last night the battery charge dropped from 98% to 94%. Mac fan control tells me that the Sabrent disk got up to 32C during my benchmarking.
iStat Menus tells me that SSD power consumption is 0.2A idling & up to 1.4A while benchmarking.
Are there any other tests or benchmarks I can run to assess performance?
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2015 has PCI 3.0. Nothing extrange here.
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Which is why I wrote "The mid-2015 MBP has the advantage of PCI 3.0 so it may well be that the Sabrent would be no faster in the 2014 MBP."
I have also bought a 2015 GD 15" that I will receive within a few days. Perfect state, except some dents, for about 620 euros. Also , as you know, it supports Monterey. I have many problems in the 2014 with Monterey via OCLP and Bootcamp.
Phison Flash ID has already been used by some people here in the thread.
Since Mojave there are no issues anymore with hibernation (at least for all the 15").
This is not bad but can also be achieved with a 15" late 2013/2014 model. AND can be indeed greatly improved with ssdPmEnabler.
Thanks for this. I decided that storage is more important than speed. I'm quite happy with the speed of my Mac. I've managed to get a 1TB Samsung 980 for £77 in a UK Black Friday sale. I know it's probably not the best, but for me, price per GB is good. Could have gone cheaper and got a SN550, but felt the Samsung is a slightly better drive???
Which drive do you recommend me? I have a macbook pro 11,3 with Catalina 10.15.7 and all security updates. Boot ROM: 432.40.8.0.1. Do I have to update to big sur? It is not very clear to me from the OP if the deep sleep issues will affect me with my current boot rom and mac model, as section 6 of the OP mentions only macbook pro 11,1 and also that one needs boot room higher than 427 which I already have.
Anyway Im looking for a 1 tb drive, I can get either the:
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1tb for 99 euros
Sabrent Rocket 1TB for 120 euros
Kingston NV1 1tb for 76 euros (has anyone tried this drive yet?) or the a2000 for the same price
Western Digital WD Blue SN550 1tb for 75 euros or the sn570 for 5 more euros (has anyone tried this drive yet?)
WD black sn750 SE 90 euros or the "full fat version" for 5 more euros.
So this are pretty much my options.
Anyway Im looking for a 1 tb drive, I can get either the:
ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1tb for 99 euros
Sabrent Rocket 1TB for 120 euros
Kingston NV1 1tb for 76 euros (has anyone tried this drive yet?) or the a2000 for the same price
Western Digital WD Blue SN550 1tb for 75 euros or the sn570 for 5 more euros (has anyone tried this drive yet?)
WD black sn750 SE 90 euros or the "full fat version" for 5 more euros.
So this are pretty much my options.
I understand your question, there´s no best answer, I´m afraid. It dependes on your preferences.
The Sabrent is probaby too much drive - it's a fast PCI 3 drive, capable of speeds 2x what your computer can support. That said, it's a drive with a Phison controller, and those typically work well.
The SN570 is the follow-on to the SN550 - it's likely (not certain) that they are very similar. I've seen the 570 described as "what the 550 used to be" - can't speak to how accurate that is.
There's at least one person who got the NV1 working.
But this listing:
Confirmed working Mac models
Contribute to kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
Shows that the Sabrent is also power efficient and, if you do choose to use the ssdpmEnabler kext, then even more so. So, despite the fact that it's more expensive, there's an argument for that.
I would also use the search function for Macrumors to look through this thread for specific references to each of these drives. Though I would note that just a few posts above this,
Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
I thought that I would try SsdPmEnabler.kext so here are my results Mac Model: Mid 2015, 15" MacBook Pro (MacBookPro11,4) SSD: 2TB Sabrent Rocket Idle Current: Default - 0.4A ssdpmEnabler - 0.07A
forums.macrumors.com
nigelbb describes a pretty good experience with the Sabrent. That said, you won't see the same speeds for your Mac, because it's an 11,3 and not an 11,4/5.
How is the A2000 doing so far? any cons? I am about to pull the trigger on the 1tb model, and wil be using it in a MBP late 2013 11,3 with a long Sintech adapter, so pretty similar to your config. Also, what battery replacement are you using? Im thinking of replacing my battery, curently standing at 1122 cycles with 60% health and a current capacity of 5043 from 8440 mAh
FWIW, the SN550 I bought in November 2021 came with 211210WD. I wonder if they all come with this firmware or later now.
It's working fine in my 2014 Mac mini.
Greetings all,
This weekend I upgraded my storage from 128gb to 1tb. I was quite skeptical about using a Crucial P2, but so far so good. The speeds seem to me to be quite reasonable, and the power draw is very respectable (Idling at 0A after a couple minutes on battery). Last night I had a few crashes trying to test speeds with Amorphous set to high write capacities (something I wasn't able to do with my limited storage before), but since then not too many problems. As far as I know it's a QLC drive, since it's a brand new P2, but I haven't noticed any awful RW speeds so far.
Here's some screenshots of my tests so far. The Black Magic test was run for ~ 10 minutes.
View attachment 1919332
Here's the same from my old Apple SSD (I haven't used my time machine yet, which is why they're pictures of the screen)
So far I've also installed Lilu and NVMEfix (after the speed test screenshots I've posted).
I do have a couple of questions/concerns.
What is the best way to test sustained read write speeds, as currently things don't seem to be adding up for a QLC p2 drive (I expected it to be slower, maybe I've just misunderstood everything).
How do I know if NVMEFix is working? I've tried the log command that's posted on the SSDPmEnabler Github, and it shows Lilu to be working, but comes up blank for NVMEFix.
Do I need to install SSDPmEnabler with NVMEFix?
Would Amorphous crashing be a concern? It always failed on the write RND4k QD64 test (I tested 8gb and 64gb), the app would lock up, and cause the machine to need hard resetting when I shutdown/restart.
Is there anything else I should be aware of before committing to this drive and transferring my data over?
If you need any more info let me know.
Thanks in advance.
(Edit: IDK what's up with the attachment thing below, or how to get rid of it lol)
This weekend I upgraded my storage from 128gb to 1tb. I was quite skeptical about using a Crucial P2, but so far so good. The speeds seem to me to be quite reasonable, and the power draw is very respectable (Idling at 0A after a couple minutes on battery). Last night I had a few crashes trying to test speeds with Amorphous set to high write capacities (something I wasn't able to do with my limited storage before), but since then not too many problems. As far as I know it's a QLC drive, since it's a brand new P2, but I haven't noticed any awful RW speeds so far.
Here's some screenshots of my tests so far. The Black Magic test was run for ~ 10 minutes.
View attachment 1919332
Here's the same from my old Apple SSD (I haven't used my time machine yet, which is why they're pictures of the screen)
So far I've also installed Lilu and NVMEfix (after the speed test screenshots I've posted).
I do have a couple of questions/concerns.
What is the best way to test sustained read write speeds, as currently things don't seem to be adding up for a QLC p2 drive (I expected it to be slower, maybe I've just misunderstood everything).
How do I know if NVMEFix is working? I've tried the log command that's posted on the SSDPmEnabler Github, and it shows Lilu to be working, but comes up blank for NVMEFix.
Do I need to install SSDPmEnabler with NVMEFix?
Would Amorphous crashing be a concern? It always failed on the write RND4k QD64 test (I tested 8gb and 64gb), the app would lock up, and cause the machine to need hard resetting when I shutdown/restart.
Is there anything else I should be aware of before committing to this drive and transferring my data over?
If you need any more info let me know.
Thanks in advance.
(Edit: IDK what's up with the attachment thing below, or how to get rid of it lol)
Attachments
With that Crucial P2 QLC fiasco, what is the current recommend low power model for a laptop? As mentioned earlier, I have a recent SN550 (also QLC?) in a 2014 Mac mini with decent results, but that is a desktop so SSD power differences are irrelevant. However, I have just ordered a 2015 13" MacBook Pro, and its 128 GB SSD will need to be upgraded eventually.
Hmm... That would be a deal killer for me, unless you're just talking about the application crashing.
It's just Amorphous. The app is buggy and does crash every now and then.
I have the same problem. How about the PCI links? I have x1 not x4 and speed is around 700rw
You're getting a MacBookPro12,1? My understanding is that can support full PCIe 3.0, in which case you are capped at around 3000 MB/s Read/Write, unlike most late 2013-2015 MacBookPros which are limited to around 1500 MB/s.
My preference is the SK Hynix P31, for reasons explained here:
Upgrading 2013/2014 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
CORRECTIONS WELCOMED, ALL ERRORS ABOVE ARE MINE, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK... etc. I think WD Black v3 = SN850. Not 100% sure, it might also be the SN750 (the full-fat version, not the SN750 SE). The SN850 is almost certainly way too much drive for this application. I believe that max read/write...
forums.macrumors.com
Yes, it's a big post, but just search in it for mentions of SK Hynix and read those parts.