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

[flemmingdjensen]

[doublepost=1519783972][/doublepost]Hi I installed Samsung NVMe M.2 ssd on my MBP 2015. It is booting up well (from Shut Down) and I can see my new hard drive and everything (installed High Sierra). I bought the sintech adapter and taped it with kapton tape and still having issues when rebooting (from Restart). I get that blinking folder with "?". I also did disable sleep mode with "sudo pmset -a standby 0" and still getting that annoying blinking folder when trying to wake up. Is there anything else I should do? Please Help!!!

Thanks in advance

My experiences so far with the following setup:

MBP Mid2015 2.8Ghz DG 16GB
Samsung EVO 960 1TB - Firmware 3xxxxxxxxx

Currently I have restored all the power settings to their default values. I was using pmset sleep 0 on my 2014 MBP but since upgrading to the 2015 this seems not to be necessary anymore.

So I am using this MBP daily just waking from sleep without problems. The computer is fast using PCIe 3.0 4x lanes so around 2500Gb/s read and 2Gb/s write.

I have a 250GB bootcamp with windows 10 on it - and occationally i reboot into this and then when I reboot back into MAC OS it gives Kernel panics randomly.

I have also experienced that if you wait after successfull reboot it might crash with a KP.

But if it survives say 30 min then I see no more KPs and the computer can go to sleep and wake and so forth.

I am hoping Samsung releases a firmware version 4xxxxxx that resolves this boot issue - im currently running 3xxxxx firmware on the EVO 960.

I am using verbose mode on startup in order to follow the boot process - and it seems to help in the boot process - I do not know why.

sudo nvram boot-args="-v"

BR Flemming

 

[canhaz]

I've updated my 2TB Samsung 960 Pro to firmware 4B6QCXP7, and I'm now using it under 10.3.3 and APFS without any issue from 1 week now, on a quite intensive daily use.
.

Great post Gilles, thank you. I plan to upgrade my 2015 rMBP to 2TB Samsung Pro SSD on 13.3.3 using the new long adapter: ST-NGFF2013-C

Will let everyone know how it goes

 

[sandrvoxon]

Hi Guys !
Can anyone say about Toshiba XG4 Series ?

Thanks !

 

[dickybow]

About two months ago I decided to upgrade my MacBook Pro Mid 2014 with a nice Kingston KC1000 960GB SSD

​

Kalea Adapter (not advisable imho)
Attached is also a screenshot from a speedtest. Somehow it changes sometimes, I got it up to aprox 930 once but around 720 seems to be the average.

That Kalea adapter is just some cheap generic adapter also available for £2.50

Have you tried the new longer Sintech ?

 

[ShinySteelRobot]

Great post Gilles, thank you. I plan to upgrade my 2015 rMBP to 2TB Samsung Pro SSD on 13.3.3 using the new long adapter: ST-NGFF2013-C

Will let everyone know how it goes

I've also ordered a ST-NGFF2013-C long black adapter direct from sintech.cn and a Samsung 960 EVO 1TB from Provantage.com. This is all going in an early 2015 MBPr 13 once it's all here. Will report back (the adapter already shipped, so hopefully soon...).

BTW, thanks to everyone who has provided all the great info in this thread!

 

[gilles_polysoft]

Does anyone know of any UK stock for the newer Sintech adapters ?

It is Chinese new year for another week and I can't really wait

Hi,

I have plenty of green adapters in france, can ship one to you : juste give me a personnal mail at gilles at polysoft dot fr
[doublepost=1519977422][/doublepost]

Thanks for all the incredible work here. Finally received both a black and green adapter from sintech. With a 960 Evo made in January and without firmware updates, getting 1300 writes and 1400 reads with Black magic on my 'early '15 MBP 12,1. Black adapter has the occasional '? folder' on restarts, the green seems perfect thus far.

Once again, thanks to everyone, this thread has been invaluable.

Thanks a lot for your report !
[doublepost=1519977597][/doublepost]

Hi Guys !
Can anyone say about Toshiba XG4 Series ?

Thanks !

Todhiba XG4 is great and can be formatted in 4K blocks so it also suports Sierra.
XG4 is a bit slower than XG3 in writes because of TLC versus MLC.
XG5 which is TLC starts to be also available, I've tested one and it works It's a XG4 a little faster.
[doublepost=1519977746][/doublepost]

Yes, I did purchase it from sintech eBay store. It is their original large green adapter. But I think it works ok now.
I had two kernel panics at restart after I swapped the black adapter with the large green one. But it never happened again after that. I booted into bootcamp once and back into Mac and now I have no issues with restart or sleep.

As far a battery drain is concerned, you are also correct there that there is no difference between the two adapters. I was comparing two different sleep settings.

I changed the standby delay to 5 seconds and the hibernate mode to 23. This gives basically no drain while in standby and just 1 to 2 second delay to wakeup.

Thanks for your help.

Thanks for your report !

 

[nephron8]

today happened to test my late 2013 MacBook Pro 13 inch 128gb model.
its reporting 300 and 680 ( write and read) speed.
is it failing?

I want to upgrade to 512gb or so drive.
which one should I chose?
Toshiba xg4 or some other?

 

[Scumsung Hater]

Todhiba XG4 is great and can be formatted in 4K blocks so it also suports Sierra.
XG4 is a bit slower than XG3 in writes because of TLC versus MLC.
XG5 which is TLC starts to be also available, I've tested one and it works It's a XG4 a little faster.

The Toshiba XG5 is only a little faster than the XG4?
Then how would you rate them?
XG3 the fastest? Follow by XG5, and lastly XG4?

 

[groobert]

Hello all

After quite a long delay (here where I live this is unfortunately quite normal), I finally managed to assemble all the gear and perform the 'surgery' on my mac. I am happy to report the patient is doing very well indeed as far as I can tell.

Here are the details of my case, in case anyone is collecting data points:

System: 2015 13" rMBP (12,1), already running High Sierra 10.13.3 before the swap


Original SSD: 128GB, BlackMagic R/W speeds around 1300/650 MB/s
NVMe SSD: Samsung 960 EVO 500GB , firmware version 3B7QCXE7 (not updated). Formated APFS, no encryption

Adapter: green Sintech, with kapton tape added on both sides

Results:
- New R/W speeds up to around 1500/1350 MB/s
- So far no restarts, no kernel panics, no problems on boot, everything absolutely nominal.
- This includes waking from sleep after ~12h. I didn't check the battery drain but it wasn't significant
- Hooray!

Some comments concerning the installation process

- I found the final position of the SSD to be a little weird. It seems to rest at an slight angle, the adapter side being a bit higher than the screwed-down side. Also, the top of the adapter seemed quite a bit higher than the surrounding circuitry, I'm concerned that it might have become squeezed against the external casing when that was screwed back on, but like I said, I have experienced no problems. I did kapton-tape it over the top, so insulation is not a problem, but I'm concerned with eventual knocks and bumps.

- For the transfer I used the following process
- first used SuperDuper! to clone my original drive to a bootable USB stick
- powered down, swapped the old SSD for the new one
- booted from the stick (pressing Option (⌥) at boot),
- formatted the Evo using Disk Utility
- finally used SuperDuper! again to clone the USB stick to the SSD.

That's it! I cannot express how thankful I am to everyone here for their hard work, knowledge and willingness to help. Special kudos to Gilles and ravic.

Good luck to everyone

Groobert

 

[oscarxvita]

Hi guys, my mac started to have kernel panic constantly (1~2 min after boot), making it impossible to use.

My setup:
Sintech green version.
Macbook pro 15-inch Mid 2015
Samsung 960 Pro 512GB
macOS 10.13.3
Formatted as HFS+.

I am planning to reinstall macOS in APFS in hope for solving this problem. Any ideas?

 

[ShinySteelRobot]

There are at least a couple of things you can try.

E.g., try upgrading your Samsung SSD firmware to the latest.

EDIT: Also maybe try putting kapton tape on the Sintech pins as described earlier in this thread.

Did you upgrade to 10.13 with an Apple OEM drive still inside your MBP? If not, then you may not have received the latest MBP boot ROM (you can check your current version in System Information). This seems less likely to be the root cause since it sounds like you're crashing after the boot was successful.

Good luck with it!

 

[thierrybeginl]

Hello everyone,

I went from MBP 2008 with a normal SSD 2.5" and the GPU stopped working. I thought refreshing my Mac experience by buying a

late 2013 15" - 2.6ghz dual graphic (for video editing) this one : https://everymac.com/systems/apple/...-graphics-late-2013-retina-display-specs.html

but it came empty, (eBay) no PCI-SSD. (Was a lot cheaper ) I thought I'd just install my 2.5" in it. Fail. So I'm on this topic since 3 weeks reading here and there and I still can't figure out what to buy to make it work properly and fast enough around 1.5gb/s that fine with me.

BootROM is MBP112.0138.B40
(Found it with bootable USB drive)
So it means that High Sierra's BootROM was previously installed.

Which brings me to NVMe M.2 SSD. There are so many different informations (good and bad) and I can't figure out some basics of that computer.

1- Is this a 2x or 4x lane pcie 2.0????
On Everymacs.com it is written x2 but so many places they say x4.
2- why would a SSD have problems booting or getting out of sleep mode with [ ? ] Folder. How is that possible in 2013 lol anyway technology.
3- in some forums it says late 2013 are not compatible with NVMe and others it is. IS IT or is it not? lol With High sierra, with Sintech Adaptor, in 2018... Everything to make a M.2 SSD working properly, is it or not compatible. If I buy a SM951 256Gb install it in my late 2013 will it work like a new MBP 2013 I would buy in a Apple Store? Yes or no. why is this so complicate xD

Thank you so much for your time, Gilles en particulier, c'est merveilleux toutes les connaissances que tu as dans ce domaine, je flip ben raide moi-là lol

 

[addams]

Hi. I have Macbook Air 13” mid 2013, have also upgraded to Samsung 960 evo nvme ssd. All went well, have used it from last year december. Only issues were restart, sleep and battery drain. Using windows in bootcamp all is fine. But after last OS X High Sierra update I’m getting alot kernel panics and restarts. Seems like Member oscarxvita has. I’m using cheap chinese adapter. Using windows everything is fine and also using OS X in safe mode. I have read I can’ just roll back update, seems I have to reinstall system.

Noone else having this problem?

 

[mRiCKo]

Hello i have iMac 2013 Late

Apple SSD MZ-JPU512T (SM0512f)
And Samsung 960 EVO 250 GB

I have only only 2 lines, and 700mb w/r

How activate Link width x4 and increase to 1500mb?


Если по русски: поставил в аймак 2013 late оригинальную ссд - она выдала 700мб, через переходник самсунг ево выдает примерно столько же, система последняя стоит как и версия бутлоадера, вроде как в таблицах пишут, что должно быть х4, в в чем подвох?

 

[gully666uk]

Anybody know a good place to get a good quality adaptor in the uk please? Just got hold of early 2013 Macbook pro could do with a speed bump.

 

[apemaia]

Anybody know a good place to get a good quality adaptor in the uk please? Just got hold of early 2013 Macbook pro could do with a speed bump.

Hello, ordering from sinthech.ch China only take 13 days for my order. I Think it is the easiest way.

 

[gully666uk]

Hello, ordering from sinthech.ch China only take 13 days for my order. I Think it is the easiest way.

Thanks I will look at that then. I have ordered the black one see how that goes. Thanks for the help.

 

[tokiro]

After I found this thread, I have just ordered long black adapter from sintech shop for my rMBPro Mid-2015.
Just wondering if there is an external enclosure for the apple ssd. Thank you for all information shared on thread.

 

[slypete]

Hi everyone,

Just for info I received today the last Sintech adapters, and the new ones have exactly the same wiring diagrams as the large green ones... great news !
And they do work perfectly... Here are some photos...

View attachment 752040

Green ST-NGFF2013 - Issue with bootcamp windows 10
Black ST-NGFF2013 - Issue with rebooting

Do you guys know if the new Long ST-NGFF2013-C fixes these two issues?

Thanks,
Peter

 

[gully666uk]

Green ST-NGFF2013 - Issue with bootcamp windows 10
Black ST-NGFF2013 - Issue with rebooting

Do you guys know if the new Long ST-NGFF2013-C fixes these two issues?

Thanks,
Peter

Once I get mine I will report back how it does.

 

[alexander1789]

Hi everyone,

Just for info I received today the last Sintech adapters, and the new ones have exactly the same wiring diagrams as the large green ones... great news !
And they do work perfectly... Here are some photos...





View attachment 752040 View attachment 752041 View attachment 752042 View attachment 752043

Could you please tell me if the last Sintech adapter and the evo 960 work like a charm with bootcamp with windows 10? (macbook air 13 early 2015 10.3.3)

 

[sKINNEEE]

Monday I finally installed the Intel 760p 256GB SSD with the large green adapter from Sinetech and the results are disappointing. I probably had too high expectations.

My setup:
Sintech green adapter (ST-NGFF2013-B) (While ordering I asked for Kapton tape to be applied and it came with it)
Macbook Pro 13'' Retina Mid 2014
Intel 760p 256GB
macOS 10.13.3

Prepering the USB stick:
I followed this steps - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201372

Replacing the SSD:
I added some extra isolation tape around the adapter and added a little pad under the adapter.
I attached the adapter and the SSD.
Then I closed everything and inserted the USB stick and turned on the Macbook with the Option key pressed.
I selected the USB stick to enter in the installation mode and when I opened the Disk Utility the SSD didn't show up.
I opened the terminal and typed `diskutil list` and it showed up.
Then I followed I a guide to format it to APFS via terminal and it all worked fine.
Then I closed the terminal and selected to install High Siera on the SSD and it took sometime to install but everything went well.
After the first boot I installed the updates (which again took like half an hour).
After it had rebooted and everything was updated I checked the System Information and on NVMExpress it showed that I had the 4 lanes working and TRIM enabled.

Problems:
I guess sleep is not working:

1. When it's on battery and I close the lid and open it after 1min, it's like I didn't even close it. Show whatever I was doing before I closed the lid, without asking for login credentials.
2. When it's on battery and I close the lid and open it after 30min or so it makes the start sound twice, with like 10 seconds apart and boots as if it had restarted (which it did).
3. When it's on charge and I close the lid, sometimes it seems like it's not even going to sleep. Other times it wakes up normally and asks for the login.

Speed:
I did the Blackmagic Disk Speed test and didn't seemed to be much stable, reads and writes were about the same, going to 600MB/s and coming down to 300MB/s. Given the specs I was waiting to have reads over 1000MB/s

 

[Ben21]

[doublepost=1519783972][/doublepost]Hi I installed Samsung NVMe M.2 ssd on my MBP 2015. It is booting up well (from Shut Down) and I can see my new hard drive and everything (installed High Sierra). I bought the sintech adapter and taped it with kapton tape and still having issues when rebooting (from Restart). I get that blinking folder with "?". I also did disable sleep mode with "sudo pmset -a standby 0" and still getting that annoying blinking folder when trying to wake up. Is there anything else I should do? Please Help!!!

Thanks in advance

UPDATE

I had ordered the long sintech adapter (see pic below) a couple of days after ordered the small black one, just in case I come across any issues. It has been delivered and I have installed it on my retina MBP. Everything works like a charm! No reboot or sleeping issues on high sierra. I also set hibernate mode back to default.

 

[mrrobotatx]

Howdy y'all, I have been using these for my customers with 2015 and later MBA/MBP flawlessly so I figured I'd post my testing results. Unfortunately it seems 2013 MBA has a restart problem. I will be testing all of these machines again when my Sintech long black adapters arrive from China. I'm hesitant to think anything will improve over the cheap CableCC ones I've been using successfully (on 2015 and later no problems).

• Samsung 960 EVO 250GB / 1TB SSD
• Cablecc 12+16pin Macbook to M.2 NGFF M-Key SSD Convert Card for A1493 A1502 A1465 A1466
  Interestingly the description states it's not compatible with NVMe, this is simply untrue.
• Kapton Tape on pins
• Using macOS High Sierra Latest Version
• Using macs that have already been upgraded to macOS High Sierra Latest Version with original apple SSD

• 2015 MacBookAir: Sleep and Restart works with High Sierra
  If you hold down option, you see a normal boot drive (grey)
• 2013 MacBookAir: Sleep works. Restart results in folder with ?
  If you hold down option, you see a external boot drive (orange)
• 2014 MacBookAir: [UPDATE 3-9-18] Sleep works. Restart results in folder with ?
  If you hold down option, you see a external boot drive (orange)
• 2013 MacBookPro: Will test soon, my 2013 is getting logic board repair

Will be re-testing all models above with Sintech long black adapter soon!

 

[alexander1789]

Which adapter would you suggest for a 2015 Macbook air with a Samsung EVO 960?
http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1143.html or http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1229.html