Well I just started going down the rabbit hole of this thread... I've got a Mid-2015 MBP 15" that has no OEM SSD. What is my least-fussy non-oem option for replacing the SSD? I was looking at the Sabrent Rocket 512gb, but it appears I would need to upgrade the firmware and I don't have access to a Windows machine to do so. Power consumption isn't a huge issue for me as I would be running on AC most of the time. Speed-wise, anything equal or above OEM would be acceptable for my usage. I believe it was upgraded to Mojave before the SSD was removed.
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Upgrading 2013-2015 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
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You could look at the intel 660,665,670p series. Even without any kext modification, they deliver low power operation compared to some of the others. They are reliable, no crashes, and the speed is better than oem. Also they are cheap.
I'd recommend getting a 2tb version as they are qlc. That way you get the longgevity and hardly ever run into limitations of the slc cache.
Can someone add a non-OEM drive without access to an OEM drive? Can this be accomplished purely with internet recovery?
For what it's worth, B&H is having a pretty attractive sale on the 670p right now (thru 12/29). Also on the 660p, but I personally wouldn't touch that - it's too slow, and it had very low endurance. 1TB 670p is $80:
My apologies in advance if you're located somewhere this isn't relevant. The world is a lot larger than the US ;-)
If they're already on Monterey, wouldn't it just be a matter of making making a USB flash boot installer?
EDIT:
I see that machine was likely on Mojave. So is a firmware upgrade of the Mac necessary here? I think you mentioned something needed to be updated with the upgrade to Monterey.
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I don't really need that much space and I'm not going to be moving around very large files, so that seems to be a bit overkill. Really only need 512gb just to get the machine back to usable.
I believe the last update it got before removing the SSD was Mojave, but I have access to two other Macs. I assume I can just drop the drive/adapter in, make a bootable install disk, and then initialize and install on the new drive.
See my edit above before you quoted the post. Somebody mentioned that the OEM drive was required for some updates, but I don't know the specifics.
So the idea behind having a 2tb qlc, is precisely to keep about half of it or more, empty. Its to do with the how qlc drives work. If you get the 2tb, the longevity, and durability of the drive is significantly greater, also it tends to run at full speed due to having a large slc cache to work with.
Sure if you're going to get a a higher quality tlc ssd then these considerations don't matter. For me I like the larger qlc option because it gives me massive space should I need it, but operates very well, all on a budget. I've had a good experence with the 660p and the mid-2015 macbook pro, and if I were buying today, I'd look at intel's 670p for the refinements they've made.
If you go the qlc route, I would stay away from 512gb drives, at least a tb is acceptable, and then plan to keep some of it empty.
I thought it was for wake/sleep issues with earlier MBA's and maybe other machines... I forget specifics too. If any machine that can do non-OEM NVMe SSD's was updated to at least High Sierra on the OEM drive, there should be no issue. I believe that's what it was.
My sabrent didn’t require any firmware updates. It’s the 2tb rocket, and it’s in my 2015. Still my daily driver.
I use an external drive (Intel 535) with MacOS Catalina on my device, on which I test system updates, and the last security update of the system on the external drive also upgraded the firmware on my Macbook, so it is probably not necessary to have an original SSD to upgrade the firmware. However, I have the Samsung Polaris as the main drive.
Monterey install error
Trying to install Monterey fresh. Reformated HDD. boot from usb installer after a while get message “a required firmware update cannot be installed” iMac 2017 quad core with 32 ram and single nvme HDD. Original 32gb disk was replace with apple 512gb. Big Sur installed fine.
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I've sold that 2014 mbp and bought a late 2013 15". Windows installed/running just fine (also on a ssubx ssd)...
Eventually i swapped that to a M1 and got a cheapo pc desktop for windows stuff.
Thanks. It turns out that wasn't necessary with my 2014 Mac mini, but my particular one didn't have an SSD or Fusion drive. It just had that painfully slow 1 TB hard drive.
Monterey install error
Trying to install Monterey fresh. Reformated HDD. boot from usb installer after a while get message “a required firmware update cannot be installed” iMac 2017 quad core with 32 ram and single nvme HDD. Original 32gb disk was replace with apple 512gb. Big Sur installed fine.
For my kid's 2015 MacBook Pro I had installed an OEM 256 GB drive. The serial number indicates I have a 128 GB model, but the 256 GB drive is the same SSUBX drive type that shipped in these machines that year so that should be OK. However, I note the firmware on the drive is different and hasn't been updated though. For this machine I had originally upgraded to Monterey on the original 128 GB drive, and then later swapped out the drive to the 256 GB model which had an older OS on it. I can't remember which, but I think it may have been Big Sur. I then upgraded to Monterey on that 256 GB drive but the firmware on the drive didn't get updated AFAIK. That particular 2015 MacBook Pro was manufactured in 2016, and thus shipped with a 128 GB drive dated 2016-03. The used 256 GB drive I swapped in was dated 2015-03 with, as mentioned, what appears to be an older drive firmware.
For those of you who upgraded to Monterey, did your OEM SSD's firmware get updated? Or is it updating something else? By the sounds of it, it's updating something else because you only need the OEM drive for the update and then after that it doesn't care what drive you have in there.
BTW, for my wife's 2017 MacBook Air I didn't bother upgrading the SSD from 128 GB. My wife has a decently large size Photos library, but it doesn't matter since it's all on iCloud.
How does one configure nvmefix? i have all three but i think only ssdpmenabler is working.
I'm using hackingtool v3.4.4 and i can't see the option to install extensions
I haven't really used this tool to install anything, just to check stuff, but I guess this is where you install kexts.
No... not that way. Like this... under utilities, and then look at the icon at the bottom of the image.
You don't need to configure nvmefix with any boot args. As I said in my instructions make sure "csrutil enable --without kext" is activated in recovery mode. Go through my instructions in order.
You can verify what kexts are loaded always by looking in Apple menu/ About this Mac/ System Report/ Extensions. Then scroll through to NVMefix. It will either tell you its loaded or unloaded.
Use Istats to verify your idle.
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Thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Lilu and NVMeFix are not loaded. my idle is also at .16A I've also included a screenshot of my SK Hynix P31 Gold SSD details. Let me trying you earlier instructions and see.
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What was the power consumption without the kexts installed?
Anyhow, I still can't find that damn drive locally in Canada.
I've tried the first 3 steps of the instructions by @terrazoids the first kext is installed but not loaded. i'm seeing my idle anywhere between .15A - .17A
As for the drive, i had to ship mine from the States.
I am still getting the usual refusing to boot errors "experienced an error and need to restart...". Is this the cause of the error as looking at it, Hakintool cannot patch properly due to read only enforcement as I had referred to earlier.
- 660p same firmware as you also.
- the funny thing is SSDEnabler seem to work by itself but NVMeFix/Lilu refuses to boot either by itself or together with SSDEnabler
Any ideas?
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