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

[Bladiko]

Hello everyone
I have macbook pro late 2013 ( A1502 )
I have replaced the original Ssd with Gold p31 hx Ssd with sintech Adapter ,
I don’t know how to fresh install the Os since my Original ssd was damaged

You need the following;

1. a usb stick (16gb preferably)
2. Another MacBook Pro or macOS system (because NVMe doesn’t support internet recovery AFAIK) you’ll use this to make a bootable usb.
3. Download Mojave (on the other macOS system)
4. Plug in the bootable usb, press Alt, select the bootable USB and boot from the usb.
5. Select “disk utility” select your drive, partition and erase. Exit disk utility
6. Select install macOS.

 

[xanderx007]

Mine looks like this:

Same configuration, different casing. Yours though is a few dollar cheaper than the clear version.

I did - read the article at the link I supplied.

I missed that, thanks.

 

[enplaned]

Mine looks like this:

I have that one. It works with my PC, but when I hook it up to my MacOS, it sees the RTL9210 controller (when I look under USB in the hardware summary) but I don't seem to be able to get it recognized as a drive - I have my old NVMe drive in it from my PC, and I'm quite willing to reformat it, initialize it, etc, but I can't get to the point where that's an option.

What steps did you take to get this up and running with your Mac?

 

[EugW]

I have that one. It works with my PC, but when I hook it up to my MacOS, it sees the RTL9210 controller (when I look under USB in the hardware summary) but I don't seem to be able to get it recognized as a drive - I have my old NVMe drive in it from my PC, and I'm quite willing to reformat it, initialize it, etc, but I can't get to the point where that's an option.

What steps did you take to get this up and running with your Mac?

I personally haven’t yet. I haven’t bought the drive yet. Perhaps @xanderx007 can answer but for others it just worked.

 

[xanderx007]

I have that one. It works with my PC, but when I hook it up to my MacOS, it sees the RTL9210 controller (when I look under USB in the hardware summary) but I don't seem to be able to get it recognized as a drive - I have my old NVMe drive in it from my PC, and I'm quite willing to reformat it, initialize it, etc, but I can't get to the point where that's an option.

What steps did you take to get this up and running with your Mac?

It was plug and play in my case. I've had a few Orico and generic (JMicron) HDD enclosures before that worked without any fuss.

OS version, perhaps?

 

[hacoon]

Hi guys, im desperated, please if someone can help!

I have a MacBook Pro 2013 (A1502) and my SSD is Just decided to turn off. I Just bought this WD black SN750. I try to
make it recognizable from my high sierra bit doesnt show on disk utility someone have experiencie with this one, or can help me to make it work? Tks so muchhh

 

[enplaned]

Hi guys, im desperated, please if someone can help!

I have a MacBook Pro 2013 (A1502) and my SSD is Just decided to turn off. I Just bought this WD black SN750. I try to
make it recognizable from my high sierra bit doesnt show on disk utility someone have experiencie with this one, or can help me to make it work? Tks so muchhh

You give very little info. I cannot tell whether it was the SN750 or some other SSD that decided to "turn off".

You're going to have to be a lot more detailed for anyone to be able to understand your situation.

 

[otosan]

Just heads up for @kvic

this might be out of thread. But i can confirm that SsdPmEnabler works fine on MacBookPro14,1
as for the SSD, am an importer and brand owner/distributor for one of the Local SSD Brand in my country, so i don't think i need to put the brand here, since it targeting/available solely for customer in my country

the SSD itself is using Innogrit Controller IG5216 (new player in storage world), combined with IMFT (Micron) NAND, and it can run up to 3000Mb/s Read and 1500Mb/s Write, although during speedtest on this Macbook model i can only manage to get 2600ish Mb/s Read and 1200Mb/s Write

on MacBook Pro 14,1 , power consumption is measured directly in Watt not Ampere by iStat Menus. And during idle, my SSD is consuming 0.48W-0.49W or around 0.145A (just divide the W with the 3.3v to get Amperage number) after installing SsdPmEnabler. Before, it's averaging on 0.8W

attached is some screenshot :

 

[enplaned]

Just heads up for @kvic

this might be out of thread. But i can confirm that SsdPmEnabler works fine on MacBookPro14,1
as for the SSD, am an importer and brand owner/distributor for one of the Local SSD Brand in my country, so i don't think i need to put the brand here, since it targeting/available solely for customer in my country

the SSD itself is using Innogrit Controller IG5216 (new player in storage world), combined with IMFT (Micron) NAND, and it can run up to 3000Mb/s Read and 1500Mb/s Write, although during speedtest on this Macbook model i can only manage to get 2600ish Mb/s Read and 1200Mb/s Write

on MacBook Pro 14,1 , power consumption is measured directly in Watt not Ampere by iStat Menus. And during idle, my SSD is consuming 0.48W-0.49W or around 0.145A (just divide the W with the 3.3v to get Amperage number) after installing SsdPmEnabler. Before, it's averaging on 0.8W

attached is some screenshot :

View attachment 1939232
View attachment 1939225 View attachment 1939223 View attachment 1939218 View attachment 1939226

Is this a 2242 or 2230 NVMe drive with an adapter? If so, can you share which adapter?

Or is the drive in a form that mimics the A1708 OEM SSD?

Does the drive have DRAM? I would be interested to know who the OEM is and/or the brand under which you sell it in your country.

Also, there's a similar (but much smaller thread) for A1708s that I know about:

Found this adaptor for 2016/2017 non-touch bar for ssd upgrades

Has anyone heard or tried these out with a 42mm length pci-e ssd? 1587411306 Ive found 512,1tb,2tb nvme ssd that fit this with 2000+mbps read and write too. Makes the cost of making my Mac 1tb roughly 220 dollars.

forums.macrumors.com

It would be great to duplicate your post there. Or, if there's another A1708 thread that you know about for this topic, please let me know.

Thank you!

 

[otosan]

Is this a 2242 or 2230 NVMe drive with an adapter? If so, can you share which adapter?

Or is the drive in a form that mimics the A1708 OEM SSD?

Does the drive have DRAM? I would be interested to know who the OEM is and/or the brand under which you sell it in your country.

Also, there's a similar (but much smaller thread) for A1708s that I know about:

Found this adaptor for 2016/2017 non-touch bar for ssd upgrades

Has anyone heard or tried these out with a 42mm length pci-e ssd? 1587411306 Ive found 512,1tb,2tb nvme ssd that fit this with 2000+mbps read and write too. Makes the cost of making my Mac 1tb roughly 220 dollars.

forums.macrumors.com

It would be great to duplicate your post there. Or, if there's another A1708 thread that you know about for this topic, please let me know.

Thank you!

Yes you can use those adapter. What i showed above is also the result from an NVME SSD + adapter for the A1708.

Most common adapter you can find in market is NFHK or Sintech. People still lean much toward Sintech, while in fact it no longer has any real benefit compared to the competitor. Most of current maker know the blueprint of the adapter already and implement proper wiring and insulation. What might differ is the coating of the socket.

in my case, i also importing my own adapter from the factory without any brand slapped onto it.

My brand has two line up, named LightningMac (for mac obviously) and LightningMax for Windows. Lines up available in both 2242 and 2280 form factor. Am using controller from Silicon Motion and InnoGrit, as for the NAND, am sourcing it from IMFT, Toshiba & WesternDigital/Sandisk (since they are now under same entity) depending on availability and production batch. All NAND is TLC.

All line up are DRAM-LESS, because the intent is to attract the budget market. Thus using InnoGrit is one of the strategical move, since it can provide higher peak performance without the need of DRAM, while also still giving good random I/O performance.

The OEM itself is BIWIN (if you ever heard about it)

 

[dobermanuk]

Hi all,

I want to upgrade the SSD in my MacBook Pro Retina 13", mid 2014, and according to the first post, a Sintech adapter with a Samsung Evo Plus (latest firmware) should be a simple and safe swap.
However, I am confused with the Hibernating issues. I am on Mojave 10.14 at the moment. Am I right to assume that after the SSD upgrade, if I install Big Sur, the hibernation problem goes away?

Thanks in advance!

 

[enplaned]

Yes you can use those adapter. What i showed above is also the result from an NVME SSD + adapter for the A1708.

Most common adapter you can find in market is NFHK or Sintech. People still lean much toward Sintech, while in fact it no longer has any real benefit compared to the competitor. Most of current maker know the blueprint of the adapter already and implement proper wiring and insulation. What might differ is the coating of the socket.

in my case, i also importing my own adapter from the factory without any brand slapped onto it.

My brand has two line up, named LightningMac (for mac obviously) and LightningMax for Windows. Lines up available in both 2242 and 2280 form factor. Am using controller from Silicon Motion and InnoGrit, as for the NAND, am sourcing it from IMFT, Toshiba & WesternDigital/Sandisk (since they are now under same entity) depending on availability and production batch. All NAND is TLC.

All line up are DRAM-LESS, because the intent is to attract the budget market. Thus using InnoGrit is one of the strategical move, since it can provide higher peak performance without the need of DRAM, while also still giving good random I/O performance.

The OEM itself is BIWIN (if you ever heard about it)

Thank you for answering my nosey questions.

Yep, I've heard of BIWIN - though to be honest, until checking just now, I thought they were Taiwanese - turns out they're Chinese.

One last question - in your opinion, is there any issue with using an A1708 with one-sided vs two-sided 2242 SSDs?

Thank you again!

 

[otosan]

Thank you for answering my nosey questions.

Yep, I've heard of BIWIN - though to be honest, until checking just now, I thought they were Taiwanese - turns out they're Chinese.

One last question - in your opinion, is there any issue with using an A1708 with one-sided vs two-sided 2242 SSDs?

Thank you again!

Two sided tend to produce/collect more heat. Although if you applying thermal pad/tape during installation, nothing to worry about.

You don't even need to use adapter with cut out for two sided SSD, since the underside NAND is actually not even touching the adapter base.

Also it depends on how many capacity you aim for. Anything higher than 512GB will normally come as two sided SSD in 2242 form. Especially when it's TLC

 

[otosan]

Hi all,

I want to upgrade the SSD in my MacBook Pro Retina 13", mid 2014, and according to the first post, a Sintech adapter with a Samsung Evo Plus (latest firmware) should be a simple and safe swap.
However, I am confused with the Hibernating issues. I am on Mojave 10.14 at the moment. Am I right to assume that after the SSD upgrade, if I install Big Sur, the hibernation problem goes away?

Thanks in advance!

Yes, it goes away in BigSur.

You won't get maximum performance from the EVO plus though, since Mid 2014 have a limit of PCI 2.0 x 4

If you are not really looking for an SSD with a DRAM, other more affordable option should be a better choice

 

[Brondi]

I have MacBookPro11,4.

After read the last 100 posts in this thread, I end up with select between:

Kingston A2000 1TB and Sabrent Rocket 1 TB.

I read no problem with the Kingston, anyone that had problem with the Sabrent?

(Only because the Kingston is slightly slower)

 

[enplaned]

I have MacBookPro11,4.

After read the last 100 posts in this thread, I end up with select between:

Kingston A2000 1TB and Sabrent Rocket 1 TB.

I read no problem with the Kingston, anyone that had problem with the Sabrent?

(Only because the Kingston is slightly slower)

Sabrent Rocket is included in the list of working drives in the first post of this thread.

 

[otosan]

Is this a 2242 or 2230 NVMe drive with an adapter? If so, can you share which adapter?

Or is the drive in a form that mimics the A1708 OEM SSD?

Does the drive have DRAM? I would be interested to know who the OEM is and/or the brand under which you sell it in your country.

Also, there's a similar (but much smaller thread) for A1708s that I know about:

Found this adaptor for 2016/2017 non-touch bar for ssd upgrades

Has anyone heard or tried these out with a 42mm length pci-e ssd? 1587411306 Ive found 512,1tb,2tb nvme ssd that fit this with 2000+mbps read and write too. Makes the cost of making my Mac 1tb roughly 220 dollars.

forums.macrumors.com

It would be great to duplicate your post there. Or, if there's another A1708 thread that you know about for this topic, please let me know.

Thank you!

Just another heads up,

after installing NVMEFix, now the idle consumption go down even lower, previously it was 0.48W (which means 0.14A)
now it can go as low as 0.01W (which practically 0A)

 

[dobermanuk]

Yes, it goes away in BigSur.

You won't get maximum performance from the EVO plus though, since Mid 2014 have a limit of PCI 2.0 x 4

If you are not really looking for an SSD with a DRAM, other more affordable option should be a better choice

Thanks for your reply, that helps a lot!
Which other drive(s) would you recommend for example? As long as I can use the max speed of the Mac's potential, I don't need to spend more than necessary I agree!
I think 1 or 2tb is the size I am looking for.
Thanks again!

ps: Basically all drives from the recommended list would be faster than my PCI 2.0 x 4 , so any should work?

 

[otosan]

Thanks for your reply, that helps a lot!
Which other drive(s) would you recommend for example? As long as I can use the max speed of the Mac's potential, I don't need to spend more than necessary I agree!
I think 1 or 2tb is the size I am looking for.
Thanks again!

ps: Basically all drives from the recommended list would be faster than my PCI 2.0 x 4 , so any should work?

Yes,

basically, any NVME drives you pick, will still be an upgrade compared to your original one. Especially, because you were coming from 2014 model which still utilising Gen.A of Apple SSD that are much slower compared to Gen.B in 2015 model, you gonna have a leap and bound performance increase by upgrading to NVME SSD.

in some cases it can be as high as 200% peak performance gain.

 

[xanderx007]

Thanks for your reply, that helps a lot!
Which other drive(s) would you recommend for example? As long as I can use the max speed of the Mac's potential, I don't need to spend more than necessary I agree!
I think 1 or 2tb is the size I am looking for.
Thanks again!

ps: Basically all drives from the recommended list would be faster than my PCI 2.0 x 4 , so any should work?

At least 3 of us here have used the Kingston A2000 without any issues (or kext, but that shouldn't stop you from installing any if you want to). I myself have the the Mid 2014.

Check my post.

 

[Brondi]

Sabrent Rocket is included in the list of working drives in the first post of this thread.

Yes but just now I realise that most people had problem with failure NVMe disks of this kind. So I exclude this option.

So I still should decide among:

Kingston A2000
WD Black SN750
Corsair MP510

On the first post I don’t know what WD Black v1-v3 are.

 

[profcutter]

My Sabrent is running strong. I didn’t realize folks had problems with them. I’ve had mine for about a year.

 

[enplaned]

Yes but just now I realise that most people had problem with failure NVMe disks of this kind. So I exclude this option.

So I still should decide among:

Kingston A2000
WD Black SN750
Corsair MP510

On the first post I don’t know what WD Black v1-v3 are.

I think, but am not 100% sure, that WD Black v1-v3 refer to the three models of SSD that WD brands as "Black" - SN850, SN750 and SN750 SE.

 

[Bladiko]

Yes but just now I realise that most people had problem with failure NVMe disks of this kind. So I exclude this option.

So I still should decide among:

Kingston A2000
WD Black SN750
Corsair MP510

On the first post I don’t know what WD Black v1-v3 are.

There’s also the SK Hynix P31 Gold. I can vouch for that one since I’m currently using one. Awesome battery life performance.

 

[kvic]

Just heads up for @kvic

this might be out of thread. But i can confirm that SsdPmEnabler works fine on MacBookPro14,1
as for the SSD, am an importer and brand owner/distributor for one of the Local SSD Brand in my country, so i don't think i need to put the brand here, since it targeting/available solely for customer in my country

the SSD itself is using Innogrit Controller IG5216 (new player in storage world), combined with IMFT (Micron) NAND, and it can run up to 3000Mb/s Read and 1500Mb/s Write, although during speedtest on this Macbook model i can only manage to get 2600ish Mb/s Read and 1200Mb/s Write

on MacBook Pro 14,1 , power consumption is measured directly in Watt not Ampere by iStat Menus. And during idle, my SSD is consuming 0.48W-0.49W or around 0.145A (just divide the W with the 3.3v to get Amperage number) after installing SsdPmEnabler. Before, it's averaging on 0.8W

attached is some screenshot :

View attachment 1939232
View attachment 1939225 View attachment 1939223 View attachment 1939218 View attachment 1939226

Thanks for sharing. Good to get a confirmation finally.

I'm quite confident 2016/2017 non-touch models work similarly in terms of SSDs though one user reported otherwise in the other thread. So good to know they indeed work in the same way.