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

[kvic]

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)

I would take "dark blue" Sabrent 1TB over Kingston A2000 anytime. Both should be simply Phison reference design. That means functionally they work in the same way. But apparently Sabrent picks better NAND chips based on users' reported test results from the past year. For people who are going to get A2000, read @EugW post on page 404, and try to understand what those graphs mean..

The current indisputable winner by a mile is actually Hynix P31 1TB Gold. If people could get your hands on it, go with P31. For people willing to spend hundreds on 2nd hand market for a used (or claimed to be new) Apple OEM disk, I would rather buy P31 from Amazon US and pay the custom duty. It's that good and as simple as that. lol

 

[Bladiko]

I would take "dark blue" Sabrent 1TB over Kingston A2000 anytime. Both should be simply Phison reference design. That means functionally they work in the same way. But apparently Sabrent picks better NAND chips based on users' reported test results from the past year. For people who are going to get A2000, read @EugW post on page 404, and try to understand what those graphs mean..

The current indisputable winner by a mile is actually Hynix P31 1TB Gold. If people could get your hands on it, go with P31. For people willing to spend hundreds on 2nd hand market for a used (or claimed to be new) Apple OEM disk, I would rather buy P31 from Amazon US and pay the custom duty. It's that good and as simple as that. lol

SK Hynix did a really good job with the P31 Gold. As I’d mentioned earlier, i imported mine from the states coz that’s the only place I could find one. And the 2TB option wasn’t even available over December.

 

[Brondi]

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.

Ok thanks you! However this kind of SSDs are power consuming. I prefer someone that need less power to run.

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

As previously said, that one is not available in Italy T_T

At this point, it remains the Kingston A2000 and the Corsair MP510. The latter is costly.

 

[BlueBlueMan]

I would take "dark blue" Sabrent 1TB over Kingston A2000 anytime. Both should be simply Phison reference design. That means functionally they work in the same way. But apparently Sabrent picks better NAND chips based on users' reported test results from the past year. For people who are going to get A2000, read @EugW post on page 404, and try to understand what those graphs mean..

The current indisputable winner by a mile is actually Hynix P31 1TB Gold. If people could get your hands on it, go with P31. For people willing to spend hundreds on 2nd hand market for a used (or claimed to be new) Apple OEM disk, I would rather buy P31 from Amazon US and pay the custom duty. It's that good and as simple as that.

After spending quite some time in studying this thread I am now looking into the following for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4:

SSD: ‎SB-ROCKET-1TB
Adapter: Sintech ST-NGFF2013

Would that be an okay solution for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4?

Speed ist not the most important thing - I am fine if it is as fast as my built-in Apple SSD. Battery life is more important though: according to @kvic 's Github site, nobody with my model reported their experience, however, it looks like the "dark blue" Sabrent disc did work quite well for some of the other MBPs. Unfortunately, the Hynix P31 1TB Gold is not available in Europe and also at Amazon.com it seems to be unavailable at the moment.

Thank you.

Edit: I also could get the WD Black SN 750 1TB or the WD Black SN 750SE 1TB for a reasonable price. Better than the Sabrent?

 

[kvic]

SK Hynix did a really good job with the P31 Gold. As I’d mentioned earlier, i imported mine from the states coz that’s the only place I could find one. And the 2TB option wasn’t even available over December.

Hynix is showing effort to compete in the marketplace for sure and P31 is great. IMO consumers should reward such effort with their purchases.

Early last year, I contacted WD USA in an attempt to have them to improve SN550 firmware for Mac. After 10 rounds or so of message exchange, I gave up. Their level 1 support was reasonable and quite competent actually and helped me to relay the message higher up. But fundamentally I could imagine from the beginning.. they cared less about the tiny MacBook market.

After spending quite some time in studying this thread I am now looking into the following for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4:

SSD: ‎SB-ROCKET-1TB
Adapter: Sintech ST-NGFF2013

Would that be an okay solution for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4?

Speed ist not the most important thing - I am fine if it is as fast as my built-in Apple SSD. Battery life is more important though: according to @kvic 's Github site, nobody with my model reported their experience, however, it looks like the "dark blue" Sabrent disc did work quite well for some of the other MBPs. Unfortunately, the Hynix P31 1TB Gold is not available in Europe and also at Amazon.com it seems to be unavailable at the moment.

Thank you.

Edit: I also could get the WD Black SN 750 1TB or the WD Black SN 750SE 1TB for a reasonable price. Better than the Sabrent?

SN750 is more power hungry. Not a good choice if your sole purpose is to use the new SSD in MacBooks/laptops in its lifespan.

I see from your link the dark blue Sabrent 1TB costs as little as $85. Is this the norm in recent months? I thought that's a good deal. One year ago, the price was north of $125.

For 1TB, you could expect very similar idle power consumption to those on the list even if the Mac model isn't exactly same as yours.

 

[Brondi]

OK so I just installed my MP510.

Note: I had previously installed Big Sur on the original Apple SSD. Boot Rom was already 431.0.0.0.0. Clean install of Big Sur 11.3 was done via a USB installer, not through Internet Recovery.

Without wanting to tempt fate, all I can report so far is that everything seems pretty good. However, bear in mind I've had mine installed for around an hour, so it's very early days for me to start using the machine and uncover any possible issues.

I don't seem to be experiencing any particular lagginess. The machine boots considerably faster than with the original Apple SSD - like it's almost instantaneously through the black screen with Apple logo and straight into my user password screen. At present I don't seem to be experiencing any stickiness scrolling in Safari. I haven't tried anything more intensive yet.

Past the initial setup phase when the fans kicked in (this happened on a recent clean install with the Apple SSD also) the fans are off and it feels pretty cool to touch when on Safari. Hesitate to say this early on, but maybe even a little cooler feeling than I'm used to with the original drive(?) time will tell, I guess.

Out of interest, I checked the Firmware version of my MP510, which is showing as ECFM22.7. This lead me to the following thread (I took the liberty of posting the Google Translated link) -

https://translate.google.com/transl...thread-diskussion-bitte-lesen.666902/page-593

So, it appears that the MP510s now shipping might be using the Phison E12s and not the E12. They may also use different memory (no longer Toshiba) and may have half the DRAM cache than the previous version.

Seems to be part of a continuing trend, given the 'quiet' changes from E12 -> E12s and TLC -> QLC on drives. I'm a little PO'd as I paid more for the MP510 thinking it was the original quality/speed of memory, and now... who knows what I got? Maybe it's no better than the SN550 in the end, which is considerably cheaper...?

Anyway, for now, it's installed and seems to be working OK. Don't know how to run benchmarks, just going off subjective user experience at this stage compared to the original Apple drive I just removed.

Hope it helps anyone who's interested in this drive.

Thanks a lot for this reply. I was looking for MP510 review in this thread and found this one. If i didn’t do so, I probably buy the less performance version of the Corsair, the MP510 but amazon offers only the version with Phison E12s, 512MB DRAM, lower endurance and no Toshiba NAND memory. It should be the CSSD-F960GBMP510B.

The CSSD-F960GBMP510 that is the original one that Corsair sold time ago, is too much costly.

I would take "dark blue" Sabrent 1TB over Kingston A2000 anytime. Both should be simply Phison reference design. That means functionally they work in the same way. But apparently Sabrent picks better NAND chips based on users' reported test results from the past year. For people who are going to get A2000, read @EugW post on page 404, and try to understand what those graphs mean..

The current indisputable winner by a mile is actually Hynix P31 1TB Gold. If people could get your hands on it, go with P31. For people willing to spend hundreds on 2nd hand market for a used (or claimed to be new) Apple OEM disk, I would rather buy P31 from Amazon US and pay the custom duty. It's that good and as simple as that. lol

The only problem with Sabrent is that there are a lot of negative comment on their products.

After spending quite some time in studying this thread I am now looking into the following for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4:

SSD: ‎SB-ROCKET-1TB
Adapter: Sintech ST-NGFF2013

Would that be an okay solution for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4?

Speed ist not the most important thing - I am fine if it is as fast as my built-in Apple SSD. Battery life is more important though: according to @kvic 's Github site, nobody with my model reported their experience, however, it looks like the "dark blue" Sabrent disc did work quite well for some of the other MBPs. Unfortunately, the Hynix P31 1TB Gold is not available in Europe and also at Amazon.com it seems to be unavailable at the moment.

Thank you.

Edit: I also could get the WD Black SN 750 1TB or the WD Black SN 750SE 1TB for a reasonable price. Better than the Sabrent?

For the same reason as above, I should not advice the buy of the SB-ROCKET-1TB. Search for "Here’s why you should NOT buy a Sabrent Rocket SSD” on Google. In this discussion there are most negative comment on the endurance of the Sabrent SSDs.

At the end, the only SSD with no negative comment remains the Kingston A2000.

 

[kvic]

For the same reason as above, I should not advice the buy of the SB-ROCKET-1TB. Search for "Here’s why you should NOT buy a Sabrent Rocket SSD” on Google. In this discussion there are most negative comment on the endurance of the Sabrent SSDs.

At the end, the only SSD with no negative comment remains the Kingston A2000.

yes. I was aware of that article but I didn't read into details. Obviously he was very unhappy and spent the time to rant about it. From skimming through the article, seems to me he was not happy about the warranty. I saw very little technical details of a failed sample and why people should not purchase Sabrent even though he mentioned he had a lab at home and at work..

Regarding warranty, I think Sabrent is only available in the US market. Retail channels in other countries are most likely parallel imports in my understanding. So unless the local seller does a decent job, it's not reasonable to expect Sabrent to cover both ways of shipping cost.

The same could happen to those who purchase P31 from the US. As long as you ship at your own expense to USA, the warranty will be honored and very likely the return shipment is at Hynix's expense not yours.

 

[BlueBlueMan]

At the end, the only SSD with no negative comment remains the Kingston A2000.

Didn't you also have the WD SN750 on your shortlist? Why did you decide against it? What are your views on the chart in this post here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/post-30742116

 

[otosan]

Thanks a lot for this reply. I was looking for MP510 review in this thread and found this one. If i didn’t do so, I probably buy the less performance version of the Corsair, the MP510 but amazon offers only the version with Phison E12s, 512MB DRAM, lower endurance and no Toshiba NAND memory. It should be the CSSD-F960GBMP510B.

The CSSD-F960GBMP510 that is the original one that Corsair sold time ago, is too much costly.



The only problem with Sabrent is that there are a lot of negative comment on their products.



For the same reason as above, I should not advice the buy of the SB-ROCKET-1TB. Search for "Here’s why you should NOT buy a Sabrent Rocket SSD” on Google. In this discussion there are most negative comment on the endurance of the Sabrent SSDs.

At the end, the only SSD with no negative comment remains the Kingston A2000.

I normally would suggest an ssd with best availability and warranty you can get in your country,

because, almost any ssd (just like any electronics) will have a failure, although the rate is varying between makers of course. Negative comment and complaint also one of the result of sampling, the more user base will normally resulting in more comment, and from what i see in this thread, there's plenty of sabrent buyers. (which unfortunately, some of them facing difficulty/issue)

but when it happen, you gonna want to have the best customer support around, and the easiest way to claim the warranty.

During my own R&D prior to launching own brand in my country, i've been trying various SSD from multiple makers,

Western Digital (Sandisk), Samsung, Patriot, Adata, Team, PNY, Hynix, Silicon Power, Kingston, Kioxia (Toshiba), Corsair, and some other chinese OEM and local brand as well,

if your main priority is battery life,

Then rule of thumb is :

Pick SSDs with Silicon Motion or Phison Controller. They will work out of the box in a most seamless manner. It can sleep (assuming your macbook BootRom is supporting it) just fine, and doesn't consume power overnight (even without any kext)

AVOID Western Digital & Sandisk, because somehow their own made controller is kinda hit or miss in term of power management.

You can pick Samsung, if you are willing to install an extra Kext (NVMEFix & SsdPmEnabler), else the power consumption would be outrageous as well.

AVOID any SSD with Realtek controller.

Other notes :

Kioxia is not a bad choice, but their NAND layout is way too tight with the screw position, and in some cases, you might causing ground short with the NAND (if your screw touching it) and causing power drain/other issue. You can mitigate it using kapton tape/screw with smaller head diameter (apple one is quite wide). Kioxia have good warranty (5 years - in my country) , speed and stability is good, and there's no sleep issue with their controller.

 

[Brondi]

Didn't you also have the WD SN750 on your shortlist? Why did you decide against it? What are your views on the chart in this post here: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/post-30742116

According to previous thread reply and the chart in the first page, the WD Black are very power consuming. Nothing to say about performance, as we can see in the chart that you linked before.

yes. I was aware of that article but I didn't read into details. Obviously he was very unhappy and spent the time to rant about it. From skimming through the article, seems to me he was not happy about the warranty. I saw very little technical details of a failed sample and why people should not purchase Sabrent even though he mentioned he had a lab at home and at work..

Regarding warranty, I think Sabrent is only available in the US market. Retail channels in other countries are most likely parallel imports in my understanding. So unless the local seller does a decent job, it's not reasonable to expect Sabrent to cover both ways of shipping cost.

The same could happen to those who purchase P31 from the US. As long as you ship at your own expense to USA, the warranty will be honored and very likely the return shipment is at Hynix's expense not yours.

Yeah, you are right in this, I agree with you. Of course there are also negative reply in the comment on the same site. In addition as you said, since I live in Italy it would be problematic for me to enforce the warranty and have to ship the package to the U.S.

I normally would suggest an ssd with best availability and warranty you can get in your country,

because, almost any ssd (just like any electronics) will have a failure, although the rate is varying between makers of course. Negative comment and complaint also one of the result of sampling, the more user base will normally resulting in more comment, and from what i see in this thread, there's plenty of sabrent buyers. (which unfortunately, some of them facing difficulty/issue)

but when it happen, you gonna want to have the best customer support around, and the easiest way to claim the warranty.

During my own R&D prior to launching own brand in my country, i've been trying various SSD from multiple makers,

Western Digital (Sandisk), Samsung, Patriot, Adata, Team, PNY, Hynix, Silicon Power, Kingston, Kioxia (Toshiba), Corsair, and some other chinese OEM and local brand as well,

if your main priority is battery life,

Then rule of thumb is :

Pick SSDs with Silicon Motion or Phison Controller. They will work out of the box in a most seamless manner. It can sleep (assuming your macbook BootRom is supporting it) just fine, and doesn't consume power overnight (even without any kext)

AVOID Western Digital & Sandisk, because somehow their own made controller is kinda hit or miss in term of power management.

You can pick Samsung, if you are willing to install an extra Kext (NVMEFix & SsdPmEnabler), else the power consumption would be outrageous as well.

AVOID any SSD with Realtek controller.

Other notes :

Kioxia is not a bad choice, but their NAND layout is way too tight with the screw position, and in some cases, you might causing ground short with the NAND (if your screw touching it) and causing power drain/other issue. You can mitigate it using kapton tape/screw with smaller head diameter (apple one is quite wide). Kioxia have good warranty (5 years - in my country) , speed and stability is good, and there's no sleep issue with their controller.

Wow great reply here! Thanks you for sharing your experience.

 

[BlueBlueMan]

After spending quite some time in studying this thread I am now looking into the following for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4:

Adapter: Sintech ST-NGFF2013

Would that be an okay solution for my MBP Mid 2015 11,4?

Is that the right adapter for the Kingson A2000 1TB? Thx.

 

[enplaned]

Is that the right adapter for the Kingson A2000 1TB? Thx.

Among many, yes.

You can read more here:

Mac SSD adapters - hopefully comprehensive view

CORRECTIONS WELCOMED, ALL ERRORS ARE MINE, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK... etc. (links to Amazon, etc, are for information purposes only - none of them is an affiliate link) I started looking at this when considering a non-Apple SSD upgrade for my rMPB 11,1 and 11,4 - and went down the rabbit hole. I...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[BlueBlueMan]

Among many, yes.

You can read more here:

Mac SSD adapters - hopefully comprehensive view

CORRECTIONS WELCOMED, ALL ERRORS ARE MINE, USE AT YOUR OWN RISK... etc. (links to Amazon, etc, are for information purposes only - none of them is an affiliate link) I started looking at this when considering a non-Apple SSD upgrade for my rMPB 11,1 and 11,4 - and went down the rabbit hole. I...

forums.macrumors.com

Thank you @enplaned

Since you've went through all this with your rMBP 11,4 (and I happen to have the same model) I was wondering what combination worked out for you in the end? Thank you.

 

[enplaned]

Thank you @enplaned

Since you've went through all this with your rMBP 11,4 (and I happen to have the same model) I was wondering what combination worked out for you in the end? Thank you.

I went with the SK Hynix P31 and a non-Sintech adapter. I think mine was the "Jesot" off of Amazon. But I also had some Kapton tape, and applied that. The P31 is just overwhelmingly great at power efficiency. I have yet to formulate a strong view on a non-P31 recommendation - I've seen people happy with the A2000, but it's basically no longer manufactured, so that's kind of problematic for the future, though for the moment the remaining new stock seems to be still fairly available, albeit not at particularly great prices (the A2000 1TB was available during Black Friday for as low as $80 - I assume everyone knows about CamelCamelCamel.com that allows you to see historic prices on Amazon?)

https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B07VXC9QMH

(go down to the graph, make sure the "Amazon" box is clicked, and you will see the green line that indicates Amazon offered the 1TB A2000 for $80 during Black Friday - I believe that was likely Amazon blowing out their remaining new stock in light of the A2000 no longer being offered by Kingston.)

I think the main benefit of the Sintech is that it has the tape pre-applied (or so I am given to understand). The Fledging drives also have that tape applied, you can see it in some of the photos of those drives. Look at the main photo here, for instance, and zoom into the left end, you can see the tape, which is there to stop the left end of the adapter shorting out on the Mac SSD plug.

Fledging 512GB Turbo Feather M13 PCIe NVMe Gen 3.0x4 SSD Upgrade –DIY kit & OS included– Compatible with Apple MacBook Air (2013-2015) & Pro (2013-2016), Mac Mini (2013) & Pro (2014), iMac (2013-2019)

Fledging Feather M13 Turbo SSD

www.amazon.com

JESOT adapter:

JESOT M.2 NVME SSD Convert Adapter, 12+16pin M.2 NGFF M-Key SSD Convert Card for MacBook Air Pro Retina Mid 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017, NVME AHCI SSD Upgraded Kit for A1465 A1466 A1398 A1502

JESOT M.2 NVME SSD Convert Adapter, 12+16pin M.2 NGFF M-Key SSD Convert Card for MacBook Air Pro Retina Mid 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017, NVME AHCI SSD Upgraded Kit for A1465 A1466 A1398 A1502

www.amazon.com

 

[NT1440]

Anyone got any advice for someone who can’t upgrade to Monterey because of the firmware? I installed an NVME adapter in the past but I do not have my original drive anymore.

 

[EugW]

Anyone got any advice for someone who can’t upgrade to Monterey because of the firmware? I installed an NVME adapter in the past but I do not have my original drive anymore.

Can you install it in an external enclosure using another machine? I wonder how Monterey would work if the firmware isn't updated.

Alternatively, 128 GB OEM SSDs are not hugely expensive on the used market.

 

[enplaned]

Anyone got any advice for someone who can’t upgrade to Monterey because of the firmware? I installed an NVME adapter in the past but I do not have my original drive anymore.

A possible solution is to buy an Apple 128GB drive and use that to effect the upgrade. At least in the US, they're not that expensive anymore. Actual past sales of MZ-JPV128xxx drives on eBay:

Mz-Jpv128 for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for Mz-Jpv128 at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

www.ebay.com

The last one transacted was $15 including free shipping (but you'd have to pay sales tax). Other recent sales were in line with that. That would allow your computer to upgrade to Monterey, then you could re-install your NVME drive with Monterey and restore your files from backup. Others may have different/better alternatives, that's mine.

You might have to pick your moment to get one that cheap, but there are JPV128s available for less than $25 on "buy it now".

JPVs are getting pretty competitive these days - I scored three 500GB JPVs for $75 recently. Yes, that's an ultra-good deal and you can't regularly find them for that price. I don't want to represent otherwise. Yes, who knows how reliable they are, but you only need it to last one Monterey install.

$15 ain't much and you could resell the JPV later if you wanted.

But you may live outside the US - not sure if the same kind of thing would be possible in another jurisdiction.

The US is really effed up in some substantial ways, but in terms of tech commerce, the markets are, for the moment, as liquid and deep as you could want.

 

[EugW]

^^^ Yeah, in Canada I bought 256 GB SSUBX model for the 2015 MacBook Pro for CA$65 including shipping which is US$51.40, from a Canadian eBay seller. However, since then I found one locally for CA$50, which is US$39.50.

In Canada the 512 GB SSUBX models are difficult to find for a decent price though.

The slower SSUAX models (for the earlier Macs) do tend to be a bit cheaper than the SSUBX models (for the 2015 MBP).

 

[enplaned]

^^^ Yeah, in Canada I bought 256 GB SSUBX model for the 2015 MacBook Pro for CA$65 including shipping which is US$51.40, from a Canadian eBay seller. However, since then I found one locally for CA$50, which is US$39.50.

In Canada the 512 GB SSUBX models are difficult to find for a decent price though.

The slower SSUAX models (for the earlier Macs) do tend to be a bit cheaper than the SSUBX models (for the 2015 MBP).

Yes, but I think if you're trying to upgrade to Monterey you'd be safer with an MZ-JPV not MZ-JPU. The computers capable of upgrading to Monterey originally had JPVs and absent a report to the contrary, I wouldn't put it past Apple to have the Monterey upgrade process depend on the presence of a JPV rather than just a JPU (even though they are interchangeable otherwise). And god knows how they'd view having a SanDisk or Toshiba SSD in your Monterey-capable computer.

I could be wrong, but it would really suck to buy a JPU and then find out that Apple insists on a JPV - I read one user who failed to install Monterey because they had a Polaris drive. Again, interchangeable yet not original equipment.

Remember Apple's First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Open Thine Device!

 

[EugW]

Yes, but I think if you're trying to upgrade to Monterey you'd be safer with an MZ-JPV not MZ-JPU. The computers capable of upgrading to Monterey originally had JPVs and absent a report to the contrary, I wouldn't put it past Apple to have the Monterey upgrade process depend on the presence of a JPV rather than just a JPU (even though they are interchangeable otherwise). And god knows how they'd view having a SanDisk or Toshiba SSD in your Monterey-capable computer.

I could be wrong, but it would really suck to buy a JPU and then find out that Apple insists on a JPV - I read one user who failed to install Monterey because they had a Polaris drive. Again, interchangeable yet not original equipment.

Remember Apple's First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Open Thine Device!

Absolutely correct. Oops, forget I mentioned SSUAX. ?

I mentioned SSUAX only because the older model Macs would use SSUAX, but I momentarily forgot that's irrelevant in this context because the older model Macs can't officially upgrade to Monterey anyway.

 

[otosan]

Anyone got any advice for someone who can’t upgrade to Monterey because of the firmware? I installed an NVME adapter in the past but I do not have my original drive anymore.

Can you install it in an external enclosure using another machine? I wonder how Monterey would work if the firmware isn't updated.

Alternatively, 128 GB OEM SSDs are not hugely expensive on the used market.

Yes, but I think if you're trying to upgrade to Monterey you'd be safer with an MZ-JPV not MZ-JPU. The computers capable of upgrading to Monterey originally had JPVs and absent a report to the contrary, I wouldn't put it past Apple to have the Monterey upgrade process depend on the presence of a JPV rather than just a JPU (even though they are interchangeable otherwise). And god knows how they'd view having a SanDisk or Toshiba SSD in your Monterey-capable computer.

I could be wrong, but it would really suck to buy a JPU and then find out that Apple insists on a JPV - I read one user who failed to install Monterey because they had a Polaris drive. Again, interchangeable yet not original equipment.

Remember Apple's First Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Open Thine Device!

Absolutely correct. Oops, forget I mentioned SSUAX. ?

I mentioned SSUAX only because the older model Macs would use SSUAX, but I momentarily forgot that's irrelevant in this context because the older model Macs can't officially upgrade to Monterey anyway.

You can use SSUAX a.k.a Apple Gen.1 12+16 Pin SSD as well. Only with slightly different steps.

Just plug the SSUAX SSD to your mac, and do latest Catalina installation. It will bump up your BootRom to 195.x.x.x

then just plug back your NVME ssd, and do Monterey installation. Apple allow the macOS installer to update the BootRom version using 3rd party SSD after 195.x.x.x

This is why, i always suggest all my customer who buy their SSD from me, to at least update their OS to Catalina prior to upgrading the SSD. So that they are more "future-proof" in term of updating the OS. (For one who come over to store, i always do it for free as a complimentary service).

You can use higher BootRom with lower OS (only as low as 10.13.x), and lower BootRom with higher OS (up to BigSur), but you will miss the patch and fixed included in those newer firmware. Expect some unpredicted bugs though when the discrepancy between both is way too far.

Notes :
for one who is more a tinkerer. You can simply use any OS higher than Sierra on your OEM SSD, and do manual "BootRom-Only" upgrade using terminal command. You can upgrade it straight to Monterey version, or BigSur version. Catch is, you gonna need to extract the firmware (bootrom) file from the installer. But this will save you plenty of time compared to if you install the OS from scratch. (Blame apple for making OS installation slower and slower in each new version)

 

[EugW]

You can use SSUAX a.k.a Apple Gen.1 12+16 Pin SSD as well. Only with slightly different steps.

Just plug the SSUAX SSD to your mac, and do latest Catalina installation. It will bump up your BootRom to 195.x.x.x

then just plug back your NVME ssd, and do Monterey installation. Apple allow the macOS installer to update the BootRom version using 3rd party SSD after 195.x.x.x

Interesting, thanks.

Anyhow, here are my MacBookPro12,1 and MacBookAir7,2.

The MBP was updated to Monterey using the original OEM SSUBX 128 GB drive and then an OEM SSUBX 256 GB drive was installed. I believe the latter 256 GB drive has an earlier firmware than the original 128 GB drive, since the 256 GB drive is one year older than the original. Is it possible or advisable to update the SSD firmware?

The MBA still has the original OEM SSUBX 128 GB drive.

 

[olfo]

You can use SSUAX a.k.a Apple Gen.1 12+16 Pin SSD as well. Only with slightly different steps.

Just plug the SSUAX SSD to your mac, and do latest Catalina installation. It will bump up your BootRom to 195.x.x.x

then just plug back your NVME ssd, and do Monterey installation. Apple allow the macOS installer to update the BootRom version using 3rd party SSD after 195.x.x.x

This is why, i always suggest all my customer who buy their SSD from me, to at least update their OS to Catalina prior to upgrading the SSD. So that they are more "future-proof" in term of updating the OS. (For one who come over to store, i always do it for free as a complimentary service).

You can use higher BootRom with lower OS (only as low as 10.13.x), and lower BootRom with higher OS (up to BigSur), but you will miss the patch and fixed included in those newer firmware. Expect some unpredicted bugs though when the discrepancy between both is way too far.

Notes :
for one who is more a tinkerer. You can simply use any OS higher than Sierra on your OEM SSD, and do manual "BootRom-Only" upgrade using terminal command. You can upgrade it straight to Monterey version, or BigSur version. Catch is, you gonna need to extract the firmware (bootrom) file from the installer. But this will save you plenty of time compared to if you install the OS from scratch. (Blame apple for making OS installation slower and slower in each new version)

Thank you for the nice sum up on the Mac firmware. For a better understanding I would like to ask: Why do you think Catalina is neded to get the Monterey update? The minimal firmware version you mention (195.x.x.x) should be available from: Mojave 10.14.6 Security Update 2020-004 and High Sierra Security Update 2020-004 released on 15 July 2020 – according to this article (which also has a version covering recent MacOSes):

Which EFI firmware should your Mac be using? (version 3)

Apple doesn’t provide an official list of the current EFI firmware versions which should be installed on each model of Mac. Until 30 October 2018, it provided usable version numbers in System…

eclecticlight.co

Hynix is showing effort to compete in the marketplace for sure and P31 is great. IMO consumers should reward such effort with their purchases.

I am interested to do so, despite the mentioned lack of warranty. But do the SSDs nowadays still require the firmware update in Windows?
From the posts here I have learned that from firmware 41062C20 the Hynix P31 works out of the box.
Anybody know if this is the the standard firmware now?
Is there a way to get this info from the production date or serial number or any other info on the retail box?

 

[memco]

Does anyone know if there’s any complications with transferring the data from the old drie via an enclosure if the data was encrypted with FileVault? Also curious if anyone has a specific enclosure they can recommend.

 

[otosan]

Thank you for the nice sum up on the Mac firmware. For a better understanding I would like to ask: Why do you think Catalina is neded to get the Monterey update? The minimal firmware version you mention (195.x.x.x) should be available from: Mojave 10.14.6 Security Update 2020-004 and High Sierra Security Update 2020-004 released on 15 July 2020 – according to this article (which also has a version covering recent MacOSes):

Which EFI firmware should your Mac be using? (version 3)

Apple doesn’t provide an official list of the current EFI firmware versions which should be installed on each model of Mac. Until 30 October 2018, it provided usable version numbers in System…

eclecticlight.co

I am interested to do so, despite the mentioned lack of warranty. But do the SSDs nowadays still require the firmware update in Windows?
From the posts here I have learned that from firmware 41062C20 the Hynix P31 works out of the box.
Anybody know if this is the the standard firmware now?
Is there a way to get this info from the production date or serial number or any other info on the retail box?

You are correct in saying that it (195.x.x) also available through Mojave and High Sierra security patch.

but am just explaining the easiest way to do so. Because it would be easier to install Catalina directly compared to installing Mojave or High Sierra and installing security patch after.

To get 195. , you dont even need to install Catalina to the Internal OEM SSD (if you wish to retain the data in that ssd, assuming you are borrowing it from someone). You can simply plug the OEM ssd inside the macbook. And install Catalina to other external drive plugged through USB. It will still update your BootRom, as long as it detect that there's OEM SSD inside the macbook.

If you are already in 195. , regardless your OS version, you can went up to Monterey directly, even with 3rd party ssd.