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

[macpro_mid2014]

I’m trying to install a Hynix Gold, but Disk Utility doesn’t recognise it...

Booting in Internet Recovery Mode, the Hynix doesn’t show up in neither Disk Utility nor ”diskutil list” in Terminal. Same if I boot from a Time Machine backup.
However: It shows up when I boot from an external Windows To Go. So I’m assuming that the problem is not with the M.2 adapter. (I tried 3 different adapters - No difference)
The Hynix already had the latest FW when I got it. Updating it again made no difference.

What have I missed, what can I try?
Is there something with Monterey that messes this up?

MacBook Pro 15” Mid 2015
Monterey 12.2.1
Boot ROM: 428.60.3.0.0

SK Hynix Gold p31, 1TB
FW 41062C20

I had similar issues back in 2020 when I switched the stock SSD to a Silicon Power SSD.

I solved the issue by booting from a macOS installer on a USB stick. The installer was able to list the SP as an option for macOS installation.

I hope this solves your issue.

 

[Jack Neill]

Successfully installed Kingston A2000 500GB in MBP 13 2015
Kexts isn`t used.
Minimal power consumtion is 0,16A.
No problems with sleep and wake up.
Syntetical tests is atteched to message

What stat app is that?

 

[heydante]

Successfully installed Kingston A2000 500GB in MBP 13 2015
Kexts isn`t used.
Minimal power consumtion is 0,16A.
No problems with sleep and wake up.
Syntetical tests is atteched to message

Hi, Is the SSD model "SA2000M8/500G" ? I'm thinking of replacing my MBA 2015 SSD with this. Thanks!

 

[DaKKs]

Hi, Is the SSD model "SA2000M8/500G" ? I'm thinking of replacing my MBA 2015 SSD with this. Thanks!

That should be correct, I run a SA2000M8/1000G in my rMBP 13" 2015. The only difference seems to be a different model number ending for different storage sizes.

 

[heydante]

That should be correct, I run a SA2000M8/1000G in my rMBP 13" 2015. The only difference seems to be a different model number ending for different storage sizes.

Hi, thanks for confirming. Also, does the SSD speed decrease over time. I read a review where SSD r/w speed was decreased in a week. How's your holding up so far? and how much of your SSD is filled up? Thanks!

 

[DaKKs]

Hi, thanks for confirming. Also, does the SSD speed decrease over time. I read a review where SSD r/w speed was decreased in a week. How's your holding up so far? and how much of your SSD is filled up? Thanks!

I've barely had mine installed for 24 hours. So far no performance drops. 83GB used out of 1TB.

I haven't moved over my entire backup yet, just the main files to run "my" install of mac os. Got a windows partition i need to restore as well, hence the 1TB drive...

 

[otosan]

Man i need to try those kexts. My speeds with a Kingston A2000 top out at around 1000/1000 read/write

Kexts doesnt affect speed. You might want to check how many PCI lane actually detected. If you are maxed on 1000, it probably only give you x2 in System report.

And those who got 2800 speed is on A1398 2015 model, which can't be compared to other models, because it has real PCI 3.0x4 support.

Any other 13" pro models, macbook air, and pre 2015 15" model will hover around 1300ish-1600ish speed.

 

[otosan]

Hi, thanks for confirming. Also, does the SSD speed decrease over time. I read a review where SSD r/w speed was decreased in a week. How's your holding up so far? and how much of your SSD is filled up? Thanks!

A good ssd normally should not have performance degradation until it at least 85% filled (just like any other modern flash memory)

 

[otosan]

I am looking for a 1TB SSD for my 2013 Macbook Air 128GB with Big Sur. I have compared the balance between speed, power consumptions and endurance (TBW). I give a lot of importance to consumption being a laptop. After several days comparing various brands and models I have selected these two:

Kingston A2000 1TB:
TLC NAND
0.0032W idle
0.08W average
1.7 W (max) read
4.5 W (max) write
Sequential Read/Write: up to 2,200/2,000 MB/s
4K Random Read/Write: Up to 250,000/220,000 IOPS
TBW: 600

Corsair MP510 Force Series 960GB:
TLC NAND
Power Consumption active: 6.9W Average
Power Consumption Inactive: 0.03W
Max Sequential Read: 3,480MB/s
Max Sequential Write: 3,000MB/s
TBW: 720

According to these tables (section 9) the Corsair is more energy efficient. Although those 6.9W average extracted from their official website make me distrust the tables. In this other review the A2000 is a big winner.

Do you recommend any of these or any other?

Any help is welcome. Thanks in advance.

Just FYI,

on Macbook Air, even during load, your SSD won't ever reach even 2W. It will peak at most around 1.5-1.7W due to limited bandwith of the board itself.

so you might want to look more into idle consumption. Best SSD combined with kext will do almost 0.0W. Decent one can do 0.x without any kext.

 

[DaKKs]

Kexts doesnt affect speed. You might want to check how many PCI lane actually detected. If you are maxed on 1000, it probably only give you x2 in System report.

And those who got 2800 speed is on A1398 2015 model, which can't be compared to other models, because it has real PCI 3.0x4 support.

Any other 13" pro models, macbook air, and pre 2015 15" model will hover around 1300ish-1600ish speed.

Its running at 4x. That was the first thing i checked.

Its probably the adapter anyway. I'll start troubleshooting when the proper sintech adapter arrives.

Until then it runs perfectly fine, no noticable bugs or glitches, its just a tad slower than it should be.

 

[xboxbml]

Hi, Is the SSD model "SA2000M8/500G" ? I'm thinking of replacing my MBA 2015 SSD with this. Thanks!

I don't recall seeing that exact model #.. I'm using the ADATA on your model MBA for 2 years no issues.. Power consumption may be more than most but I like it..

 

[robinasu]

I wonder how the 1.0TB OWC AURA N2 would rank in the first post benchmarks. Anybody have an idea or forget it and buy the Crucial P2 2TB?

 

[User9]

Its running at 4x. That was the first thing i checked.

Its probably the adapter anyway. I'll start troubleshooting when the proper sintech adapter arrives.

Until then it runs perfectly fine, no noticable bugs or glitches, its just a tad slower than it should be.

if you run eGPU setup for gaming through TB2 it may use additional lanes

 

[csonni]

Just installed my new Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB and it has no problem with sleep. Perfect. It also beats the Crucial P5 by 3-400 Mbps.

 

[DaKKs]

if you run eGPU setup for gaming through TB2 it may use additional lanes

Not yet, but i will be trying it out at one point.

 

[aaddixx]

Just installed my new Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB and it has no problem with sleep. Perfect. It also beats the Crucial P5 by 3-400 Mbps.

Hi, what about battery life and temperatures?? I have really big problem with choosing NVMe SSD... I am between Adata SX8200 Pro and Corsair mp510..

 

[csonni]

Hi, what about battery life and temperatures?? I have really big problem with choosing NVMe SSD... I am between Adata SX8200 Pro and Corsair mp510..

I think I may have noticed a bit more of a hit on the battery than usual but not a deal breaker. I may test it sleeping tonight.

 

[MrAverigeUser]

Hi, what about battery life and temperatures?? I have really big problem with choosing NVMe SSD... I am between Adata SX8200 Pro and Corsair mp510..

As for temperatures have a look at the data I posted from DxDrive: always below 35 degrees Celsius under heavy usage While the CPU heats up to more than 80 degrees Celsius.. power consumption of the SSD is not the problem, but Screen and CPU is.

The 970 EVO plus seems to have a power consumption of 0.03 Watts in Idle. That is really not much at all.
Screen and CPU will consume much more than the 970 EVO plus in Heavy usage…if you don’t believe, just open coconut battery while idle and play a little bit with the brightness of your display… coconut battery shows the actual consumption of the MBP.


if power consumption gets higher after installing a faster SSD, this might be caused by more power consumption of the CPU - because the CPU will get much more data per second and will work more towards its electrical limits, where power-efficiency of the CPU (!) gets worse!
A suddenly more often up-heated CPU will cause much higher temperatures and thus need as well more cooling thus more activity of the fans, so do please not forget the important power consumption of the MBP because the fans are turning with much higher upm….

power consumption is surely more complex than many people think…


cheers

 

[xboxbml]

I wonder how the 1.0TB OWC AURA N2 would rank in the first post benchmarks. Anybody have an idea or forget it and buy the Crucial P2 2TB?

I would stay away from OWC drives.. Although they are a direct fit, I've read they have reliability issues and their speed performance isn't that great for the price they want.

 

[xboxbml]

Hi, what about battery life and temperatures?? I have really big problem with choosing NVMe SSD... I am between Adata SX8200 Pro and Corsair mp510..

I like my 2TB Adata.. been working well for over 2 years.

 

[DaKKs]

I pleasantly surprised with this mod. Installed bootcamp windows 10 today. No issues whatsoever, native installation with no workarounds. Split the drive 50/50. Neither Bootcamp assistant nor Windows 10 complained about the nvme drive, even though its probably a ****** adapter.

So all in all, i'm now running Monterey and Win10 basically OOB. Yes, the power drain from the drive is noticable, but bot an issue for my usage scenario. I like this A2000 drive. Cheap too.

 

[robinasu]

Thanks for the tips, guys.

 

[rdcoulthard]

Congrats. I've been following the P2 posts with special attention, I bought mine in May (use the thread search if you're curious). There were some unhappy reports of people who bought the version that slows down after a while. Have you checked that on yours?

Unsavory Flash Swap: Re-Testing Crucial’s P2 SSD After QLC Downgrade

Crucial’s P2 now ships with QLC flash, making it a poor performer and an even worse value.

www.tomshardware.com

I'm quite sure that the "worse" P2 can be spotted by the UK/CA logo on the package label as well as on the SSD itself.
It has been discussed here earlier that there may be 2 or more different versions of this SSD around.

Still, the SSD is energy-savvy and very tempting to buy, so it would be helpful for others to keep track of what Crucial is selling and how to distinguish the better P2s from the worse.

Would you mind checking your's? Also a continous speed test (Blackmagic, AJA, Amorphous DiskMark) that writes a huge amount of data would be interesting.

Interesting catching up on this. I bought a Crucial P2 2TB for the lower power consumption and it turns out to be the UK/CA logo version. I'm happy with the performance on writes, which average about 1700 MB/s on Blackmagic speed test, but read performance usually only gets up to 1300 MB/s. this seems odd. I don't think indexing is a problem here. Everytime I test it, I get roughly the same results. Crucial refused to address it because I'm using the P2 in an "unsupported device", so I ordered a new sintech adapter just in case. I have the same issue with the 2nd adapter so it seems to be something with the SSD. Has anyone else had this experience?

 

[robinasu]

Damn, Amazon just delivered the P2 UK/CA version. It's going back. Anybody know where I can get the good version? I like the low power consumption.

 

[otosan]

I wonder how the 1.0TB OWC AURA N2 would rank in the first post benchmarks. Anybody have an idea or forget it and buy the Crucial P2 2TB?

if i recall correctly, Anandtech have deep review for that drive,

Just to recap, in term of speed, consumption and reliability, it has no real benefit compared to adapter solution. It just benefitted from direct fit socket.

But direct fit socket have big weakness when you need troubleshooting,

with adapter solution, you can always plug the NVME drive to any NVME enclosure, while drive like OWC aura gonna need another custom enclosure, which normally cost more.