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

[macpro_mid2014]

Similar comment on the Rocket:

"The Phison E12 controller is silently changed to the E12S for the newer units in production to "to supply demand, in case there is a shortage of any other component that was originally used."(as said by them in a correspondence). This new controller for the SSD has 1/2 the amount of DRAM(not noticeable unless you're doing high workloads). But isn't that to be expected for such a performance NVMe drive? This product may come across as bait-and-switch/SSD controller lottery or russian roulette/ etc. Spend your money wisely. You never know if you'll get the smaller gimped E12S or the standard E12. It's a lottery."

Both SSDs (500MB and 1TB) have the Physon E12 controller.

There is no optimal solution nowadays. With the tables in post #1 not being updated for a while, your best bet is the last 10-20 pages. Still, you can get the P2 (low heat) if you are not transferring huge files around. Or the WD SN550, which I get 42C during regular use. Or the SX8200 (some reports in the last 10 pages or so). Or even the Blue Sabrent Rocket.

Another thing to consider is this: Apple is swiftly dropping support for Intel Macs (they cut three years in 2022) and in my opinion, 2023 will be the last year in which we will see an x86-based macOS. If Ventura is not the last already!

I was planning on getting a used MacBookPro 2019 but gave up after watching WWDC 2022.

Thanks.

 

[2five]

Wow, those are some great speeds. What year/model MBP?

Hey RocknRolla
i have MBP 15" mid 2015 with i7 2.5ghz and amd m370x
Full specs and story starts here:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrading-2013-2014-macbook-pro-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-422?post=31128445#post-31128445

 

[dskeletov]

Hey all, anyone have suggestions for a good battery replacement for an Early 2015 MBP 13"? I got this one two years back and a little while later upgraded to the 1TB Sabrent Rocket, by which point my battery life had dropped to a miserable less-than-an-hour. I thought for a while that it was the Sabrent being power-hungry, but the charts in the wiki post these days put it in the upper quartile for a healthy power draw, so now I'm just confused. Maybe it was a crappy battery the whole time? Are the ones from iFixIt better?

 

[xboxbml]

Hey all, anyone have suggestions for a good battery replacement for an Early 2015 MBP 13"? I got this one two years back and a little while later upgraded to the 1TB Sabrent Rocket, by which point my battery life had dropped to a miserable less-than-an-hour. I thought for a while that it was the Sabrent being power-hungry, but the charts in the wiki post these days put it in the upper quartile for a healthy power draw, so now I'm just confused. Maybe it was a crappy battery the whole time? Are the ones from iFixIt better?

not sure about MBP, but I had gotten one from iFixit for my previous 2015 MBA and it was great...till I spilled a glass of wine in it.. It came over capacity spec per Coconut Battery.. and was doing VERY well with this ADATA 2TB... which eats a little bit more power than some 3rd part SSD's... this replacement I've had for about a year or so is still doing OK with its original battery, but when time comes. I'll be ordering an iFixit replacement again..

 

[cognus]

Finally read the first post (thats what I get for a google search that dropped me in the middle of the thread), looked like the Crucial P2 was for me. I don't need super high speeds, more interested in reliability and not having to be concerned about heat & fans (my Macbook Pro 8,2 will burn your legs!).

Searched the thread for any hits on Crucial only to find the current the P2 isn't the same as the Page 1 charts. Wish there was a note in that first post with that info. Make me wonder what else isn't up to date.

Then I was considering the Nmicro Extreme and read about issues with updates ...

Think I'm better off just spending the $ and finding a used apple drive. I really just want to drop it in and forget about it.

errrhh.. CR500 what did you end up with. I was literally about to press the amazon button the P2.... trying hard to avoid over-posting here but it still isn't easy because drives come/go so rapidly... I did read a couple of posts in Q/A on Amazon giving it the thumbs up. CT500P2

 

[dskeletov]

not sure about MBP, but I had gotten one from iFixit for my previous 2015 MBA and it was great...till I spilled a glass of wine in it.. It came over capacity spec per Coconut Battery.. and was doing VERY well with this ADATA 2TB... which eats a little bit more power than some 3rd part SSD's... this replacement I've had for about a year or so is still doing OK with its original battery, but when time comes. I'll be ordering an iFixit replacement again..

Hey, thanks for the reply. That's good to hear, I'll give the iFixit one a shot then.

Btw, did anyone find that the trackpad cable can be a bit fragile? I was just swapping out an SSD and mine just totally died, no keyboard, no mouse, but USB keys work.

 

[cognus]

January 2021 I put a 1TB Crucial P2 in my Late 2013 MacbookPro 11,1 based on where this thread was at back then. The extra space was a massive improvement over the 250GB I bought it with.

After 14 months (6,200 hours on-time) and only 8TBW I've ditched it in favour of a 2TB P31. What a difference. I was unlucky enough to get one of the newer QLC P2s and it just degraded into a performance nightmare. Quick performance benchmarks were ok, but sustained reads were below 600MBs (down to below 200MB/s on some parts of the drive) and sustained writes started at ~500MB/s and dropped to ~40MB/s once the SLC cache filled up.

The P31 is much nicer. Will be interesting to see how that performs over the next year.

was there an actual "problem" with the crucial P2, or you just wanted the higher performance numbers of the P31??

 

[cognus]

Thank you OP for the superb Wiki and all the gang for this thread that answered nearly all my questions.
But now I gotta order and I'm hung, as are others here lately, in that a lot of drive models mentioned nicely in the thread in the last year or so have been superseded, leaving the older ones scarcer at high prices, and the "newer better faster cooler" ones unmentioned.

I have early 2015 MBA 13" minimal config that has always been ok reliable but impossibly slow... I mean sloooowwww and spent much time looking for bugs but it is bug free so I want to buy the adapter and a drive. I don't need size. I have other ways of bulking size. I just need it to work and work as well as it can in today's terms.
If you could just suggest a drive to buy that we know is solid, I can do the rest! What I have in my Amazon Cart right now is:
Intel 660P
Crucial P2
Sabrent Rocket Blue .. all of these are ~500GB just because that's what's being offered below 1TB which I don't need.

thanks

 

[xboxbml]

Thank you OP for the superb Wiki and all the gang for this thread that answered nearly all my questions.
But now I gotta order and I'm hung, as are others here lately, in that a lot of drive models mentioned nicely in the thread in the last year or so have been superseded, leaving the older ones scarcer at high prices, and the "newer better faster cooler" ones unmentioned.

I have early 2015 MBA 13" minimal config that has always been ok reliable but impossibly slow... I mean sloooowwww and spent much time looking for bugs but it is bug free so I want to buy the adapter and a drive. I don't need size. I have other ways of bulking size. I just need it to work and work as well as it can in today's terms.
If you could just suggest a drive to buy that we know is solid, I can do the rest! What I have in my Amazon Cart right now is:
Intel 660P
Crucial P2
Sabrent Rocket Blue .. all of these are ~500GB just because that's what's being offered below 1TB which I don't need.

thanks

I like my 2TB ADATA... others may be more power efficient..

 

[Earl Urley]

BTW, I found that the Sintech short adapter I bought in 2017 (I think the short adapter was the only adapter they offered at the time) was failing.. been getting a lot of kernel panics lately, so I opened up the ol' Late 2014 rMBP and removed the adapter for inspection..

For some reason it looked like the contacts were either tarnishing or fading? I didn't reinsert it very much.

Cleaned them with a dab of contact cleaner but was still getting random KPs.

Ordered a brand new Sintech short adapter, replaced it.. and not a single kernel panic since.

I didn't even need to apply Kapton tape this time! Maybe Sintech used the profits from the first bunch of adapters to source better RF-proof material.

If you are getting random KPs out of nowhere on your rMBP, it might be time to switch out the SSD adapter.

 

[Brad_C]

was there an actual "problem" with the crucial P2, or you just wanted the higher performance numbers of the P31??

That depends on what you mean by "actual problem". Was it reliable? It didn't lose data. I was also happy with its performance when new. Its performance new wasn't far off the P31. Its read and random performance after 6000 hours was about half that of a Samsung 830 SATA drive with 40,000 hours on it. For sustained streaming writes, it was far, far worse.

I really saw the issues with hibernate speeds, larger bulk transfers ( > ~250MB), bulk streaming reads (< 200MB/s) and general responsiveness. The P2 gradually degraded to stupidly slow transfer rates. It wasn't like that new. So yeah, I'd say there was an actual problem. I have it as a temporary unit in another desktop system at the moment and to be honest it's barely passable.

I'm sure the original TLC P2 was a winner, but the QLC version gets my "caveat emptor" award.

 

[cognus]

That depends on what you mean by "actual problem". Was it reliable? It didn't lose data. I was also happy with its performance when new. Its performance new wasn't far off the P31. Its read and random performance after 6000 hours was about half that of a Samsung 830 SATA drive with 40,000 hours on it. For sustained streaming writes, it was far, far worse.

I really saw the issues with hibernate speeds, larger bulk transfers ( > ~250MB), bulk streaming reads (< 200MB/s) and general responsiveness. The P2 gradually degraded to stupidly slow transfer rates. It wasn't like that new. So yeah, I'd say there was an actual problem. I have it as a temporary unit in another desktop system at the moment and to be honest it's barely passable.

I'm sure the original TLC P2 was a winner, but the QLC version gets my "caveat emptor" award.

thanks Brad. if you have one more minute: in the currently-available market then, I should buy something Samsung? any particular family line?

 

[gillblates]

Has anyone tried the WD Blue SN570? Its listed as incompatible, but I don't see an actual post about it. Very inexpensive drive if it does work.

 

[Brad_C]

thanks Brad. if you have one more minute: in the currently-available market then, I should buy something Samsung? any particular family line?

Personally I wouldn't. I have Samsung drives (960 Evo, 960Pro, 970 Evo+) in desktop and server machines. While their performance is impressive they just cook. I've never tried one in my macbook because frankly aside from the heat they just use too much juice. I'm sure someone will pipe up with an actual in-macbook experience though.

I went with the SK Hynix Gold P31 based on the reviews for power consumption, and whilst it only has 1,400 hours on it thus far it's a vast improvement over the P2 and outperforms the interface. They can be hard to find however.

 

[cognus]

thx!

 

[shinigami41]

Hi, this is my first time register and write here. Been following this thread for many years back.

My device:
Macbook Air 11 inch 2015 - A1465
Mac OS Monterey
16GB RAM - Sent for RAM upgrade soldered service
Sintech Long Adapter
P2 1TB

Battery and performance been great so far, initial boot up take bit of more time than Apple SSD. Tried to disable TRIM no go, TRIM is enabled by default for NVME. If anyone have solution for this, would be great.

P2 power usage is good, very less power consumption. Can monitor using iStat Menus, worth it.

As checked the the SSD firmware is P2CR031, the is firmware upgrade to P2CR033. However the method stated is only for windows only. Does anyone successfully update the firmware and how? If so, is there any difference in reliability and performance.

 

[Brad_C]

As checked the the SSD firmware is P2CR031, the is firmware upgrade to P2CR033. However the method stated is only for windows only. Does anyone successfully update the firmware and how? If so, is there any difference in reliability and performance.

I recently used someone elses WIndows machine to create a Win2Go USB with an ISO of Windows 10 and Rufus. That did the job without installing WIndows on the Macbook. I didn't notice a difference in reliability or performance.

 

[tmscsrp]

NO. Don't waste money. Between the two drives, P2 is a better drive for MacBook's. If you were lucky in receiving a P2 manufactured before around April 2021, then it's exceptionally better than SX8200 Pro.

Don't waste the money. I believe there is a much simply way to solve your problem anyway. Your issue is most likely caused by momentarily loss of electrical contact due to mechanical issue.

Try to disassemble your P2 from MacBook and re-seat it first, and tighten up the screw on the drive too. Most likely that'll solve your problem.

Sorry for the late reply, that was exactly what I did (but I wanted to be sure it solved the problem, so tested it for a few weeks).

I reinstalled the old Mac OS version which worked perfectly for months, but now it was even worse. KPs every 5 minutes, but now with completely random error messages (not seen the "loss of MMIO space" anymore). It was a bit weird so I decided to tear everything apart and start from scratch. Disassembly, full and thorough cleaning, reseating, etc. My MacBook Air works PERFECTLY for weeks now with Crucial P2, fast as light, no issues at all. And I'm alsmot sure the SSD was manufactured before April 2021, I purchased it around May 2021 so I think there's a very high chance.

So now I'll definitely keep this SSD and see if the problem occurs again. When I installed it first, everything was fine for months, so strange.

Thank you for all your replies guys, you helped a lot. Sometimes the problem is way simpler than it seems - cleaning/re-assembling can solve the weirdest things. 😎

 

[kvic]

Good to hear it works.

Also, remember to always hold your Mac laptops with BOTH hands to reduce/eliminate any remote possibility of developing the problem again.

Long time lurkers may recall this thread accumulated quite lots of noises of kernel panic. In a similar fashion where a NVMe worked well in the first few days, weeks, months, and all of sudden it developed KPs. People claimed this or that specific model not compatible with MacOS and whatnot. All sorts of other non-sensical testimonials from the bottom of their hearts. Except very few specific NVMe, I'm afraid most cases were due to mechanical glitch among a combination of the NVMe, adaptor and the Apple socket developed over a period of time - depends how delicately a user handles the laptop on daily usage.

If all you get are kernel panics, consider yourselves lucky. Because it could cause data loss and/or induce some permanent damage in the NVMe where you may find it a nuisance later.

If I were the Chinese sellers, I would probably have spent more engineering effort on the mechanical design. In my opinion, it's total ignorance to release the short adaptor. Perhaps it's also helped by collective failure of the Internet in promoting short adaptors. It's simply too fragile mechanically. The long adaptor in theory is a better form factor and mechanically much more stable. Worth a consideration for people who are still jumping on this bandwagon.

Most if not all these MacBooks are officially on their last legs (either with Big Sur or Monterey). Any further investments of money or time in improvement are like dumping the effort into seas. While you still can, enjoy the next couple of years.

 

[tmscsrp]

Good to hear it works.

Also, remember to always hold your Mac laptops with BOTH hands to reduce/eliminate any remote possibility of developing the problem again.

Long time lurkers may recall this thread accumulated quite lots of noises of kernel panic. In a similar fashion where a NVMe worked well in the first few days, weeks, months, and all of sudden it developed KPs. People claimed this or that specific model not compatible with MacOS and whatnot. All sorts of other non-sensical testimonials from the bottom of their hearts. Except very few specific NVMe, I'm afraid most cases were due to mechanical glitch among a combination of the NVMe, adaptor and the Apple socket developed over a period of time - depends how delicately a user handles the laptop on daily usage.

If all you get are kernel panics, consider yourselves lucky. Because it could cause data loss and/or induce some permanent damage in the NVMe where you may find it a nuisance later.

If I were the Chinese sellers, I would probably have spent more engineering effort on the mechanical design. In my opinion, it's total ignorance to release the short adaptor. Perhaps it's also helped by collective failure of the Internet in promoting short adaptors. It's simply too fragile mechanically. The long adaptor in theory is a better form factor and mechanically much more stable. Worth a consideration for people who are still jumping on this bandwagon.

Most if not all these MacBooks are officially on their last legs (either with Big Sur or Monterey). Any further investments of money or time in improvement are like dumping the effort into seas. While you still can, enjoy the next couple of years.

Agree with every word here, thank you for this summary. I use this Macbook on my desk, I move it or lift it only 1-2 times a year - literally. Maybe one of these rare events caused this issue. Will keep that in mind, thank you!!

 

[Aitchey]

Hi all, been reading here for a while now but only just signed up today

Firstly sorry if this has already been answered I went through as many pages and searched as much as my patience could give! ...

I am about to put an NFHK N-941A adapter in my 2017 macbook air and was hoping to use a 500GB Kingston NV1 does anyone know if these Kingston drives are working or not? I have read some Kingston drives do not work and others do!

Cheers & thanks in advance.

Aitchey

 

[Brad_C]

Agree with every word here, thank you for this summary. I use this Macbook on my desk, I move it or lift it only 1-2 times a year - literally. Maybe one of these rare events caused this issue. Will keep that in mind, thank you!!

Whereas I chuck my A1502 around like a football and have never had an issue. No point having a mobile device if it's that fragile.

 

[xboxbml]

Good to hear it works.

Also, remember to always hold your Mac laptops with BOTH hands to reduce/eliminate any remote possibility of developing the problem again.

Long time lurkers may recall this thread accumulated quite lots of noises of kernel panic. In a similar fashion where a NVMe worked well in the first few days, weeks, months, and all of sudden it developed KPs. People claimed this or that specific model not compatible with MacOS and whatnot. All sorts of other non-sensical testimonials from the bottom of their hearts. Except very few specific NVMe, I'm afraid most cases were due to mechanical glitch among a combination of the NVMe, adaptor and the Apple socket developed over a period of time - depends how delicately a user handles the laptop on daily usage.

If all you get are kernel panics, consider yourselves lucky. Because it could cause data loss and/or induce some permanent damage in the NVMe where you may find it a nuisance later.

If I were the Chinese sellers, I would probably have spent more engineering effort on the mechanical design. In my opinion, it's total ignorance to release the short adaptor. Perhaps it's also helped by collective failure of the Internet in promoting short adaptors. It's simply too fragile mechanically. The long adaptor in theory is a better form factor and mechanically much more stable. Worth a consideration for people who are still jumping on this bandwagon.

Most if not all these MacBooks are officially on their last legs (either with Big Sur or Monterey). Any further investments of money or time in improvement are like dumping the effort into seas. While you still can, enjoy the next couple of years.

I used the long Syntech adapter on my 2015 13" Air first.. It makes the SSD itself get pressed very hard with the case bottom on. I can only imagine after long term use it would fail. So, I really had no choice but to go with the short Syntech adapter. I've had no issues.

 

[kvic]

I used the long Syntech adapter on my 2015 13" Air first.. It makes the SSD itself get pressed very hard with the case bottom on. I can only imagine after long term use it would fail. So, I really had no choice but to go with the short Syntech adapter. I've had no issues.

I've seen such a photo posted by a folk in this thread before..perhaps in the last 18 months. He bragged about no issue at all even though I could see the 'scary & obvious bent' from his photo. Apparently the long adaptor was not well designed by the Chinese sellers too. Only if they can trim one or two mm in a revised PCB.

However, for the brave souls with a long adaptor, you only have to do a little MOD yourselves to have a tight and mechanically stable fit with little bent

 

[splifingate]

I've seen such a photo posted by a folk in this thread before..perhaps in the last 18 months. He bragged about no issue at all even though I could see the 'scary & obvious bent' from his photo. Apparently the long adaptor was not well designed by the Chinese sellers too. Only if they can trim one or two mm in a revised PCB.

However, for the brave souls with a long adaptor, you only have to do a little MOD yourselves to have a tight and mechanically stable fit with little bent

Photo of my Sabrent/Syntech-long combo in my 2015 13" MBP (taken Aug 2019)...

...performant as new to this day...still reluctant to take a grinder to it <smile>