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

[otosan]

Hello everyone.

I am trying to upgrade the internal drive of a late 2013 Mac Pro (6.1). I have purchased a Western Digital Green 2TB (SN350) and an adapter from Sintech.
These are the data of my hardware:
Intel Xeon E5 12 cores
64Gb RAM
AMD Firepro D300 GPU
System firmware version: 430.140.2.0.0
OS Loader Version: 540.120.3~19
SMC version (system): 2.20f18
Mac OS Monterey 12.5.1 (21G83)

These are the steps I followed:

1. I have installed Monterey on an external USB drive
2. I have rebooted and replaced the original Apple SSD 256Gb with the WD Green + Sintech adapter
3. I have booted Monterey from the USB external drive.
4. The Mac Pro recognized the WD Green 2TB Drive in Disk Utility, I formatted it with Mac Os Extended (Journaled) mode.
5. I then rebooted to start the Monterey clean install from a USB stick, but the WD Green drive did not show up in Disk Utility. Had disappeared!
6. I rebooted again from the USB external drive to enter Disk Utility, but the WD Green 2TB drive did not appear.
7. I installed the WD drive. Green on a windows PC to check that the WD Green 2TB drive is working, and the drive is working properly.
8. I tried repeating the process using Mac OS MOjave, but the disk still doesn't show up in Disk Utility.
9. I have tried from Terminal with the command "diskutil list" and "diskutil list internal" and it does not detect it.

What can I do to get my Mac Pro to recognize the WD Green drive and continue with the installation?

Thank you very much for your help.

You did nothing wrong in your step, except that probably SN350 itself is the problem here.

Try to check for firmware update from Windows PC first. If you got an update. Try to update. If there's none of it, try it this way :

1. Install your Monterey OS (not installer) to the external USB drive
2. Boot from that external
3. Open Disk Utility, and if you now can see the SN350, format it to APFS with a GUID Scheme
4. Download Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper app
5. Use the app to Clone the OS from the external usb drive to the SN350
6. After the clone process completed, open Startup Disk option in System Preferences, choose the SN350 (internal disk) and hit restart.
7. If you able.to restart and boot to system, that's it. Use it that way.

in a case where the ssd itself has compatibility problem (some SSD firmware can't handle the three layer "partition-container-subsystem directory" used in BigSur & Monterey) , you might fail altogether in step. 5

Honestly, last WD drive i might ever recommend is SN550 (with firmware upgrade). The newer one tend to have quirk here and there, which would be hard to ironed out if you don't have second computer to trouble shoot. (Luckily i see that you got windows PC there)

 

[Cuadrados]

Hi Otosan.
Thank you for your help

I've made good progress with the advice you've given me, although it's not 100% fixed yet.
I leave you a summary of the steps I have done.

1. I installed Windows 10 on WD-Green SN350 drive on Windows PC to check if it works fine. Windows had installed correctly and I did a speed test with CrystalDiskMark and the results were: Read 3267mb/s and Write 2800mb/s. I think they are good results for this NVME.
1B.) I installed a diagnostic program that I downloaded from the Western Digital website to check the firmware. It is correct and WD Green has the latest firmware version available.

2. I reinstalled Monterey on the USB external drive.
3. I installed the WD Green SN350 drive + Sintech adapter in the Mac Pro 2013.
4. I booted from the USB external drive with Monterey. The WD Green drive did not appear in the list of drives in Mac OS Disk Utility.
5. I installed a trial version of Paragon Hard Disk Manager for mac program.
6. After installation was complete and Monterey booted from the external USB drive, the WD Green SN350 internal drive appeared in the list of drives in Mac OS Disk Utility!
7. I formatted the WD Green SN350 drive with Disk Utility in APFS format with GUID Scheme.
8. Then I did a full clone of the USB external drive with Monterey on the WD Green SN350 drive with SuperDuper app. When the clone finished, in system preferences I chose the WD Green SN350 internal drive as the startup drive on the next reboot.
9. I restarted the computer and it booted from the WD Green SN350 internal drive. I did a speed test with the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test program and it gave Write results of 1168MB/sec and Read 1378MB/sec, which I think is normal on the 2013 Mac Pro, although it is much worse than on the Windows PC.
10. I did some checks and rebooted the computer and it successfully boots to the WDGreen SN350 drive.
11. I shut down the computer completely and unplugged it from power. Then I turned it back on and the Mac Pro doesn't detect the WD GReen drive, and since no other drive is currently available, the computer won't boot! I want to die!
12. I reconnect the external USB drive with Monterey and run the Paragon Hard Disk Manager program again, and on reboot it detects the WDGreen SN350 internal drive again.

My conclusion after all this is that the WDGreen drive works fine if you do NOT turn off the computer completely. If you turn off your 2013 Mac Pro completely, when you turn it back on, it doesn't detect the WD Green SN350 internal drive, and you need to reconnect the external USB drive with Monterey and redetect it using the Paragon Hard Disk Manager tool.

This is a big problem, since then you would never be able to turn off the computer and this is not feasible.

Is there any way that I can turn off my computer without losing the drive when I turn it back on?

If there are no other solutions or alternatives, the only thing I can do is to install this WDGreen SN350 drive on the Windows PC, and remove the NVME drive I have now on the Windows PC, which is a 500GB WDBlack SN750, and try to install it on the Mac Pro 2013 with the Sintech adapter, and check if this drive has better compatibility with the Mac Pro 2013.

Thank you very much for your help, Otosan

 

[otosan]

Hi Otosan.
Thank you for your help

I've made good progress with the advice you've given me, although it's not 100% fixed yet.
I leave you a summary of the steps I have done.

1. I installed Windows 10 on WD-Green SN350 drive on Windows PC to check if it works fine. Windows had installed correctly and I did a speed test with CrystalDiskMark and the results were: Read 3267mb/s and Write 2800mb/s. I think they are good results for this NVME.
1B.) I installed a diagnostic program that I downloaded from the Western Digital website to check the firmware. It is correct and WD Green has the latest firmware version available.

2. I reinstalled Monterey on the USB external drive.
3. I installed the WD Green SN350 drive + Sintech adapter in the Mac Pro 2013.
4. I booted from the USB external drive with Monterey. The WD Green drive did not appear in the list of drives in Mac OS Disk Utility.
5. I installed a trial version of Paragon Hard Disk Manager for mac program.
6. After installation was complete and Monterey booted from the external USB drive, the WD Green SN350 internal drive appeared in the list of drives in Mac OS Disk Utility!
7. I formatted the WD Green SN350 drive with Disk Utility in APFS format with GUID Scheme.
8. Then I did a full clone of the USB external drive with Monterey on the WD Green SN350 drive with SuperDuper app. When the clone finished, in system preferences I chose the WD Green SN350 internal drive as the startup drive on the next reboot.
9. I restarted the computer and it booted from the WD Green SN350 internal drive. I did a speed test with the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test program and it gave Write results of 1168MB/sec and Read 1378MB/sec, which I think is normal on the 2013 Mac Pro, although it is much worse than on the Windows PC.
10. I did some checks and rebooted the computer and it successfully boots to the WDGreen SN350 drive.
11. I shut down the computer completely and unplugged it from power. Then I turned it back on and the Mac Pro doesn't detect the WD GReen drive, and since no other drive is currently available, the computer won't boot! I want to die!
12. I reconnect the external USB drive with Monterey and run the Paragon Hard Disk Manager program again, and on reboot it detects the WDGreen SN350 internal drive again.

My conclusion after all this is that the WDGreen drive works fine if you do NOT turn off the computer completely. If you turn off your 2013 Mac Pro completely, when you turn it back on, it doesn't detect the WD Green SN350 internal drive, and you need to reconnect the external USB drive with Monterey and redetect it using the Paragon Hard Disk Manager tool.

This is a big problem, since then you would never be able to turn off the computer and this is not feasible.

Is there any way that I can turn off my computer without losing the drive when I turn it back on?

If there are no other solutions or alternatives, the only thing I can do is to install this WDGreen SN350 drive on the Windows PC, and remove the NVME drive I have now on the Windows PC, which is a 500GB WDBlack SN750, and try to install it on the Mac Pro 2013 with the Sintech adapter, and check if this drive has better compatibility with the Mac Pro 2013.

Thank you very much for your help, Otosan

Good to hear that at least you managed to boot into it by using cloning method.

What happen if you press and hold the "Option" key during boot ? Does it show the drive in the boot selector ? If yes. Then one of the workaround is that you need to do that on every first boot.

Other option is, install OpenCore to it, and use it as bootloader.

 

[Cuadrados]

Good to hear that at least you managed to boot into it by using cloning method.

What happen if you press and hold the "Option" key during boot ? Does it show the drive in the boot selector ? If yes. Then one of the workaround is that you need to do that on every first boot.

Other option is, install OpenCore to it, and use it as bootloader.

Hello Otosan
When I press the "option" key at boot, the disk does not show up as a boot option.

If I only reboot the computer, the reboot process is normal, like original Apple ssd drive. But if I shut down the computer completely, it no longer detects the WD Green internal drive.

I'll try to install the Opencore program and see if that works normally. I've never used it. Do you know if there is any guide or video on Youtube explaining the settings I would need to set?

If this doesn't work, I'll try with the WDBlack SN750 drive.
Do you know if the Western Digital Black SN750 drive is compatible with the 2013 Mac Pro?

Thank you very much

 

[otosan]

Hello Otosan
When I press the "option" key at boot, the disk does not show up as a boot option.

If I only reboot the computer, the reboot process is normal, like original Apple ssd drive. But if I shut down the computer completely, it no longer detects the WD Green internal drive.

I'll try to install the Opencore program and see if that works normally. I've never used it. Do you know if there is any guide or video on Youtube explaining the settings I would need to set?

If this doesn't work, I'll try with the WDBlack SN750 drive.
Do you know if the Western Digital Black SN750 drive is compatible with the 2013 Mac Pro?

Thank you very much

Follow the guide on how to install OpenCore Legacy Patcher from it's site

this guide bellow is to enable Universal Control on unsupported models : https://dortania.github.io/OpenCore-Legacy-Patcher/UNIVERSALCONTROL.html#enabling-universal-control , since you gonna use the OpenCore anyway, you might want to do it as well

basically what you want to do is pick your model from the app menu, build the OpenCore and install it to your disk. So you gonna need to do this when your mac is able to detect the drive and boot from it.

 

[alexanderdi]

Nevermind, resolved issue.

 

[Grubster]

The excitement is because apple would charge you $400-500 bucks during that time to get 1TB of drive. While you can get it less than 100 by using NVME.

The key is only choosing the right SSD, and it will give you near 0 problem

but even with the caveat from wrong ssd, it still worth the 200-300 bucks saving for most of users, lol

Makes sense! SSD is a lot cheaper now. Turns out I believe the problem was my adapter. I repurposed the 512 nvme in an external housing and plugged it into my 2015 iMac. It’s running great and much faster boot times than the fusion drive, and NO sleep issues. I would think if the drive was the problem, my iMac would have issues too so I blame that cheap adapter. Anyhow, I’m happy I went this route as the laptop is now running stock and my iMac got a boost of life.

 

[otosan]

Makes sense! SSD is a lot cheaper now. Turns out I believe the problem was my adapter. I repurposed the 512 nvme in an external housing and plugged it into my 2015 iMac. It’s running great and much faster boot times than the fusion drive, and NO sleep issues. I would think if the drive was the problem, my iMac would have issues too so I blame that cheap adapter. Anyhow, I’m happy I went this route as the laptop is now running stock and my iMac got a boost of life.

External housing is different story, it run through USB protocol, not the PCI lane on the board itself. It will always work great. The issue is when you set it up as internal drive.

And just to make it clear, the drive/ssd itself is fine as it is, the problem is when you use it as an internal drive with macOS using and NVME adapter. Not every ssd controller play nice with the OS and bootrom. Why it work great through external housing ? because the housing itself has another controller on it (PCI to USB bridge). It will work just fine if you plug it into windows PC as well btw

 

[Bahrie144]

Hello everbody, i wanna ask something about upgrade ssd on MBP.
i have MBP 13 inch mid 2014 and i want upgrade ssd from 128 to 512, i use SSD NVME M.2 TEAMGROUP MP33 512GB and NVME Adapter. But i have problem cause my ssd not detect on utility disk. so whats wrong? SSD NVME M.2 TEAMGROUP MP33 512GB or NVME Adapter? thank a lot for your answer

 

[Grubster]

External housing is different story, it run through USB protocol, not the PCI lane on the board itself. It will always work great. The issue is when you set it up as internal drive.

And just to make it clear, the drive/ssd itself is fine as it is, the problem is when you use it as an internal drive with macOS using and NVME adapter. Not every ssd controller play nice with the OS and bootrom. Why it work great through external housing ? because the housing itself has another controller on it (PCI to USB bridge). It will work just fine if you plug it into windows PC as well btw

Great, thanks for the explanation! I'm liking it so much as a Proof Of Concept, I'm going to order a larger drive. Any recommendation on brand, or from what you are saying, any will work since I'm going through USB.

 

[otosan]

Great, thanks for the explanation! I'm liking it so much as a Proof Of Concept, I'm going to order a larger drive. Any recommendation on brand, or from what you are saying, any will work since I'm going through USB.

99.99% will work just fine with the USB enclosure, bar compatibility issue between it's controller/firmware, (example : my SX6000 ssd with silicon motion controller, can't be detected when i plug it to an enclosure with RTL9210 controller, but do just fine with JMS583 and ASM2362 enclosure - different enclosure has different controller, but those 3 are the most common found in market)

another issue is when the ssd controller/firmware can't handle apple subsystem partition layout used in BigSur & Monterey. Example is on Kioxia OEM BG4 2242 SSD, it will always failed when you try to put BigSur/Monterey into it, but will do just fine with Catalina & older version (because it has less layer or partition layout) - if anything, it's due to apple who choose to overcomplicate their partition system.

aside that, it will work just fine.

 

[otosan]

Hello everbody, i wanna ask something about upgrade ssd on MBP.
i have MBP 13 inch mid 2014 and i want upgrade ssd from 128 to 512, i use SSD NVME M.2 TEAMGROUP MP33 512GB and NVME Adapter. But i have problem cause my ssd not detect on utility disk. so whats wrong? SSD NVME M.2 TEAMGROUP MP33 512GB or NVME Adapter? thank a lot for your answer

You need to use disk utility from High Sierra or higher version of installer. And you need to ensure your macbook already on firmware version that support NVME drive.

 

[LioriK]

Hi Guys
I need your help please, i just received my new gold P31 NVMe drive (i replaced the samsung pro 980) but when i tried to installed on it MOjave an error happening even before its loading the installation process.
Attached is the error i'm receiving.
The drive was formated as ASPE, but still cannot install on it any MAC OSx ver.
Any clue what could be the reason?
I'm using MBP mid 2015 with sintech adapter.

 

[arunix]

Hi Guys
I need your help please, i just received my new gold P31 NVMe drive (i replaced the samsung pro 980) but when i tried to installed on it MOjave an error happening even before its loading the installation process.
Attached is the error i'm receiving.
The drive was formated as ASPE, but still cannot install on it any MAC OSx ver.
Any clue what could be the reason?
I'm using MBP mid 2015 with sintech adapter.

Is your p31 2TB? If not then you need to upgrade the firmware on the NVME. While the P31 is one of the best NVME, it won’t work until you update the firmware (excluding the 2TB cuz it already has the latest firmware from the factory)

Does your original Apple ssd have Mojave? I would recommend you upgrade to Monterey if possible (you need the original Apple SSD to do any OS upgrades) You can’t put a new OS on the P31 than what your original Apple SSD had.

 

[LioriK]

I have P31 1TB, so I'm currently preparing windows to go with the bootcamp drivers, hopefully then i'll be able to upgrade the firmware.
My original ssd is with Monterey, can i install on the P31 the Monterey without doing any OS upgrade? or do i need to have Mojave first?

 

[0134168]

I have P31 1TB, so I'm currently preparing windows to go with the bootcamp drivers, hopefully then i'll be able to upgrade the firmware.
My original ssd is with Monterey, can i install on the P31 the Monterey without doing any OS upgrade? or do i need to have Mojave first?

First: What firmware do you have?

 

[arunix]

I have P31 1TB, so I'm currently preparing windows to go with the bootcamp drivers, hopefully then i'll be able to upgrade the firmware.
My original ssd is with Monterey, can i install on the P31 the Monterey without doing any OS upgrade? or do i need to have Mojave first?

Since your apple ssd is Monterey, you can put Monterey on the P31. You can check if you have the latest bootrom by looking at your System Firmware Version

 

[Honjiida]

Discount on SK Hynix P31 Gold on Amazon US:

SK hynix Gold P31 1TB PCIe NVMe Gen3 M.2 2280 Internal SSD, Up to 3500MB/S, Compact M.2 SSD Form Factor SSD, Internal Solid State Drive with 128-Layer NAND Flash

Experience the breakthrough upgrade from a global tech pioneer. SK hynix Gold P31 delivers the world’s first 128-layer NAND, fastest-in-class speed, easy data migration, and 5-year warranty. The latest innovation from the world’s second-largest memory maker, Gold P31 is designed to provide striki...

www.amazon.com

 

[Tbourne220]

I have a mid-2014 15" MacBook Pro (MacBookPro11,3) running Big Sur 11.6.3. I'm looking to upgrade to a 1 TB SSD. I purchased the Sintech long adapter card and the SK Hynix P31 1TB drive. I have a PC that I was able to mount the P31 drive to and update the firmware.

However, when I boot from internet recovery on my mac to format it the P31 drive isn't visible. I've tried reseating the drive a few times and that hasn't resolved the problem.

Am I doing something wrong? I noticed a few people were using a bootable drive to install OS X on the new drives. Can you use the internet recovery method to format a new drive? I know I've done it in the past on other Macs but maybe there's an issue doing that with the NVME upgrade.

Thanks in advance for any help.

I’m having the same issue.
Were you able to figure this out?
Thanks

 

[arunix]

I’m having the same issue.
Were you able to figure this out?
Thanks

Maybe you need to upgrade to Monterey on your original Apple SSD. Maybe your laptop needs the latest bootrom which would also be updated when you upgrade to Monterey. If you can’t upgrade to Monterey then check if it’s on the latest bootrom.

I upgraded my MacBook air to Monterey before I replaced the apple ssd with a p31 and i was able to boot to internet recovery and format my p31 no problem.

Also i used Option-Command-R to boot to the internet recovery.

 

[LioriK]

I’m having the same issue.
Were you able to figure this out?
Thanks

still no, unfortunately,
I'm trying 2 days already to create windows 2 go but it doesn't work on MBP, i'm really lost....
What other options I have in order to upgrade to the latest ver of P31?
Every time when trying to boot with the win2go i'm getting this error...what is wrong??

 

[Adiif1]

Hi, all i have 2015 15 + PNY CS3030 500GB SSD

but maybe there is something better now?

What is recommended now?
p31 gold is not available in my country ...
kingston a2000 is no longer produced
crucial p2 memory uncertainty

 

[Tbourne220]

Maybe you need to upgrade to Monterey on your original Apple SSD. Maybe your laptop needs the latest bootrom which would also be updated when you upgrade to Monterey. If you can’t upgrade to Monterey then check if it’s on the latest bootrom.

I upgraded my MacBook air to Monterey before I replaced the apple ssd with a p31 and i was able to boot to internet recovery and format my p31 no problem.

Also i used Option-Command-R to boot to the internet recovery.

Thanks for the help.

I got it to boot to Internet recovery and I can see the p31 in the disk utility. When choosing to install the latest Big Sur (mid-2014) the p31 drive doesn’t show up as an option. Do I need to format at this point before I can proceed to install the latest OS?

If I do need to format, can you share what format?
Or can you direct me to a thread that can walk me through this?

Thanks

 

[LioriK]

Since your apple ssd is Monterey, you can put Monterey on the P31. You can check if you have the latest bootrom by looking at your System Firmware Version

I tried to do so, but it still fail to load when I’m replacing the ssd,
I’m really lost, any steps I need to take care before? Seems my win2 go is not able to load as well…

 

[otosan]

Thanks for the help.

I got it to boot to Internet recovery and I can see the p31 in the disk utility. When choosing to install the latest Big Sur (mid-2014) the p31 drive doesn’t show up as an option. Do I need to format at this point before I can proceed to install the latest OS?

If I do need to format, can you share what format?
Or can you direct me to a thread that can walk me through this?

Thanks

It need to be formatted through Disk Utility before it can be used for installation.

Format : APFS
Scheme : GUID