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

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First of all thanks to all for their collected experiences. Just want to share this (for the german users): Bought this adapter for my Early 2015 Macbook Pro 13" (Boot-Rom Version: MBP121.0175.B00) with High Sierra 10.13.4 and the Samsung 960 EVO was recognized out of the box in Disk Utility (booted in recovery mode). Reboot works without any problems so far. See the attached pictures for the increased speed compared to the apple ssd. Had also tried this one yesterday and it worked out of the box, too. But wasn't able to reboot.

I will edit this post in a few days with my experiences in terms of battery life and temperature.

PS: How can I test the hibernation and/or sleep mode?
 

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Huh, as far as I can tell, someone named 'Sylvester' cut and pasted Sintech's description of the ST-NGFF2013-C over the previous Amazon part number that the original reliable green adapter had. Amazon said I bought this before.

I notice they left out what is still the most important requirement- your desktop / laptop must be updated to High Sierra first!

Still, this makes it that much easier to buy, since it's presumably sitting in a stateside Amazon warehouse instead of one in China, backed by Amazon's guarantees. Thanks for letting us know!

Also good to hear that it works on the Trash Can Pro..if I ever get my hands on one, I know I can always go get a 2 TB SSD (sheesh they cost more than a 2015 rMBP at the moment) and shove it in.
 
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Hi Guys !
With High Sierra 10.13.4 slower booting then previous update ?
Is anyone have the same ?
I’ve just updated and booting up is slower.
 
Hmm now running 10.13.4 on my 2015 Macbook Pro (11,3) 4 lanes on my EVO 960 1TB

Boot is taking soooooo long + 45 secs and many KPs during boot.

Then after logging in, the computer might be stable - but also here I get a few KPs maybe one minute after logging in.

If the computer survives this - I then have a stable computer that can sleep and wake from sleep without KPs for many weeks.

So basically I do not reboot the computer anymore.

I am running the 3xxxxx firmware on the SSD

>> Sandrvoxon - strange that you are not seeing any KPs? Which firmware are you running in the SSD?

Is it a 960 EVO?

==========================

*** Panic Report ***

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f9dedaa3c): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x3

. FW Revision=3B7QCXE7\n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.30.6/IONVMeController.cpp:5275

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff920d623a10 : 0xffffff801a44f606

0xffffff920d623a60 : 0xffffff801a57c654

0xffffff920d623aa0 : 0xffffff801a56e149

0xffffff920d623b20 : 0xffffff801a401120

0xffffff920d623b40 : 0xffffff801a44f03c

0xffffff920d623c70 : 0xffffff801a44edbc

0xffffff920d623cd0 : 0xffffff7f9dedaa3c

0xffffff920d623e30 : 0xffffff801aa95ecc

0xffffff920d623ea0 : 0xffffff801aa95df6

0xffffff920d623ed0 : 0xffffff801a488ec4

0xffffff920d623f40 : 0xffffff801a4889b5

0xffffff920d623fa0 : 0xffffff801a4004f7

Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

com.apple.iokit.IONVMeFamily(2.1)[8C2350A2-A812-3B8C-8DE1-3A6911793417]@0xffffff7f9dec8000->0xffffff7f9df04fff

dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity(1.0.5)[498548AE-30A0-36C6-92F7-1714D01C0A98]@0xffffff7f9b425000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[8E6C654E-4A8F-3C6B-BBFE-BA8A68C9C146]@0xffffff7f9ac94000

dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM(2.1)[79C21A42-B04F-314F-BA88-F221F3D54094]@0xffffff7f9b2a3000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(2.1)[B0FCE898-1542-34C0-B845-46FAE81DD9E6]@0xffffff7f9ae46000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily(31)[D2F2FBDF-4EE4-38BA-99F5-B699F886F413]@0xffffff7f9b550000



BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
 
flemmingdjensen said:
Hmm now running 10.13.4 on my 2015 Macbook Pro (11,3) 4 lanes on my EVO 960 1TB

Boot is taking soooooo long + 45 secs and many KPs during boot.

Then after logging in, the computer might be stable - but also here I get a few KPs maybe one minute after logging in.

If the computer survives this - I then have a stable computer that can sleep and wake from sleep without KPs for many weeks.

So basically I do not reboot the computer anymore.

I am running the 3xxxxx firmware on the SSD

>> Sandrvoxon - strange that you are not seeing any KPs? Which firmware are you running in the SSD?

Is it a 960 EVO?

==========================

*** Panic Report ***

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f9dedaa3c): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x3

. FW Revision=3B7QCXE7\n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.30.6/IONVMeController.cpp:5275

Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address

0xffffff920d623a10 : 0xffffff801a44f606

0xffffff920d623a60 : 0xffffff801a57c654

0xffffff920d623aa0 : 0xffffff801a56e149

0xffffff920d623b20 : 0xffffff801a401120

0xffffff920d623b40 : 0xffffff801a44f03c

0xffffff920d623c70 : 0xffffff801a44edbc

0xffffff920d623cd0 : 0xffffff7f9dedaa3c

0xffffff920d623e30 : 0xffffff801aa95ecc

0xffffff920d623ea0 : 0xffffff801aa95df6

0xffffff920d623ed0 : 0xffffff801a488ec4

0xffffff920d623f40 : 0xffffff801a4889b5

0xffffff920d623fa0 : 0xffffff801a4004f7

Kernel Extensions in backtrace:

com.apple.iokit.IONVMeFamily(2.1)[8C2350A2-A812-3B8C-8DE1-3A6911793417]@0xffffff7f9dec8000->0xffffff7f9df04fff

dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleMobileFileIntegrity(1.0.5)[498548AE-30A0-36C6-92F7-1714D01C0A98]@0xffffff7f9b425000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[8E6C654E-4A8F-3C6B-BBFE-BA8A68C9C146]@0xffffff7f9ac94000

dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleEFINVRAM(2.1)[79C21A42-B04F-314F-BA88-F221F3D54094]@0xffffff7f9b2a3000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOStorageFamily(2.1)[B0FCE898-1542-34C0-B845-46FAE81DD9E6]@0xffffff7f9ae46000

dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOReportFamily(31)[D2F2FBDF-4EE4-38BA-99F5-B699F886F413]@0xffffff7f9b550000



BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task
Click to expand...


Hi ! I’m using 960 Evo 1tb. Long sintech green adapter. I don’t have any issues with reboot, sleep and panics, only boot takes more 3-5 sec. but speed of read and write same which was before ! 1400 & 1500
 
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@sandrvoxon - Do you have a URL for the long Sintech green adapter? Or don't they make them because all I see is the long black version.

I've been all over looking for the "best" NVMe (WD, HP, Sandisk, Samsung) but I think I'm going to just stick with Samsung since it seems to be what's most successful. That said, I wish there was more evidence to support getting a PM981 since they're newer and cheaper.

Thanks!
 
been looking in to the long boot time problem recently, I have 2 Macbook pro's a 2014 and a 2015, both I5 13.3".
The 2015 has an sm961 512GB installed in a long black Sintech adapter and this gives me r/w speeds of 1.5/1.4 Gb/s and apple logo appears almost immediately after the chime, takes 19seconds total to boot from off.

The 2014 however is very different, it has a pm951 256GB installed in a sintech black (short) adapter, this one takes approx 10 seconds from chime to apple logo appearing, it then boots quickly. r/w speeds are 1.35/0.3 Gb/s which is disappointing so far as write speed goes.

Between the two I have tried swapping the Sintech adapters and this made no difference to boot times. The one thing however that I have discovered is that the two drives are seen differently at power up. If I power up with the alt key pressed then they go in to select boot drive mode, the sm961 shows up as an internal drive where the pm951 shows up yellow as an external drive despite the fact that all show up as internal once the machines are booted. I have tried using apfs and HFS on both and this made no difference. It seems that if your drive shows yellow after alt/power startup then booting will be slow just as if you are booting from an external drive, but if it shows as a silver drive then booting will be normal.
I suspect that the drives which show as normal, ie the sm961 use the same controller chip as one of the apple drives and are seen by bootrom immediately whereas other controllers as in pm951 are seen as external 3rd party devices. Once booted and the Kext has taken over then all is ok and all are seen as internal.
 
Hi All,

Been checking out this thread for a while now as its a veritable goldmine of info.. I've been experimenting with my MacBook Pro 2014 and a 1 GB intel 600p with Sintech long black adapter, worked flawlessly and no problems with setup, only thing was the lack of hibernation/deep sleep kind of annoyed me.

I've seen a lot of posts where people said the 2015 models work flawlessly - so I traded in for a 2015 model and the hibernation still doesn't work.

If I close the lid, the Macbook just seems to go to sleep, if I open up the next day it's lost like 16% battery, while with normal hibernation this would be more like 3%. And if I let it run to 0% and die, when I switch it on it does a fresh boot, no Resume as with the Apple SSD.

Has anyone actually got functioning hibernation/suspend to disk working on a 2015 model?

Thanks a lot!
 
Yakobb said:
Hi All,

Been checking out this thread for a while now as its a veritable goldmine of info.. I've been experimenting with my MacBook Pro 2014 and a 1 GB intel 600p with Sintech long black adapter, worked flawlessly and no problems with setup, only thing was the lack of hibernation/deep sleep kind of annoyed me.

I've seen a lot of posts where people said the 2015 models work flawlessly - so I traded in for a 2015 model and the hibernation still doesn't work.

If I close the lid, the Macbook just seems to go to sleep, if I open up the next day it's lost like 16% battery, while with normal hibernation this would be more like 3%. And if I let it run to 0% and die, when I switch it on it does a fresh boot, no Resume as with the Apple SSD.

Has anyone actually got functioning hibernation/suspend to disk working on a 2015 model?

Thanks a lot!
Click to expand...
Mine works fine but I'm using a Samsung SM961. I suspect that the problem is not the macbook but the type of SSD or rather the SSD controller chip. The problem, I suspect is similar to the long boot time problem where the apple logo does not appear right after the chime but around 10-15 seconds later.
It is due to the firmware in the bios seeing some drives as third party and some as matching apple specs, the third party drives are then seen as external, hence the long boot time and failure to hibernate properly. The quickest way to check this is to boot holding the alt key, when the drive shows up, if it is yellow then its external, silver then its internal.
Once booted, the apple kext takes over and mounts it as internal allowing deep hibernation, but when it tries to recover, the bios is again in control and cannot find an internal drive.
 
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Hi guys, i've just purchased the Samsung 960 EVO (500GB) that was on Amazon for 198 euros.
I have a Macbook Pro Retina 15" late 2013, with what adapter i can connect this SSD at first shot?
I've read about the green small adapter , like this one on Aliexpress https://it.aliexpress.com/item/N-94...x4-SSD-for-2913-late-MacBook/32819641624.html , can be ok for my purpouse?
If yes, someone in Europe has one of this to sell without wait a month? :)
Thanks a lot in andvance!!
 
yesnoj said:
Hi guys, i've just purchased the Samsung 960 EVO (500GB) that was on Amazon for 198 euros.
I have a Macbook Pro Retina 15" late 2013, with what adapter i can connect this SSD at first shot?
I've read about the green small adapter , like this one on Aliexpress https://it.aliexpress.com/item/N-94...x4-SSD-for-2913-late-MacBook/32819641624.html , can be ok for my purpouse?
If yes, someone in Europe has one of this to sell without wait a month? :)
Thanks a lot in andvance!!
Click to expand...
those adapters did not work for me, sintech ones do work. your choice.
 
Hi everyone and thanks for your extensive research and special thanks to @gilles_polysoft
for all the work.

I am a indie filmmaker and just got my hands on a MacBook Pro retina mid 2014 that was about to go to ewaste.
It has no drive tho. The only affordable 1TB SSD i have found is the samsung PM 961.

From reading this thread it can work if I update the bootrom with MBP112.0142.B16

Some questions I have and would be grateful to get your help on:
- How can I find this version of the update? It's not on the Apple website (only has MBP112.0138.B16)
- Does this SSD require an adapter to fit into my computer?
- Does it work with Sierra or does it require High Sierra?
- Is there anything else I need to know?
- Are there other SSD's you recommend that are affordable for my MBP retina mid 2014? Particularly ones that do not require High Sierra (seems like High Sierra doesn't work well with the adobe creative cloud)
- If I try to understand the process I'm supposed to 1. Boot the computer with an OS. / 2. Update bootrom / BEFORE I install the new SSD. Is that right? Can that be done on a driveless computer?

Thanks for your help
 
45 pages of this one thread has been an interesting read, with useful advice and guidance, thanks! Anyhow I thought I'd add my experience in case it is of help.

MBP (11,1), Retina 13” Mid-2014, High Sierra 10.13.4, Boot rom: MBP111.0142.B00, Sintech long card (ST-NGFF2013-C), Samsung EVO 960.

Long story short, drive installed OK, works OK (4 channels, 1500MB/s read, 1417MB/s write) and system is stable, though with some issues.
#1 On startup 12-13 second boot delay before apple logo
#2 On option/startup shows SSD as an orange (ext) disk
#3 In OSX, issue with resume from long sleep
#4 In OSX, unable to connect to any 2.4ghz wifi network (luckily 5ghz works fine)
#5 In Apple Diagnostics ("D" at startup), suggests there is a power management system issue (PPN001)

Before I started I created a bootable MacOS Install USB drive, and a bootable Mint USB drive. I also backed up the stock SSD to an external USB HDD (booting from Mint, fdisk to copy the partition table and dd to copy the EFI and OS partitions to the HDD).

In my first attempt I copied the partition table, and partitions from the back-up HDD to the new SSD but noticed that boot time-to-apple-logo was 30-40 seconds. Though this got me up and running quickly, 30-40 sec delay was just too irritating so I tried again. I deleted the partitions and went for complete fresh install for a 12-13 second boot-time-to-apple-logo delay.

2.4ghz wifi networks can be seen in Mac OSX but couldn’t be joined. I see a message in wifi.log "<en0> Failed to associate to Wi-Fi network xxxx, returned error code -3905". I also see a CoreCapture every time I attempt to join a 2.4ghz network. No issues on 5ghz wifi. If I boot to the Mint USB drive, the network adaptor (and 960) is working fine and I can join both 2.4 and 5ghz networks. If I revert to the stock SSD, the network adaptor is also working fine. Clearing SMC and NVRAM made no noticeable difference. However I think this is specific to my MBP as I don't see anyone else reporting this.

Hardware Diagnostics suggests a power management system problem PPN001 when the 960 is installed, but not with the stock SSD. However, this doesn’t seem to cause any issues. Generally battery life seems reduced, but I haven't measured to confirm.

I'm going to persevere with the 960 for the moment, though the lack of 2.4ghz can be a pain. I'm not sure I would recommend a similar upgrade to anyone who doesn't enjoy a challenge.
 
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Jilly Bowman said:
been looking in to the long boot time problem recently, I have 2 Macbook pro's a 2014 and a 2015, both I5 13.3".
The 2015 has an sm961 512GB installed in a long black Sintech adapter and this gives me r/w speeds of 1.5/1.4 Gb/s and apple logo appears almost immediately after the chime, takes 19seconds total to boot from off.

The 2014 however is very different, it has a pm951 256GB installed in a sintech black (short) adapter, this one takes approx 10 seconds from chime to apple logo appearing, it then boots quickly. r/w speeds are 1.35/0.3 Gb/s which is disappointing so far as write speed goes.

Between the two I have tried swapping the Sintech adapters and this made no difference to boot times. The one thing however that I have discovered is that the two drives are seen differently at power up. If I power up with the alt key pressed then they go in to select boot drive mode, the sm961 shows up as an internal drive where the pm951 shows up yellow as an external drive despite the fact that all show up as internal once the machines are booted. I have tried using apfs and HFS on both and this made no difference. It seems that if your drive shows yellow after alt/power startup then booting will be slow just as if you are booting from an external drive, but if it shows as a silver drive then booting will be normal.
I suspect that the drives which show as normal, ie the sm961 use the same controller chip as one of the apple drives and are seen by bootrom immediately whereas other controllers as in pm951 are seen as external 3rd party devices. Once booted and the Kext has taken over then all is ok and all are seen as internal.
Click to expand...
Latest in the ongoing NVME saga.
I tried a few other things this morning with both 2015 and 2014 macbook pros.
2015 with bootrom MBP121.0175.B00 shows both sm961 and pm951 as internal drives during alt/power startup. boot time are normal. Sleep/hibernate works fine with both drives.
2014 with bootrom MBP111.0142.B00 shows both drives as external during alt/power startup. slow boot times. Sleep ok but hibernate does not find SSD on wakeup.
These were both tested with all variants of sintech adapters without any differences.

Dear Apple, can we have a bootrom update for 2014 MBP's please?
 
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Jilly Bowman said:
Latest in the ongoing NVME saga.
I tried a few other things this morning with both 2015 and 2014 macbook pros.
2015 with bootrom MBP121.0175.B00 shows both sm961 and pm951 as internal drives during alt/power startup. boot time are normal. Sleep/hibernate works fine with both drives.
2014 with bootrom MBP111.0142.B00 shows both drives as external during alt/power startup. slow boot times. Sleep ok but hibernate does not find SSD on wakeup.
These were both tested with all variants of sintech adapters without any differences.

Dear Apple, can we have a bootrom update for 2014 MBP's please?
Click to expand...
another update, just updated bootrom in 2014 MBP to MBP111.0145.B00 but no improvements unforunately.
 
@Jilly Bowman - Thanks for your reply. The strange thing is, my drive DOES show up as internal, its shows up in silver with alt-boot, and the apple logo shows up about 1-2 seconds after the chime. I have exactly the same behaviour on 15" and 13" 2015 MacBooks. Perhaps you are right and it is the controller chip on the intel 600p -

Anyone out there with the 600p got hibernation working on a 2015 model?
 
I've ordered a Toshiba XG3 512GB from ebay for my MBP Early 2015 but for some reason received a Samsung PM961.I know that the Toshiba is MLC and has less problems with Boot Camp while the Samsung is SLC. Speed wise they are similar. What do you guys think - should I keep the Samsung or get a refund?
 
I have been using rEFInd for 2 weeks or so, and it seems like there is no issues with slow booting, on a 2014MBPr13 with Intel 600p 256gb. Anyone else try this?
 
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