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

[mwidjaya]

Hi folks. Unfortunately the honeymoon did not last long. Everything worked fine, multiple restarts, external disks, graphics card, external monitor, rendering then ....... nothing - no start up disk. So booted from Mojave on external SSD. That works. System Information showing nothing under NVMExpress or SATA, Disk Utility also not showing the drive. Any ideas? Could it be an issue with the actual drive? Shall I open it up put it in again, or could there be a driver issue? Thanks for your advice.

Check that nvme stick seating again.

Also, you have done the kapton tape thingy, right? Insulation against contact when seated?

 

[rusavv]

I have an 11" Air Mid 2012 with Kinsgton NVMe drive installed successfully. It had a nice speed about of 800 mb/s.

A while ago I saw a guide video on iBoff RCC which is explained how to upgrade PCIe on 2012 Unibody MacBooks. The story is the Apple used PCIe 2.0 instead of 3.0 which is supported by Ivy Bridge. All you need is to change one byte in UEFI to switch PCIe to a newer version. I've tried and it works!

Read/write speed is almost doubled! It also shows that link speed is now 8 GT/s (was 5 before). Looks like a very nice upgrade for all MacBook Air 2011–2012 models with mixed SATA/PCIe connector. Hibernation and Power Nap also works fine.

 

[band visuals]

Check that nvme stick seating again.

Also, you have done the kapton tape thingy, right? Insulation against contact when seated?

View attachment 2299380

Thanks I'll try to reseat it. I'm using this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FYY3H5F?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details does it still need the tape?

 

[ItsHal]

Thanks I'll try to reseat it. I'm using this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FYY3H5F?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details does it still need the tape?

if its covered and cant see the pins your ok. Maybe check to make sure. Seems odd that it worked then spotted the OS would not see it at all if it din't work. Do as others said check the NvMe in A case or in other machine.

 

[mwidjaya]

Thanks I'll try to reseat it. I'm using this one - https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07FYY3H5F?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details does it still need the tape?

If using sintech adapter, supposedly it comes with black film to insulate already.

I am using a generic, so had the kapton tape on.

 

[ItsHal]

If using sintech adapter, supposedly it comes with black film to insulate already.

I am using a generic, so had the kapton tape on.

View attachment 2299744

View attachment 2299745

Only need to tape the pins behind the gold contacts.

 

[chiahungwang]

Share how to install bootcamp after upgrade SSD:

My environment：
Macbook Air 13 2013 Mid(MacbookAir6,2)
macOS Mojave 10.14(firmware 478.0.0.0)
Win10 22H2 & LTSC2019
Crucial P2 1TB SSD(QLC)

BootCamp installation issues:
1.MUST TO remove old bootcamp partition(on mac)
2.MUST TO format BOOTCAMP partition(on win)
3.EDIT regedit when error pop-up(#1685)
4.Install Windows Driver
5.Fixed Boot Camp tool not launch(permission issue)
6.Fixed unplug AC blue screen issue(power manager)

Final tips:
First mac shutdown wait few minutes after install windows

[Video Tutorial Chinese]

 

[textremet]

Macbook Air 2013 + new Intel 670p
I install Big Sur. TRIM enable automaticly.
When installing Windows 10 using BootCamp in the installer, after selecting the Windows installation language - my system does not see the SSD disk. No device, blank install disk selection menu. BootCamp in Big Sur shares the disk with no errors or problems. What should I do?

 

[chiahungwang]

Macbook Air 2013 + new Intel 670p
I install Big Sur. TRIM enable automaticly.
When installing Windows 10 using BootCamp in the installer, after selecting the Windows installation language - my system does not see the SSD disk. No device, blank install disk selection menu. BootCamp in Big Sur shares the disk with no errors or problems. What should I do?

I'm not sure, but some ideas:

1.Boot ROM is latest? (maybe 478.0.0.0)
2.SSD is GUID Partition Map? (Dist Utility > View > Show All Devices)
3.SSD is latest firmware?
4.Always plugin AC power?

ps: recommend remove bootcamp partition before reinstall windows

 

[textremet]

After dancing with tambourines, testing different images, downloading and installation methods. Googling.
The 670P has problems with detection, drivers or something like that. Windows installer can't see it. Or sees it but partially, without the right to write data to disk.
Everything is updated, tried everything, I know how to use a pc. Macbook Air 13 2013. Not recommended for purchase if you use bootcamp. In macOS detected everything perfectly.

It is possible to install via the Windows 11 bootloader, but bypassing the error with a reboot (faq). But I'm tired already...

 

[MacbookPro2015]

Just want to say THANK YOU to @kvic I used the SSDPMEnabler with a 2TB SK Hynik P31 Gold and it saved my battery with my early 2015 13" Macbook pro. Getting 6-7 hours of use now vs 2-3 from before. Amazing.

 

[MacbookPro2015]

Question - How does SSDPMEnabler actually work? My SSD performance per Blackmagic appears to be the same...yet my battery life in more than double. There has to be a trade off right?

 

[htcmda]

Just want to say THANK YOU to @kvic I used the SSDPMEnabler with a 2TB SK Hynik P31 Gold and it saved my battery with my early 2015 13" Macbook pro. Getting 6-7 hours of use now vs 2-3 from before. Amazing.

Which version of MacOS are you running on your 2015? I've been looking at either the P31 Gold 2TB or WD SN570 2TB. I haven't purchased either because I keep seeing the same response on both. They either work or they don't. lol

 

[MacbookPro2015]

Which version of MacOS are you running on your 2015? I've been looking at either the P31 Gold 2TB or WD SN570 2TB. I haven't purchased either because I keep seeing the same response on both. They either work or they don't. lol

Running monterey. I dont think I'll be moving onto OCLP until later 2024 when the last security patches finish. Hopefully battery issues with OCLP and NVMEs and Sonoma will be better by then

 

[danielristic]

Hi All,

I'm having my MBP (late 2013) and I finally want to upgrade the internal SSD with a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, sitting on a Sintech NVME adapter. Both were bought this week.

My MBP is running OSx Big Sur.

The change of the ssd happened without any problems and the Samsung 980 pro is also properly detected as an internal drive. Installing Big Sur on the new SSD also happened without any issue - even though it took some time.

Transferring my Time Machine Backup from an external USB (3.2) it took > 3h for 66GB with a transferring rate of 32-34 MB/s.

This slow speed was quite shocking and unexpected, so I installed the Samsung Magician software for figuring out whats going on. I had to realize, that I can't upgrade my firmware (this seems to work only on Windows but not on my Mac) - but apparently, the latest firmware is already running on my 980.

Could you please advise what could be the reason for this extremely low transferring rate and how to get to the expected rate of PCIe 2.0? I did expect something between 1.500 and 2.000 MB/s - 34 MB/s isn't bearable for me.

Thanks in advance,

I would sugest returning this drive and use another one instead. I've bought this exact same model to use on an Early MBP 2015 and while after setting everything up, speed tests would show fast speeds, during everyday use it would sometimes be as low as 50 mb/s and I also noticed a few odd things during setup: filevault would take days to finish initial encryption, safari tabs would sometimes freeze and boot times were terrible (> 8 mins), which turned out to be an AFPS trim issue with the drive.

Even if you're not facing issues as extreme as those since you're using an earlier Mac OS that might be more forgiving, I have now swapped it with a 2TB Crucial P5 Plus and while speed tests show slightly inferior results compared to the samsung drive, the system is fast and resposive and boots < 30 seconds.

 

[danielristic]

Hello,

I'm not sure how to add this to the first post but for anyone who looks to update their setup in 2023 I confirm that Samsung 980 pro and Crucial P3 (non Plus, haven't tried that one) also work great.

The P3 is faster than the P2 for no noticeably higher power draw, while the 980 pro is fast but heats up quite a bit (the reason I haven't kept it long enough to assess the power consumtion). I'm using SsdPmEnabler with Monterey's Boot Rom on an early 2015 macbook pro.

Still looking for the best combination of speed, power comsumption and reliability so I might try the P3 Plus and P5 Plus at some point but the general rule is that PCIe 4.0 models will have a larger power draw for no extra speed benefit as the macbook's controller can't handle it.

Just a quick update, gave the Samsung 980 pro another shot (the 2TB version this time) and while everything appeared to be working fine at first (no overheating so might have had a faulty one before) it turned out to have several very annoying other issues that I believe are inherent to this model: faulty AFPS trim that would lead to very slow (> 8 mintes) boot times, weirdly slow filevault encryption, random freezes, etc.) so Samsung 980 pro is a no go! (someone might want to add it to the list of non working models from the 1st post).

However I have now tried the 2TB Crucial P5 Plus and while the speed tests show slightly slower speeds compared to the Samsung everything else is much bette (relability, power consumption, etc.) so for anyone considering to make the switch in 2023 the Crucial P5 Plus works great!

 

[Skypalace]

I have a Sabrent Rocket 2TB in my Late 2013 MMP 11,3 with the Snitch Short adapter, currently running Big Sur and have System Firmware Version: 478.0.0.0.0, pmset settings below.

Sleep works occasionally, but if it's been a while since I slept, or close the lid, and go to restart, I don't have a dead batter, but the Mac has crashed and needs to do a full reboot, which takes a while esp as I have a FileVault boot volume.

I do not run any of the kernel extensions, nor a Matt card.

Two problems:
1) Sleep and Hibernate don't seem to work reliably
2) I get a Kernel panic error display after I do reboot.
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff800c2d2860): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x3 US[1]=0x0 US[0]=0x5a VID=0x1987 DID=0x5012
. FW Revision=ECFM12.2\n"@/System/Volumes/Data/SWE/macOS/BuildRoots/5f3ad454b9/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-557.120.1/Common/IONVMeController.cpp:5499


Questions:
1) Do I have any of the sleep settings wrong? I set these long ago, after installing the drive etc (which has been a few years, after following this thread religiously to ensure I had the steps correct).
2) With the updated bootrom, shouldn't I be able to successfully hibernate?

Sorry if this is old/obvious, I've spent a couple hours in this thread trying to get up to date on my issue but it's a long thread and things have changed, and lots of other topics...


System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 10800
standby 1
halfdim 1
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
gpuswitch 2
powernap 0
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 4 (sleep prevented by sharingd, nsurlsessiond, nsurlsessiond, AddressBookSourceSync)
autopoweroffdelay 28800
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 4
highstandbythreshold 50
acwake 0
lidwake 1

 

[ztoj]

Looking to get some advice on whether an upgraded SSD is worth it in my case.

Currently running Monterey v12.6.9 on a MBP 12,1 (Early 2015 13"). I would appreciate a minor speed bump increase but understand that it's capped to the supports of 4x lanes PCIe 2.0 speed. My current posted speeds are from running on a machine with 16gb ram + 256gb storage. I would appreciate extra storage, but I mainly use the device as a daily driver to code/edit photos, and thus is not a must-have as I don't run into storage issues. Would an upgrade warrant a speed difference that is "significant" enough?

Thanks all!

 

[natus.w]

Question - How does SSDPMEnabler actually work? My SSD performance per Blackmagic appears to be the same...yet my battery life in more than double. There has to be a trade off right?

It implements power saving measures for the physical board hardware.

GitHub - kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler

Contribute to kvic-z/SsdPmEnabler development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[natus.w]

Sleep works occasionally, but if it's been a while since I slept, or close the lid, and go to restart, I don't have a dead batter, but the Mac has crashed and needs to do a full reboot, which takes a while esp as I have a FileVault boot volume.

I do not run any of the kernel extensions, nor a Matt card.

Two problems:
1) Sleep and Hibernate don't seem to work reliably
2) I get a Kernel panic error display after I do reboot.
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff800c2d2860): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x3 US[1]=0x0 US[0]=0x5a VID=0x1987 DID=0x5012
. FW Revision=ECFM12.2\n"@/System/Volumes/Data/SWE/macOS/BuildRoots/5f3ad454b9/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-557.120.1/Common/IONVMeController.cpp:5499


Questions:
1) Do I have any of the sleep settings wrong? I set these long ago, after installing the drive etc (which has been a few years, after following this thread religiously to ensure I had the steps correct).
2) With the updated bootrom, shouldn't I be able to successfully hibernate?

Sorry if this is old/obvious, I've spent a couple hours in this thread trying to get up to date on my issue but it's a long thread and things have changed, and lots of other topics...


System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 10800
standby 1
halfdim 1
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
gpuswitch 2
powernap 0
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 4 (sleep prevented by sharingd, nsurlsessiond, nsurlsessiond, AddressBookSourceSync)
autopoweroffdelay 28800
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 4
highstandbythreshold 50
acwake 0
lidwake 1

You should have hibernatemode, autopoweroff and standby all set to
0 (set via terminal)

 

[Skypalace]

hibernate,

You should have hibernatemode, autopoweroff and standby all set to
0 (set via terminal)

Thanks! So what will be sleep/hibernate behavior be? Both System/Sleep and lid close.

I assume Sleep should work but only until battery dies (from RAM etc.), if not plugged in? So Sleep and full Shutdown are my two options?

 

[natus.w]

Thanks! So what will be sleep/hibernate behavior be? Both System/Sleep and lid close.

I assume Sleep should work but only until battery dies (from RAM etc.), if not plugged in? So Sleep and full Shutdown are my two options?

It should be back to default settings (however power will still remain active to memory so extra battery draw may be expected)

How to Sleep a Mac and Check Sleep Settings

Mac supports multiple methods of sleep. Some can extend battery life, while others can make entering and leaving sleep faster.

www.lifewire.com

Difference between autopoweroff and standby in pmset

I just got a new Retina MacBook Pro 15". After getting some downloads interrupted due to the computer going to sleep (even on AC power), I started looking at the man page for the pmset command...

apple.stackexchange.com

 

[flaubert]

About two years ago I upgraded a friend’s 2015 MacBook Air with a Sabrent NVME using the instructions from this thread. It’s been running fine, no problems. At the time I vaguely recall that some people warned that we should keep the old Apple SSD on hand for major upgrades. Is that still accepted wisdom? She is still running latest Big Sur, but I’d like to see her upgrade to Monterey for the security updates.

Do you think it is safe for her to do the upgrade to Monterey with the Sabrent NVME installed, or do we have to put the old original Apple SSD back into the machine, do the upgrade using that, and then somehow merge her user data with the new Monterey, putting the result back onto the Sabrent?

 

[macpro_mid2014]

About two years ago I upgraded a friend’s 2015 MacBook Air with a Sabrent NVME using the instructions from this thread. It’s been running fine, no problems. At the time I vaguely recall that some people warned that we should keep the old Apple SSD on hand for major upgrades. Is that still accepted wisdom? She is still running latest Big Sur, but I’d like to see her upgrade to Monterey for the security updates.

Do you think it is safe for her to do the upgrade to Monterey with the Sabrent NVME installed, or do we have to put the old original Apple SSD back into the machine, do the upgrade using that, and then somehow merge her user data with the new Monterey, putting the result back onto the Sabrent?

The MBA should be running with the latest firmware and therefore, does not require the original SSD to install any new firmware updates. BUT...

Before getting rid of the original SSD, I would run SilentKnight by Dr. Oakley to make sure the firmware is up to date. If it is, it is safe to get rid of the old SSD.

I'd say that it is safe to update to Sonoma 14.1 + OCLP 1.1.0. Unless your friend uses any specific application that is troublesome with the combination of Sonoma + OCLP.

Before installing Monterey, do a Time Machine backup. Monterey is the last MacOS compatible with the MBA 2015, therefore, you should have no issues doing an Over the Air update (by using Check for Updates in Big Sur).

 

[flaubert]

The MBA should be running with the latest firmware and therefore, does not require the original SSD to install any new firmware updates. BUT...

Before getting rid of the original SSD, I would run SilentKnight by Dr. Oakley to make sure the firmware is up to date. If it is, it is safe to get rid of the old SSD.

I'd say that it is safe to update to Sonoma 14.1 + OCLP 1.1.0. Unless your friend uses any specific application that is troublesome with the combination of Sonoma + OCLP.

Before installing Monterey, do a Time Machine backup. Monterey is the last MacOS compatible with the MBA 2015, therefore, you should have no issues doing an Over the Air update (by using Check for Updates in Big Sur).

Thanks, that all makes perfect sense. I will proceed accordingly.