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

[gilles_polysoft]

Thank you, that is a significant increase in performance. I have read that it requires an adapter to install this drive, what adapter did you use?

Thank you again.

Hello,
I used both "Sintech" and "Chenyang" adapters.
I bought mostly "sintech" because they have lots in stock and they're cheaper.
In my tests I can't see any difference between both adapters.
What made a difference was, again, to put kapton tape at the back of the adapter so that the signal isn't too close to the shield of the Apple MLB 12+16 connector (either this would produce a short circuit or unwanted capacitance).

Here is a photo of both adapters...
I just noticed the "chenyand" has a solder join between two pins, this seems to be normal... I checked with a multimeter between the same pins on the "Sintech" adapter and they are also connected (0.20 ohms between 2 pins).

 

[TokMok3]

Hello,
I used both "Sintech" and "Chenyang" adapters.
I bought mostly "sintech" because they have lots in stock and they're cheaper.
In my tests I can't see any difference between both adapters.
What made a difference was, again, to put kapton tape at the back of the adapter so that the signal isn't too close to the shield of the Apple MLB 12+16 connector (either this would produce a short circuit or unwanted capacitance).

Here is a photo of both adapters...
I just noticed the "chenyand" has a solder join between two pins, this seems to be normal... I checked with a multimeter between the same pins on the "Sintech" adapter and they are also connected (0.20 ohms between 2 pins).

Thank you for the information and the advise.

 

[gilles_polysoft]

Excuse me, but I wonder why you say that high sierra is still in beta. It sounds to me like if the final release could stop supporting the nvme drives. Could that happen?

Thank you.

Hello,
Just a little update here : the final High Sierra was released this evening and it doesn't change anything to the recognition of NVMe drives.

Here is a brand new MBA 2017 with a 960 Evo, with 10.13 (17a965).

See below the comparaison of SMART attributes between a 960 Evo and an original Apple-branded NVMe SM2024L.

 

[Someitguy]

I have MacBook Air 2015 and samsung 960 evo. I have been having the Mac lose the ssd when it sleeps.

It’s a crash with nvme driver it’s macos 10.13. Cablecc adapter. Not sure what is going on. Has anyone ran into this?

 

[Wythe]

Hello,
I used both "Sintech" and "Chenyang" adapters.
I bought mostly "sintech" because they have lots in stock and they're cheaper.
In my tests I can't see any difference between both adapters.
What made a difference was, again, to put kapton tape at the back of the adapter so that the signal isn't too close to the shield of the Apple MLB 12+16 connector (either this would produce a short circuit or unwanted capacitance).

Here is a photo of both adapters...
I just noticed the "chenyand" has a solder join between two pins, this seems to be normal... I checked with a multimeter between the same pins on the "Sintech" adapter and they are also connected (0.20 ohms between 2 pins).

Hi G

Hello,
Just a little update here : the final High Sierra was released this evening and it doesn't change anything to the recognition of NVMe drives.

Here is a brand new MBA 2017 with a 960 Evo, with 10.13 (17a965).

See below the comparaison of SMART attributes between a 960 Evo and an original Apple-branded NVMe SM2024L.

Hello,
Just a little update here : the final High Sierra was released this evening and it doesn't change anything to the recognition of NVMe drives.

Here is a brand new MBA 2017 with a 960 Evo, with 10.13 (17a965).

See below the comparaison of SMART attributes between a 960 Evo and an original Apple-branded NVMe SM2024L.

Hi Gilles,

Thanks a lot for your sharing, that’s so helpful!

May I ask if you have got a chance to try Kingston KC1000 960GB on MacBook Pro retina 2014? The reason I ask is because that’s the only one I can easily find here nearby me with decent speed, Samsung EVO is never officially imported in my territory.

Many thanks for your response in advance!

Best,
Wythe

 

[maenpaa24]

Hello,
you're absolutely right, I've updated the table, see it attached


Hello,
The 960 Evo can't be, to my knowledge, formatted with 4K blocs, which are mandatory to boot Sierra.
So you can't boot Sierra (10.12.6) natively on a 960 Evo, but you can boot High Sierra (10.13) which was just released.

Mmm, I have found here

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/4kn-compatability.2497454/

that the samsung 960 evo has 512b logical sectors but 4096b physical sectors. So maybe it can be reformated to have both physical and logical sectors of 4096b size. Could you try the same that you did with your WD black. I would be really grateful.

Thank you for your good job.

 

[gilles_polysoft]

I have MacBook Air 2015 and samsung 960 evo. I have been having the Mac lose the ssd when it sleeps.

It’s a crash with nvme driver it’s macos 10.13. Cablecc adapter. Not sure what is going on. Has anyone ran into this?

Hello,
I did have such behavior, 2-3 years ago, with a Sintech adapter and AHCI Lite-On SSD on a MacBook Pro retina.
The Sintech Adapter and the SSD were supplied to me being taped together as in the photo below of the Mac Pro.
If I removed the tape, I got the behavior you have : I sometimes loosed the connection to the SSD, especially during sleep (and displacement of the MBP).

I found that this may have occur because of a loosy connection between the logic board and Sintech adapter.
The solution was simply to either tape the SSD to the adapter, or better, to put a little 3mm-thick rubber below the adapter.
That had worked and I now always install SSD like that now, and never had any disconnection...


Please try to do the same, and tell me if it had solve your lose of SSD during sleep problem.

 

[Someitguy]

I have MacBook Air 2015 and samsung 960 evo. I have been having the Mac lose the ssd when it sleeps.

It’s a crash with nvme driver it’s macos 10.13. Cablecc adapter. Not sure what is going on. Has anyone ran into this?

Hello,
I did have such behavior, 2-3 years ago, with a Sintech adapter and AHCI Lite-On SSD on a MacBook Pro retina.
The Sintech Adapter and the SSD were supplied to me being taped together as in the photo below of the Mac Pro.
If I removed the tape, I got the behavior you have : I sometimes loosed the connection to the SSD, especially during sleep (and displacement of the MBP).

I found that this may have occur because of a loosy connection between the logic board and Sintech adapter.
The solution was simply to either tape the SSD to the adapter, or better, to put a little 3mm-thick rubber below the adapter.
That had worked and I now always install SSD like that now, and never had any disconnection...


Please try to do the same, and tell me if it had solve your lose of SSD during sleep problem.

Hmmm... unfortunately the suggestions didn’t work. I bought the $10 adapter on Amazon I am wondering if my adapter is junk. What models do you suggest?

Thanks.

 

[maenpaa24]

Part of the situation appears to be 4KB vs 512B block formatting.

There are still unresolved concerns regarding the interaction between the SSD firmware (or firmware variant) and the model/year and EFI firmware of the MacBook. And also whether at least some TLC devices pose some additional compatibility issue.

It is my understanding, from perusing the hackintosh forums, that Hynix/Lite-On/Plextor and Intel devices may require the IONVMeFamily.kext to be patched via a hex editor, due to an Advanced detect feature for default block formatting size peculiar to devices from these manufacturers, even on High Sierra.

However, it may also be the case that your Intel 600p is incompatible due to firmware and/or TLC-NAND related issues, as well.

It's becoming clear at this moment that the number of compatible SSDs is a relatively limited class, and the bootrom and kext updates inherent to High Sierra (which merely allow the machine to recognize 512B block format SSD's by the hardware at initialization, and by the OS natively, and also recognize APFS partitions at boot/in the OS, as well), will not greatly expand the list of compatible drives.

I'd be curious to know whether re-formatting these devices with 4k block sectors from a PC m.2 AHCI/NVMe-compatible motherboard in Linux (where, presumably, they would be recognized) might alleviate some of these symptoms. Of course, not all of these devices permit 4k block formatting, but I believe all the ones under discussion at this stage of the thread do.

Could you make a list of the nvme drives supported by these macbooks and mac machines suppport 4k block formating? I would be really grateful. Because it is not clear for me which are the drives under discussion that do support 4k block formatting.

 

[imprimis1]

Hmmm... unfortunately the suggestions didn’t work. I bought the $10 adapter on Amazon I am wondering if my adapter is junk. What models do you suggest?

Thanks.

It's most likely SSD revision/firmware-related, rather than the adapter. You can partially alleviate it with the following at the Terminal prompt:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25


Which will force the machine to hibernate (write the contents of the RAM to the SSD, then fully power off, in lieu of sleep). After a period of inactivity after selecting "Sleep" from the Apple Menu, or closing the lid, you will have to press the Power Button to engage the machine again.

With this hibernation setting in effect, it will take longer (20-30+ seconds), naturally, for the machine to resume where you left off, versus waking from sleep, but is the only simple way to consistently 'sleep' and 'wake' the machine without freezing/crashing. It is not foolproof, but it works about 95%+ of the time.

It appears that the SSD does not initialize quickly enough from sleep state for the logic and/or OS to acknowledge that it is still present, leading to the crash conditions you are encountering. This could possibly be alleviated with ACPI table changes in some future experiment.

 

[gilles_polysoft]

Mmm, I have found here

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/4kn-compatability.2497454/

that the samsung 960 evo has 512b logical sectors but 4096b physical sectors. So maybe it can be reformated to have both physical and logical sectors of 4096b size. Could you try the same that you did with your WD black. I would be really grateful.

I tried under linux with nvme-cli commands but Samsung 960 Evo (neither Pro) doesn't accept 4K formatting.
Nevertheless, it works under 10.13 with 512B blocks.
4K formatting is only mandatory for 10.12 here.

P.D: What about the 960 Pro. Has anyone tried it on a macbook? Is it as compatible as the evo version? I guess from what I have read at that link that they also have 512 logical/4096 physical.

Thank you for your good job.

The 960 Pro works perfectly. We have installed one in the MBPr 15" Mid 2015 of one of my colleague and he's been using it for 2 weeks without having any single problem (deep sleep, etc. everything simply works, out of the box).
He runs under High Sierra (beta 9 then GM).

See upper in this thread the results : https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-5#post-25117304

Could you make a list of the nvme drives supported by these macbooks and mac machines suppport 4k block formating? I would be really grateful. Because it is not clear for me which are the drives under discussion that do support 4k block formatting.

You're lucky I just received an Intel P600 and Kingston KC1000...

So here are the results for all the NVMe drives I've tested so far :
- Samsung SM961 (MZVPW128HEGM - firmware CXZ7300Q) : works natively under 10.13. Only 512K
- Samsung 960 Evo (MZVLW500HMJP - firmware 2B7QCXE7) : works natively under 10.13. Only 512K
- Samsung 960 Pro (MZVKP512HMHQ - firmware 2B6QCXP7) : works natively under 10.13. Only 512K
- WD Black M.2 (WDS512G1X0C - firmware B35500WD) : works natively under 10.12 and up. 512K and 4K
- Intel P600 (SSDPEKKW512G7 - firmware PSF109C) : works natively under 10.13*. Only 512K
- Kingston KC1000 (SKC1000480G - firmware E7FT04.6) : works natively under 10.12 and up*. 512K and 4K

So the 2 drives I've been able to format with 4K sectors are the Kingston KC1000 and WD Black. Both have toshiba flash modules.

Regarding Intel P600 and Kingston KC1000 : they, at first, don't appear in macOS 10.13 Disk utility (either formatted in 4K blocks or 512B blocks for the Kingston)
But the Kingston KC1000 does appear in macOs 10.12 Disk Utility (once formatted in 4K)

Also, under 10.13, both drive are perfectly recognized by "diskutil" command line ("diskutil list" for example). Once a GPT partition map created with "diskutil" command line, I could partition it with macOS 10.13 Disk and start the installation of 10.13 on the SSD, repartition the drive, etc.

So there is a bug with macOS 10.13 Disk utility with Intel P600 and Kingston KC1000.
But once the drive formated there is no further problem.
[doublepost=1506442089][/doublepost]

Could you make a list of the nvme drives supported by these macbooks and mac machines suppport 4k block formating? I would be really grateful. Because it is not clear for me which are the drives under discussion that do support 4k block formatting.

Ok I agree with @imprimis1 here.. this should then be a firmware issue. Which firmware has your 960 Evo ?

 

[Someitguy]

That did it. I left the tape anyway. It has latest firmware. 960 evo that I had in my Lenovo P50.

Before on the 2015 MBA if it slept more than 3 min it went down. It has slept five times including 30 min for lunch. Wake up was about 5 seconds.

Thanks.

It's most likely SSD revision/firmware-related, rather than the adapter. You can partially alleviate it with the following at the Terminal prompt:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25


Which will force the machine to hibernate (write the contents of the RAM to the SSD, then fully power off, in lieu of sleep). After a period of inactivity after selecting "Sleep" from the Apple Menu, or closing the lid, you will have to press the Power Button to engage the machine again.

With this hibernation setting in effect, it will take longer (20-30+ seconds), naturally, for the machine to resume where you left off, versus waking from sleep, but is the only simple way to consistently 'sleep' and 'wake' the machine without freezing/crashing. It is not foolproof, but it works about 95%+ of the time.

It appears that the SSD does not initialize quickly enough from sleep state for the logic and/or OS to acknowledge that it is still present, leading to the crash conditions you are encountering. This could possibly be alleviated with ACPI table changes in some future experiment.

 

[uintmax]

Hi everyone,

I have been following along in this thread for a few days now and it seems like the Sintech adapter is working quite well for people with a select few SSDs.

I have a 2015 15" rMBP with a 256GB SSD that I am looking to upgrade to a 1TB SSD for more storage, especially considering that I am planning on experimenting with eGPUs in the near future and I need the extra space for a rather large Windows 10 Bootcamp install. I am planning on buying the Sintech adapter from here since they have it in stock quite close to where I live: https://centralcomputers.com/p-7919...rd-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-sssdproduct.aspx

I will probably purchase a 960 EVO as well since I've used Samsung SSDs for many years and they have been very reliable. I'm wondering if the 960 EVO and the Sintech adapter are plug and play with the 2015 15" rMBP or if I need to make any additional modifications such as the tape I have seen discussed a few times in this thread.

I have already installed MacOS 10.13 and I will be making a recovery USB drive so I can install the OS on the new SSD.

 

[maenpaa24]

I tried under linux with nvme-cli commands but Samsung 960 Evo (neither Pro) doesn't accept 4K formatting.
Nevertheless, it works under 10.13 with 512B blocks.
4K formatting is only mandatory for 10.12 here.


The 960 Pro works perfectly. We have installed one in the MBPr 15" Mid 2015 of one of my colleague and he's been using it for 2 weeks without having any single problem (deep sleep, etc. everything simply works, out of the box).
He runs under High Sierra (beta 9 then GM).

See upper in this thread the results : https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-5#post-25117304



You're lucky I just received an Intel P600 and Kingston KC1000...

So here are the results for all the NVMe drives I've tested so far :
- Samsung SM961 (MZVPW128HEGM - firmware CXZ7300Q) : works natively under 10.13. Only 512K
- Samsung 960 Evo (MZVLW500HMJP - firmware 2B7QCXE7) : works natively under 10.13. Only 512K
- Samsung 960 Pro (MZVKP512HMHQ - firmware 2B6QCXP7) : works natively under 10.13. Only 512K
- WD Black M.2 (WDS512G1X0C - firmware B35500WD) : works natively under 10.12 and up. 512K and 4K
- Intel P600 (SSDPEKKW512G7 - firmware PSF109C) : works natively under 10.13*. Only 512K
- Kingston KC1000 (SKC1000480G - firmware E7FT04.6) : works natively under 10.12 and up*. 512K and 4K

So the 2 drives I've been able to format with 4K sectors are the Kingston KC1000 and WD Black. Both have toshiba flash modules.

Regarding Intel P600 and Kingston KC1000 : they, at first, don't appear in macOS 10.13 Disk utility (either formatted in 4K blocks or 512B blocks for the Kingston)
But the Kingston KC1000 does appear in macOs 10.12 Disk Utility (once formatted in 4K)

Also, under 10.13, both drive are perfectly recognized by "diskutil" command line ("diskutil list" for example). Once a GPT partition map created with "diskutil" command line, I could partition it with macOS 10.13 Disk and start the installation of 10.13 on the SSD, repartition the drive, etc.

So there is a bug with macOS 10.13 Disk utility with Intel P600 and Kingston KC1000.
But once the drive formated there is no further problem.
[doublepost=1506442089][/doublepost]
Ok I agree with @imprimis1 here.. this should then be a firmware issue. Which firmware has your 960 Evo ?

Wow! What a good job! Just to clarify, I was looking for a 4k compatible ssd drive in order to avoid misalignment in sectors after cloning the drive. But I think I'll make do.

Thank you for all your job.

 

[imprimis1]

Clover may be necessary for those looking strictly to upgrade their own systems, rather than for resale or refurbishing purposes.

 

[Nate Spencer]

If you get the 960 EVO you will probably have to follow the hibernatemode 25 thing. I taped the crap out of the thing too. Assuming it is pcie2 or faster it should be 5 or 10 seconds to wake depending on the amount of RAM (8 vs 16 GB). And that is with the latest firmware from Samsung and MacOS 10.13 GA.

I wiped and rebuilt other than the first time forgeting to set that after install. Zero crashes. Takes 4-5 seconds to wake.

I appreciate all the suggestions. It has saved me a lot of headache and money, since I could reuse my existing SSD.

Hi everyone,

I have been following along in this thread for a few days now and it seems like the Sintech adapter is working quite well for people with a select few SSDs.

I have a 2015 15" rMBP with a 256GB SSD that I am looking to upgrade to a 1TB SSD for more storage, especially considering that I am planning on experimenting with eGPUs in the near future and I need the extra space for a rather large Windows 10 Bootcamp install. I am planning on buying the Sintech adapter from here since they have it in stock quite close to where I live: https://centralcomputers.com/p-7919...rd-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-sssdproduct.aspx

I will probably purchase a 960 EVO as well since I've used Samsung SSDs for many years and they have been very reliable. I'm wondering if the 960 EVO and the Sintech adapter are plug and play with the 2015 15" rMBP or if I need to make any additional modifications such as the tape I have seen discussed a few times in this thread.

I have already installed MacOS 10.13 and I will be making a recovery USB drive so I can install the OS on the new SSD.

 

[maenpaa24]

If you get the 960 EVO you will probably have to follow the hibernatemode 25 thing. I taped the crap out of the thing too. Assuming it is pcie2 or faster it should be 5 or 10 seconds to wake depending on the amount of RAM (8 vs 16 GB). And that is with the latest firmware from Samsung and MacOS 10.13 GA.

I wiped and rebuilt other than the first time forgeting to set that after install. Zero crashes. Takes 4-5 seconds to wake.

I appreciate all the suggestions. It has saved me a lot of headache and money, since I could reuse my existing SSD.

Wouldn't doing the hibernatemode 25 thing be necessary with other drives? Only with the 960 evo?

 

[myst02]

Wouldn't doing the hibernatemode 25 thing be necessary with other drives? Only with the 960 evo?

The hibernate bug mainly happened with AHCI drives quite randomly. I think it doesn't depend on the SSD, but on the generation and type of the Apple device used.

Btw @gilles_polysoft please check message inbox

 

[tetet]

As for non-Apple NVMe drives, (Samsung 960 evo/pro etc) :

• Mac Pro late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)
• MacBook Air 11" & 13" mid 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
• MacBook Pro retina 13" late 2013 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
• MacBook Pro retina 15" late 2013 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)
• MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2014 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 2x lanes)
• MacBook Pro retina 13" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
• MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2014 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)
• MacBook Air 11" & 13" early 2015 :works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
• MacBook Pro retina 13" early 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 2.0 speed 4x lanes)
• MacBook Pro retina 15" mid 2015 : works from 10.13 (PCIe 3.0 speed 4x lanes)

Hello gilles_polysoft,

I noticed a small flaw: All apple machines does not have PCIe 3.0 until mid 2015.

Again, I do not know how to show my gratitude. May I mail you a card? (I am serious)

Sincerely,
tetet

 

[DarkMeLo]

Hello,
I did have such behavior, 2-3 years ago, with a Sintech adapter and AHCI Lite-On SSD on a MacBook Pro retina.
The Sintech Adapter and the SSD were supplied to me being taped together as in the photo below of the Mac Pro.
If I removed the tape, I got the behavior you have : I sometimes loosed the connection to the SSD, especially during sleep (and displacement of the MBP).

I found that this may have occur because of a loosy connection between the logic board and Sintech adapter.
The solution was simply to either tape the SSD to the adapter, or better, to put a little 3mm-thick rubber below the adapter.
That had worked and I now always install SSD like that now, and never had any disconnection...


Please try to do the same, and tell me if it had solve your lose of SSD during sleep problem.

I joined macrumors forum just for this thread.

First of all thank you @gilles_polysoft and everyone else for your contributions to this whole topic.

So we all know that NVMe is supported from High Sierra and most ssd's such as samsung evo or pro will be working now with the sintech or chenyang adapters.

I am still confused about one thing: SLEEP ISSUES with 2013~2015 models.

You have mentioned above that you have not had any issues with sleep ever since the tape and rubber fix. However in a previous update you have mentioned that you had 'concerns with sleep' with the 2013~2015 models.

Furthermore, other members have clearly addressed the sleep issues and found an interim solution with the hibernate 25 command.

So my question to everyone is: what are the exact results regarding sleep (closing lid) have you gotten with NVMe drives + Sintech adapters + High Sierra in 2013~2015 macbook pro's? Are there any differences with AHCI ssd's? Is hibernate 25 the only solutions for these models?

Thanks in advance!

 

[burnthefires]

Quick question: As of today, are there any reliable choices for MBPR13 early'15 running Sierra?
My work depends on the computer's stability so don't wanna upgrade to HS yet, but would love some extra space without the sleep issues AHCI M.2 SSDs caused. From what i've read here and on hackintosh forums, it should support 4k blocks. From this thread it would leave the WD Black(which is quite slow?) and the KC1000 (which i can't find in any store). Somewhere else i found info that the Toshiba XG3/XG4 / OCZ RD400 are also 4k capable and it's actually available in stores. Or should i just put my trust in High Sierra and get something like the 960 Pro or Evo?

 

[gilles_polysoft]

So my question to everyone is: what are the exact results regarding sleep (closing lid) have you gotten with NVMe drives + Sintech adapters + High Sierra in 2013~2015 macbook pro's? Are there any differences with AHCI ssd's? Is hibernate 25 the only solutions for these models?

Thanks in advance!

Hello,
thanks for your message.

I think it is time to make a tuto...
As a reminder, here are three things to remember :
- upgrade of the BootRom(EFI) is mandatory and can only be done (to my knowledge) by the High Sierra Installer... and the process of installing High Sierra must be done on the internal HD/SSD.
If not, BootRom update will fail.
- I personally prefer to add some isolation tape at the back of the sintech or chenyang adapter. I also put a little rubber under the adapter so that there isn't too high mechanical stress...
- 10.13 DiskUtility is buggy and/or doesn't recognize some blank disks (it occurred to me twice).

If a newly installed NVMe drive is not recognized by DiskUtility, simply verify it is recognized by Apple System Information or by "diskutil" command line
In my case, it always worked and I could every time format the disk with commande :
"sudo diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskx GPT JHFS+ MyDisk 0b"
(where "x" of "diskx" correspond to the new NVMe SSD, and "myDisk" is the name of the partition to create)

As for the sleep problem, I didn't encountered it once but I believe it may exist. But I do a p-ram reset every time I change of SSD... I use the hibernate mode 3 which is, if i'm right, default, and both keep the ram on and writes the hibernation file to the SSD.
I don't understand yet why hibernatemode 25 would solve problems with NVMe SSD : this mode shuts the ram off.. this is the only difference with mode 3.

[Edit] : this evening I tried again lots of sleep/wake with the 960 Evo and I got the sleep issue too... (with default hibernatemode 3).
Sorry if I hadn't that before. I'll try other NVMe ssd to see if it occurs too and under what circumstances.

 

[imprimis1]

Hello,
thanks for your message.

I think it is time to make a tuto...
As a reminder, here are three things to remember :
- upgrade of the BootRom(EFI) is mandatory and can only be done (to my knowledge) by the High Sierra Installer... and the process of installing High Sierra must be done on the internal HD/SSD.
If not, BootRom update will fail.
- I personally prefer to add some isolation tape at the back of the sintech or chenyang adapter. I also put a little rubber under the adapter so that there isn't too high mechanical stress...
- 10.13 DiskUtility is buggy and/or doesn't recognize some blank disks (it occurred to me twice).

If a newly installed NVMe drive is not recognized by DiskUtility, simply verify it is recognized by Apple System Information or by "diskutil" command line
In my case, it always worked and I could every time format the disk with commande :
"sudo diskutil partitionDisk /dev/diskx GPT JHFS+ MyDisk 0b"
(where "x" of "diskx" correspond to the new NVMe SSD, and "myDisk" is the name of the partition to create)

As for the sleep problem, I didn't encountered it once but I believe it may exist. But I do a p-ram reset every time I change of SSD... I use the hibernate mode 3 which is, if i'm right, default, and both keep the ram on and writes the hibernation file to the SSD.
I don't understand yet why hibernatemode 25 would solve problems with NVMe SSD : this mode shuts the ram off.. this is the only difference with mode 3.

hibernatemode 25 [effectively] allows the SSD the same amount of time to initialize upon waking up as would be necessary for the system to recognize it during a cold boot-- and that window of time is presumably longer than what is available when the system operates in the default portable hibernatemode 3 (which expects the SSD to be available as physical device, and therefore transparent at the logical level, almost immediately).

Due to the peculiarities of some SSD's firmware, and/or how that SSD firmware interacts with the SMC and Apple implementation of EFI, there is evidently some extended-length communications or negotiation resulting in a longer time for recognition than the IONVMEFamily.kext and related kext/subsystems will allow (those software components are almost immediately active after awakening from sleep, causing the machine with a third-party SSD that is not well-behaved to have a 'missing' volume from the standpoint of the OS, leading to a kernel panic or black screen).

Basically, for some misbehaved third-party SSDs or SSD firmware revisions, there are some 'abnormal'/out-of-spec return values or unsupported calls that require a time-out to proceed, from either direction, tying up the hardware-level recognition. (It may also be ACPI-related, such that the SSD will never properly re-initialize at the physical level when exiting certain power states.)

 

[DarkMeLo]

hibernatemode 25 [effectively] allows the SSD the same amount of time to initialize upon waking up as would be necessary for the system to recognize it during a cold boot-- and that window of time is presumably longer than what is available when the system operates in the default portable hibernatemode 3 (which expects the SSD to be available as physical device, and therefore transparent at the logical level, almost immediately).

Due to the peculiarities of some SSD's firmware, and/or how that SSD firmware interacts with the SMC and Apple implementation of EFI, there is evidently some extended-length communications or negotiation resulting in a longer time for recognition than the IONVMEFamily.kext and related kext/subsystems will allow (those software components are almost immediately active after awakening from sleep, causing the machine with a third-party SSD that is not well-behaved to have a 'missing' volume from the standpoint of the OS, leading to a kernel panic or black screen).

Basically, for some misbehaved third-party SSDs or SSD firmware revisions, there are some 'abnormal'/out-of-spec return values or unsupported calls that require a time-out to proceed, from either direction, tying up the hardware-level recognition. (It may also be ACPI-related, such that the SSD will never properly re-initialize at the physical level when exiting certain power states.)

So, are you saying that there are no confirmed third party SSD's as of yet that communicates with the OS as the Apple SSD's would (2013~2015 mbpr)?

 

[gilles_polysoft]

Hello gilles_polysoft,

I noticed a small flaw: All apple machines does not have PCIe 3.0 until mid 2015.

You're definitely right. Sorry I just got too fast on this. Thanks again for the correction

Again, I do not know how to show my gratitude. May I mail you a card? (I am serious)

It's very kind but at present, I am more ashamed than anything else... I just saw that I didn't tested the sleep fonction enough and it seems it doesn't work as well as I have said...

Quick question: As of today, are there any reliable choices for MBPR13 early'15 running Sierra?
My work depends on the computer's stability so don't wanna upgrade to HS yet, but would love some extra space without the sleep issues AHCI M.2 SSDs caused. From what i've read here and on hackintosh forums, it should support 4k blocks. From this thread it would leave the WD Black(which is quite slow?) and the KC1000 (which i can't find in any store). Somewhere else i found info that the Toshiba XG3/XG4 / OCZ RD400 are also 4k capable and it's actually available in stores. Or should i just put my trust in High Sierra and get something like the 960 Pro or Evo?

Hello

No solution that are discussed here have been tested for more than a fews days or week...
So nobody can say here that it is reliable... It works, but first word here is caution.

Regarding Sierra, I've just tested it on a mid 2013 MBPr 13" for a few hours.. I can test again the WD Black on a mid-2015 MBPr 15" if you want.

In general, making those NVMe drive from the PC world is exciting and is a great news.
I personally did the jump to try High Sierra and a NVMe tiers SSD, but this is because I work in an environment were I have more than 3 backups and I also have a spare computer...

I were you I wouldn't make the jump until 1-2 months, the time for everyone here to test everything in depth.

hibernatemode 25 [effectively] allows the SSD the same amount of time to initialize upon waking up as would be necessary for the system to recognize it during a cold boot-- and that window of time is presumably longer than what is available when the system operates in the default portable hibernatemode 3 (which expects the SSD to be available as physical device, and therefore transparent at the logical level, almost immediately).

Thanks for the clear explanations...

There is at least, here, two reports of sleep problems (one of @Someitguy and one of @Nate Spencer)

This sleep problems bothers me..

Again I did not encountered it on a mid 2015 MBPr 15" with a 960 Pro, mostly used in clamshell mode with DC adapter and closed lid on an external display, but also on battery.
On a Late 2013 MBPr 13" I did, at least, encountered a kernel panic after the 3rd deepsleep, and exclusively on battery too (I've not encountered it yet with magsafe plugged but I'll do some more tests).
I'll set the hibernatemode to 25 but still got 1 panic...
I'll keep you informed on that...