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

[Cmd+Q]

I guess I thought that the flash was a one-off. Are you saying that each point upgrade of the OS is going to be followed by me having to flash or lose the ability to hibernate? Removing my logic board each time seems a lot of hassle so the £45 is probably worth it.

This thread has established that firmware updates are only applied when performed from an "internal drive" (at least as it stands today). In the 2013-2014 MacBooks, the PCIe NVMe drives show up as "external" at boot time. You can verify this in your configuration by holding down the option key when starting your updated MacBook: your new PCIe NVMe boot drive will very likely show up in an orange colour (internal drives show up in silver/grey). To apply EFI firmware updates, you will need to keep the original SSD around.

If you want to (or must) keep up with EFI firmware updates, you will likely need to perform the procedure for each new firmware update: Reinstall the original drive, update firmware (as part of a macOS update, or manual), modify the firmware, reinstall your NVMe drive, and update macOS. There is a possibility that Apple will allow updates to new macOS versions on systems with current EFI firmware (just like they could block updates on systems with modified EFI firmware, but that's a different story).

So, yes, the modifying your EFI firmware/system ROM can be a one-off, if you are ok to stay on this one modified version. I just want to point out there are some unknowns about these upgraded MacBooks.

Alternativly, once in the os, go to settings and then startup disk, click the lock, password, then choose the boot volume, and click restart.

That was the solution for me - perhaps thats a good clarification in the upgrade guide.

Is there an established way to stress test the machine to make sure it's working as expected?

Not that I have seen. The test series would not be comparable in a lot of cases (different MacBooks, different drives, different firmwares; when it comes to battery life, different load cycles). The spot checks you did with BlackMagic are in the expected range with your new SSD; if you do not have any kernel panic, your configuration is probably good for now, with this release of macOS. FIO is a great tool to baseline performance - but then we still need to agree on test that are not only comparative but also make sense for day to day work.

 

[vk2fro]

If you wanted to get the latest firmware, could you not just flash your backup firmware (with the ch341a), then do the update to your original SSD (I keep mine around), then re-perform the mod to the newer firmware?

 

[Cmd+Q]

If you wanted to get the latest firmware, could you not just flash your backup firmware (with the ch341a), then do the update to your original SSD (I keep mine around), then re-perform the mod to the newer firmware?

I am under the impression that you can just update the EFI firmware to the latest with the original SSD (overwriting the modified EFI firmware) and then re-perform the modification of the system ROM.

The main point I was arguing is that if you want to apply future firmware updates for whatever reason, you can either use the 'expensive' but more elegant J6100 adapter, or get to the SPI chip on the 'cheap' by removing more than just the bottom plate.

 

[vk2fro]

Yep I could have pulled my entire 'book apart to get to the spi chip, but once one screw went missing, I decided to order the J6100 connector. My OCD has not forgiven me since

(this screw was one of two that held the IO ribbon in place on the motherboard, as I was looking for my system 820-####.)

 

[nateemee]

Hello every, I have few question.
Now I used Samsung 960 Evo 500GB with rMBP 13" But I have some problem about temperature and battery usage when going to hibernate, Please tell about M.2 NVMe is climate for my issue.

Thank you all.

 

[pedrorubster]

Hi. So, my original ssd from my macbook died, and I bought a sintech adapter to use with a 760p that I bought. The thing is, that when I boot with the ssd on the macbook, it won't enter the recovery menu or anything, it will just stay black. I can enter the recovery menu without the ssd. Anyone had the same issue as I'm having?

 

[johnneyx]

Hi folks. I have the following problem on my MacBook Air early 2014. I have successfully installed a Samsung 970EVO, OS X High Sierra Is already installed and works without any problems but I can't get win 8 - or 10 to work. Boot Camp Assistent get through the whole process then the Mac Reboots and I choose the right partition in win 10 setup "BOOT CAMP" and format it. Then the installation Process starts and loads some windows data, but after the system is rebooted it told me "The PC was rebooted unexpected . The Windows Installation could not be go away" it is not the original sentence, I translate it :-D
Please help me!

 

[Pierlu78]

I want to share my experience cause I need some good advices from you guys...
I took a used mba early 2014, without ssd, and I decided to use a samsung pm951 with sintech adapter instead of original apple ssd.
So I turn on the mba using a pendrive with os x high sierra, I can initialize the ssd but when I try to copy the os on the ssd drive macbook shut off almost at the end of the copy. If I use a usb sata disk pulled out from my wife’s mbp late 2011 the system boot fine. I tried to clone the hd to the ssd with ccc but nothing... the mba won’t boot from pm951 ssd. Bootrom version is MBA61.0099.B53
Please help! Do I need to update firmware using an original apple ssd?!?
Thanks for your help
[doublepost=1532378655][/doublepost]

Hi folks. I have the following problem on my MacBook Air early 2014. I have successfully installed a Samsung 970EVO, OS X High Sierra Is already installed and works without any problems but I can't get win 8 - or 10 to work. Boot Camp Assistent get through the whole process then the Mac Reboots and I choose the right partition in win 10 setup "BOOT CAMP" and format it. Then the installation Process starts and loads some windows data, but after the system is rebooted it told me "The PC was rebooted unexpected . The Windows Installation could not be go away" it is not the original sentence, I translate it :-D
Please help me!

Just to know, what’s your firmware version? Thanks

 

[shagr4th]

Hi. So, my original ssd from my macbook died, and I bought a sintech adapter to use with a 760p that I bought. The thing is, that when I boot with the ssd on the macbook, it won't enter the recovery menu or anything, it will just stay black. I can enter the recovery menu without the ssd. Anyone had the same issue as I'm having?

Mine crashed as well 2 weeks ago and I did the same as you last night : you need to have a bootable installer on a usb drive (but you need a working mac for that, fortunately I had a backup)

 

[ohnggni]

Hi folks. I have the following problem on my MacBook Air early 2014. I have successfully installed a Samsung 970EVO, OS X High Sierra Is already installed and works without any problems but I can't get win 8 - or 10 to work. Boot Camp Assistent get through the whole process then the Mac Reboots and I choose the right partition in win 10 setup "BOOT CAMP" and format it. Then the installation Process starts and loads some windows data, but after the system is rebooted it told me "The PC was rebooted unexpected . The Windows Installation could not be go away" it is not the original sentence, I translate it :-D
Please help me!

When you see the error pop-up, "The Computer restarted unexpectedly....", please do the following;
1. press Shift + F10 keys.
2. launch "regedit".
3. find this directory, "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\Status\ChildCompletion"
4. once you can see "setup.exe" in the right section, double-click it and modify the value to 3.
5. close the regedit.
6. reboot

Probably you can pass the error stage.

For your reference,
The source is : https://answers.microsoft.com/ko-kr...ls/초기화도중/cafccdd7-ed17-49b9-a757-49f7572ac214

 

[johnneyx]

I want to share my experience cause I need some good advices from you guys...
I took a used mba early 2014, without ssd, and I decided to use a samsung pm951 with sintech adapter instead of original apple ssd.
So I turn on the mba using a pendrive with os x high sierra, I can initialize the ssd but when I try to copy the os on the ssd drive macbook shut off almost at the end of the copy. If I use a usb sata disk pulled out from my wife’s mbp late 2011 the system boot fine. I tried to clone the hd to the ssd with ccc but nothing... the mba won’t boot from pm951 ssd. Bootrom version is MBA61.0099.B53
Please help! Do I need to update firmware using an original apple ssd?!?
Thanks for your help
[doublepost=1532378655][/doublepost]
Just to know, what’s your firmware version? Thanks

My bootrom version is MBA61.0107.B00

When you see the error pop-up, "The Computer restarted unexpectedly....", please do the following;
1. press Shift + F10 keys.
2. launch "regedit".
3. find this directory, "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup\Status\ChildCompletion"
4. once you can see "setup.exe" in the right section, double-click it and modify the value to 3.
5. close the regedit.
6. reboot

Probably you can pass the error stage.

For your reference,
The source is : https://answers.microsoft.com/ko-kr...ls/초기화도중/cafccdd7-ed17-49b9-a757-49f7572ac214

Thank you!!!! It works!

 

[tshelby73]

Is only way to flash firmware with a programmer or can it be done with software on the mac. I have a 2014 macbook air and stock 256 ssd and plan to put a 970 evo in it with sintech adapter. If it can't be done in software what does disabling hibernation do. does the mac shut down when battery gets low or does the battery just die and shut down.

 

[tylercranston]

I have a MacBook Pro Early 2015 13 inch (MacBookPro12,1), I'm looking to upgrade the SSD. I bought the ST-NGFF2013-C adapter from Amazon.

I am looking for the fastest SSD that will work with the above configuration, I am considering:

Samsung 970 Pro (MZ-V7P1T0BW)
Sumsung 960 Pro (MZ-V6P1T0BW)
WD Black (WDS100T2X0C)

Can anyone recommend one of the above? Or suggest why I shouldn't use one of the above?

Thanks!
Tyler

 

[darnel_cz]

You should go ahead and try it, perhaps with the same adapter recommended in this thread; mixed keys have been typically used for SATA SSDs, but they still carry the two PCIe 2.0 lanes (also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M.2, sources 18 and 16).

Thanks for your answer

I tried https://www.gearbest.com/pci-cards/pp_770709.html and it doesn't work - SSD wasn't detected, but it might not be original Sintech. So I'll try "C type" for MBA 2013 and MBP 2014 http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1229.html

 

[monofase]

Hi,
after updating to latest version of high sierra I'm getting some RANDOM crashes (10.13.6) with Samsung 960 Evo 1TB and regular Sintech adapter (the right one)


*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f95c46eb6): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x3
. FW Revision=3B7QCXE7\n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.70.5/IONVMeController.cpp:5271

Any idea to solve this?

 

[Audit13]

Did you update to the latest high Sierra with the original ssd in the machine? If not, the bootrom would not have been updated and maybe this is causing the problem.

Did this program exist before the update? Can you roll back to an earlier version to test?

 

[Cmd+Q]

I tried https://www.gearbest.com/pci-cards/pp_770709.html and it doesn't work - SSD wasn't detected, but it might not be original Sintech. So I'll try "C type" for MBA 2013 and MBP 2014 http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1229.html

Yes, the data thus far has been inconclusive: Page 10 included a similar report. However, it's hard to tell whether it was the adapter or the SSD. The Lite-On data sheet for this drive doesn't exactly make it easy to surmise what the drive's capabilities are.

Hi,
after updating to latest version of high sierra I'm getting some RANDOM crashes (10.13.6) with Samsung 960 Evo 1TB and regular Sintech adapter (the right one)

I had the exact same issue with macOS 10.13.5 and my Samsung 960 PRO:

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f81f74116): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x3
. FW Revision=2B6QCXP7\n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.60.4/IONVMeController.cpp:5275

And I thought this was an isolated occurrence to one test installation of macOS that I had. What was the upgrade path you went through?

 

[ohnggni]

Hi,
after updating to latest version of high sierra I'm getting some RANDOM crashes (10.13.6) with Samsung 960 Evo 1TB and regular Sintech adapter (the right one)


*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff7f95c46eb6): nvme: "Fatal error occurred. CSTS=0x3
. FW Revision=3B7QCXE7\n"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/IONVMeFamily/IONVMeFamily-356.70.5/IONVMeController.cpp:5271

Any idea to solve this?

Yes. I also have the same KP issue while my macbook sometimes reboot. (MBP 2014-mid+960evo+Sintech "C")
The strange thing is
In 10.13.5, IONVMeController.cpp:5275
In 10.13.6, IONVMeController.cpp:5271
Slightly different. Also, the frequency of KP is less than 10.13.6. I usually reboot my macbook twice or three times a day to switch macOS to Bootcamp and I meet the KP once or twice a week. Of course this KP happened both before & after modifying the bootrom.

I updated both from 10.13.4 to 10.13.5 and from 10.13.5 to from 10.13.6 without switching to the original SSD. Whenever I updated, I met the same kernel panics but I haven't cared for it.

Since it doesn't happen every reboot, it's not easy to find out any pattern.
Shall we need "collective intelligence" again?

 

[User9]

Hi there, could someone confirm if MyDigitaSSD SBX is compatible with Macbook Pro retina 2015? I see Sintech adapter has been used but SBX is not m-key so how can it work? Thanks

 

[Vaibhav S]

Thank you so much. My Evo 970 is installed and seems to be working just fine in terms of speed. 1300 read, 1230 write for Blackmagic as opposed to about 580/300 with my original. The one thing that seems a bit slow is it takes about 10 seconds from pressing the power-on button to the Apple originally displaying. That seems slower than I remember it before, but maybe that's because I set it up as APFS encrypted which it wasn't last time.

I guess I thought that the flash was a one-off. Are you saying that each point upgrade of the OS is going to be followed by me having to flash or lose the ability to hibernate? Removing my logic board each time seems a lot of hassle so the £45 is probably worth it.

Is there an established way to stress test the machine to make sure it's working as expected?

Hi,

Can I ask what are the things you bought and how did you go about it?
I've got a A1502 Early 2015 MBP which I'd like to upgrade using Samsung 970 EVO 1TB.

The Sintech adapter I looked at it is as below.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CWWAENG/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza

Thank you!!
[doublepost=1532702545][/doublepost]

I ordered some here in Qatar and they arrived in about 10 days posted from Singapore. I also got some sent to my UK address and they were posted from the UK and arrived very quickly.
[doublepost=1523535831][/doublepost]
#1158
I ordered some here in Qatar and they arrived in about 10 days posted from Singapore. I also got some sent to my UK address and they were posted from the UK and arrived very quickly.

What's the enclosure you used for the old SSD? I've got a A1502 MBP

 

[apemaia]

Hello, finally I just installed 970 evo 2TB on my macbook pro mid 2015:
- upgraded to 10.13.6
- cloned system on external ssd with ccc
- open mbp, unplug battery
- replaced ssd with sintech green adapter and new drive (I did no magician upgrade)
- reassembled
- booted from external ssd
- formatted new drive
- cloned back my system to new drive
- booted from new drive and set it as new boot volume

No issues at all, ssd recognized and formatted apfs without problems.

I did a "normal use test" before and noted temperatures (ssd, cpu), battery % and battery lasting time. I need to do the test with the new drive but because I used Hardware Monitor 5.55 it don't recognize the new ssd sensors*.

Speed: before r1956/w1080, now r2240/w2520**.

I have 2 questions:
* I'm searching a ssd thermal sensor app who work with the new ssd. I found maybe iStat menu but I will not install an app so rich of features only for the ssd temperature (I try to keep my system "cleaner" as possible). Someone can suggest a light app only for monitor ssd temperature? Then I will post the comparison.
** Yes, it is what Black Magic Speed test show: write speed is bigger. Is this normal? In system profile I see x4 and 8.0 GT/s for the connection. Maybe a software bug...

 

[monofase]

Did you update to the latest high Sierra with the original ssd in the machine? If not, the bootrom would not have been updated and maybe this is causing the problem.

Did this program exist before the update? Can you roll back to an earlier version to test?

No, I updated to the latest High sierra with the Samsung SSD. Does the update from 10.13.5 to 10.13.6 contain a new boot ROM update?
Before the 10.13.6 update the machine was working perfectly.

Now I think I need to format the MacBook and restore back from a Time Machine Backup and install before a clean copy of an earlier version of High sierra (I have an USB stick with 10.13.4)

 

[Vaibhav S]

Hello, finally I just installed 970 evo 2TB on my macbook pro mid 2015:
- upgraded to 10.13.6
- cloned system on external ssd with ccc
- open mbp, unplug battery
- replaced ssd with sintech green adapter and new drive (I did no magician upgrade)
- reassembled
- booted from external ssd
- formatted new drive
- cloned back my system to new drive
- booted from new drive and set it as new boot volume

No issues at all, ssd recognized and formatted apfs without problems.

I did a "normal use test" before and noted temperatures (ssd, cpu), battery % and battery lasting time. I need to do the test with the new drive but because I used Hardware Monitor 5.55 it don't recognize the new ssd sensors*.

Speed: before r1956/w1080, now r2240/w2520**.

I have 2 questions:
* I'm searching a ssd thermal sensor app who work with the new ssd. I found maybe iStat menu but I will not install an app so rich of features only for the ssd temperature (I try to keep my system "cleaner" as possible). Someone can suggest a light app only for monitor ssd temperature? Then I will post the comparison.
** Yes, it is what Black Magic Speed test show: write speed is bigger. Is this normal? In system profile I see x4 and 8.0 GT/s for the connection. Maybe a software bug...

Can you share the link for the sintech green adapter?

 

[Khaleal]

I have a Macbook Pro 15" Mid 2014, If I install a regular AHCI SSD instead of NVMe, will I have sleep issues? Will I need any kind of patches/EFI mods? What's the best adapter in my case?

 

[apemaia]

Can you share the link for the sintech green adapter?

Hello, the green adapter is this:
http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1143.html
You will read in this thread that this adapter is same as the long black adapter, the new version, but the black adapter allow the ssd to be more safely fixed. I suggest to tri the black one:
http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1229.html

My order take 2 weeks to arrive to Switzerland.

good luck