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wawon

macrumors member
Oct 2, 2017
61
16
Japan
This person updated from High Sierra to Mojave with a Samsung nvme drive on an Air and it did not update the bootrom: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...with-samsung-ssd.2099405/page-4#post-26132580

I updated my Air early 2015 13" to Mojave with the original Apple SSD and bootrom was updated from MBA71.0177.B00 to MBA71.0178.B00: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...with-samsung-ssd.2099405/page-5#post-26200791


Thank you
Probably, if the internal SSD is not genuine, it seems to be specification which does not update EFI firm.
 

liudayu

macrumors member
Nov 4, 2014
61
50
Dont think I did anything special. I just used the long back "-C" adapter, didnt even apply any tape. Could be some pins touching as others have mentioned? Out of interest what Boot ROM and SMC versions do you have? (MBP114.0184.B00 and 2.29f24 here).
Yeah nah I used the kapton tape to stop the pins from touching together.
My Boot Rom and SMC Version is MBP114.0184.B00 and 2.30f2
[doublepost=1533163555][/doublepost]
How did you X2 vs X4 please?
What do you mean? How did I get from X2 to X4 or what was the speed comparisons bewtween X2 to X4?
For the first question I just used the kapton tape to isolate the pins from touching the shield and for the second question, my X2 speed is the same speed as X4, 1500/1500 r/w
 
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caraconejo

macrumors newbie
Aug 2, 2018
5
0
A macbook pro of 2014 plus an adapter
KALEA-INFORMATIQUE - M.2 (NGFF) SSD adapter - To replace the original 12 + 16 pin PCIe SSD of a 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 Macbook Pro or Retina with a M2 SSD - SUPPORT NVME SSD

-with a Samsung EVO 970 NVMe works perfectly, with support x4

The installation is not difficult (without NVMe external box and helped with another SSD Standard making copies with Carbon Copy Cloner

For the issue of the EFI, and the Bootloader when the MacOS is updated from one system to another, there is the option to update again with the original Apple SSD and then clone back to the Samsung EVO 970 NVMe

The reading and writing speed triples

For the Windows versions, Samsung has support, with driver and with software that updates the NVMe (that's why the external box that exists in Aliesspress limits the speed to the USB-C with the bottleneck of 400 megabytes, but it works)

Checked is that the AHCI and NVMe are present in the Macbook pro 204 and Air (11 "2013, and MBA 13 of 2015, are those that I have been able to check)

The ideal is to update (if you can the firmware of the Samsung EVO via Windows (there is no Mac alternative) and then Clone the disk with an image of the Mac, to me the utility of Mac disks gave me failure, while Carbon Copy Cloner I worked without problems
 

Vaibhav S

macrumors newbie
Jul 27, 2018
12
1
Yeah nah I used the kapton tape to stop the pins from touching together.
My Boot Rom and SMC Version is MBP114.0184.B00 and 2.30f2
[doublepost=1533163555][/doublepost]
What do you mean? How did I get from X2 to X4 or what was the speed comparisons bewtween X2 to X4?
For the first question I just used the kapton tape to isolate the pins from touching the shield and for the second question, my X2 speed is the same speed as X4, 1500/1500 r/w


Sorry, there was a typo error there. I was wondering how to check whether my SSD is using 2 or 4 lanes. Now I just checked and without the tape it's using 4 lanes. I'll get the tape today and try after too, but current speeds still remain 1406-W and 1490-R.

Would a 960 Pro make a difference instead of 960 EVO?
Also, is the green adapter better when it comes to performance?

Thank you!!
[doublepost=1533273357][/doublepost]
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...

Not sure why I'm not getting speeds similar to you even though mine is a mid-2015 model?
 

tshelby73

macrumors member
Jul 24, 2018
42
9
Gillette, WY
Sorry, there was a typo error there. I was wondering how to check whether my SSD is using 2 or 4 lanes. Now I just checked and without the tape it's using 4 lanes. I'll get the tape today and try after too, but current speeds still remain 1406-W and 1490-R.

Would a 960 Pro make a difference instead of 960 EVO?
Also, is the green adapter better when it comes to performance?

Thank you!!
[doublepost=1533273357][/doublepost]

Not sure why I'm not getting speeds similar to you even though mine is a mid-2015 model?

I read somewhere that the 2015 models very by screen size. The 13” had pci 2.0 and the 15” has pci 3.0. Could this be the difference in your speed comparison assuming yours is a 13” and his maybe a 15”. Just a thought.
 
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Vaibhav S

macrumors newbie
Jul 27, 2018
12
1
I read somewhere that the 2015 models very by screen size. The 13” had pci 2.0 and the 15” has pci 3.0. Could this be the difference in your speed comparison assuming yours is a 13” and his maybe a 15”. Just a thought.

Guess, I found couple of differences. The link speed is different - I got 5.0 GT/s whereas the other person has 8.0 GT/s. The only other difference is the adapter - black for me vs green for the other person
 

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liudayu

macrumors member
Nov 4, 2014
61
50
Guess, I found couple of differences. The link speed is different - I got 5.0 GT/s whereas the other person has 8.0 GT/s. The only other difference is the adapter - black for me vs green for the other person
Only 15" MacBook Pro mid-2015 has PCIe 3.0x4 speed (8.0GT/s), other MacBooks only have PCIe 2.0x4 speed, hence the 5.0GT/s
 
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Vaibhav S

macrumors newbie
Jul 27, 2018
12
1
Only 15" MacBook Pro mid-2015 has PCIe 3.0x4 speed (8.0GT/s), other MacBooks only have PCIe 2.0x4 speed, hence the 5.0GT/s
Thank you so much for confirming.
Good thing I figured that the new disk is still 2.5 times faster than the old one, so I should be happy!!!!
 

Vaibhav S

macrumors newbie
Jul 27, 2018
12
1
Hi Andrea,

Thank you so much for the response and taking the time to share details. I've now managed to upgrade properly, biggest individual contribution is yours providing so many details. I guess I wouldn't have been able to do it without your messages,


Cheers,
Vaibhav
Hello,

in the attached image you can see my very basic test on consumption. I tri to make a real use test but it is not wery scientific. In my opinion there is not a big difference between the two drives in term of consumption. In the 970 test you can see the lasting time is a bit less but at the beginning i had a couple of automated task that have run pushing the first minute the consumption at high levels (you see also the cpu temperature is higher because of this initial load) and this have reduced the estimated time even if the battery % at the end is a bit higher than the original test (90% cons 88%).

I could not do test of the temperature of the new ssd... but thouching the bottom of the mbp I have not the impression that it is more hot.

Finally I'm very happy with this upgrade. Thank to all the contributors to this forum and specially to Gilles.

Concerning your questions I think the missing kapton tape on your adapter is probably responsable of the lower performances. As you can read in other post this can cause interferences and the communications ssd-motherboard in this case can work only on 2 lanes instead of 4. Give a look in about this mac - system details - NVMExpress tab: link width should be 4x and maybe you have only 2x. In this case kapton tape is the solution.

I had also at the beginning the question mark about boot volume. For me this was due to a firmware password forcing to find original volume: I had simply to change the startup disk in system preferences.

Because of the need of the original ssd to upgrade the efi, maybe is a good idea to keep the original ssd (i will do so) with a partition with the OS installed.
There is external cases if you will use the original ssd as external drive: try the owc (https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MAU3ENPRPCIO/) but transcend should have an external case too.

Good luck

Andrea

PS: Apple, please make macbook pro again, wit standard and self upgradable ram and ssd! We all have lost a lot of time to find workaround to your monopoly. Thanks.

View attachment 773596
 

abhi251193

macrumors newbie
Aug 4, 2018
1
0
Hi everyone,
just received last week this little guy, a new Samsung PM981 :

View attachment 738854

First little deception, it is still impossible to format it with 4K sectors, so no Sierra compatibility for it :

View attachment 738860

View attachment 738855

Second little deception, I was unable to do a BlackMagic disk Speed Test..
The system immediately hangs and reboots a few seconds after (with a kernel panic report with IONVMeFamiliy.kext)
A clone with CarbonCopyCloner or a file copy in the Finder also brings the same result : hang then reboot...

I did tried a little further and found that I have no problem at all at just reading or sending zeros to the disk with "dd" command.
It just works perfectly, at full speed :
500MB/s write on the full drive :

View attachment 738852

and ~2500MB/s read also on the full drive :

View attachment 738853

I haven't yet tried under BootCamp/Windows 10 so far...

So here we are... High Sierra as of 10.13.2 beta 4 has problems with those drives... but not errors occur when doing block-level access on command line.
Strange...
[doublepost=1533400864][/doublepost]bro can you please tell wheather samsung pm981 pro will work with macbook air 2017 or not..i am having this macbook air 2017 and i have bought a adapter for pcie nvme .I am looking to buy either samsung pm 981 or samsung evo 960...
but pm981 is quite cheaper ...so please help me to choose.
[doublepost=1533401423][/doublepost]
Hi everyone,
just received last week this little guy, a new Samsung PM981 :

View attachment 738854

First little deception, it is still impossible to format it with 4K sectors, so no Sierra compatibility for it :

View attachment 738860

View attachment 738855

Second little deception, I was unable to do a BlackMagic disk Speed Test..
The system immediately hangs and reboots a few seconds after (with a kernel panic report with IONVMeFamiliy.kext)
A clone with CarbonCopyCloner or a file copy in the Finder also brings the same result : hang then reboot...

I did tried a little further and found that I have no problem at all at just reading or sending zeros to the disk with "dd" command.
It just works perfectly, at full speed :
500MB/s write on the full drive :

View attachment 738852

and ~2500MB/s read also on the full drive :

View attachment 738853

I haven't yet tried under BootCamp/Windows 10 so far...

So here we are... High Sierra as of 10.13.2 beta 4 has problems with those drives... but not errors occur when doing block-level access on command line.
Strange...

bro please tell samsung pm 981 will work or not with macbook air 2017...i want to upgrade to 512gb samsung pm981 and i have already bought the nvme pcie adapter for it...just want to confirm is it compatible or not with macbook air...otherwise i will go for samsung evo 960....please i need your suggestion bro
 

Cmd+Q

macrumors member
Apr 23, 2018
57
75
bro please tell
Congratulations, with your posts, you have demonstrated you are capable of searching this thread. Your question has been discussed and answered time and time again: the PM981 with its current firmware has not worked in any MacBook.
 
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Tehchubz

macrumors newbie
Aug 5, 2018
2
0
I have been scouring this thread and for a potential fix for my issue. Currently upgrading my wife's MBA early 2014 SSD. I tried the Samsung 960 Evo with the correct adapter and it caused kernel panics and would not sleep properly. Returned it and got the Western Digital Black 500gb. It still has the sleep issue when shutting the lid. I adjusted the hibernation to '0', and it has been fine since. Has there been a work around so it can sleep and save battery or is there something I have done wrong? Cheers
 

caraconejo

macrumors newbie
Aug 2, 2018
5
0
I speak and talk about the Samsung Evo 970

The EVO 970 is faster than the previous version, also, curiously in shops it is at a better price the new version on the previous one, already two years old ... From 2018, take advantage of the improvements of the EVO 970 and forget the new purchase of the EVO 960 (More expensive)
IMGP11222_678x452.jpg

captur10.jpg


81qhEAoWKEL._SL1500_.jpg

Adaptador NVMe compatible

sudo pmset -g

System-wide power settings:

Currently in use:

standbydelay 10800

standby 0

womp 1

halfdim 1

hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage

powernap 1

gpuswitch 2

networkoversleep 0

disksleep 0

sleep 0

autopoweroffdelay 28800

hibernatemode 0

autopoweroff 1

ttyskeepawake 1

displaysleep 3

acwake 0

lidwake 1


CMD;
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
Macbook Pro 2014 & 2015
 
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Cmd+Q

macrumors member
Apr 23, 2018
57
75
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0
Macbook Pro 2014 & 2015

On 2015 models (and later models, like 2017 MacBook Air), no change to the power management setting should be necessary. On 2013-2014 models, disabling standby (transitioning from sleep to hibernation) is sufficient at the expense of battery drain; the only other known workaround is modifying the system ROM.

(Edit said, I should clarify the situation for MacBook Air models as well; I agree.)
 

weckart

macrumors 603
Nov 7, 2004
5,980
3,722
Just upgraded my MBP 13" 2015 from its stock 128GB drive to a 480GB Adata XPG SX8200. Nice and cheap. R/W speeds are around 1500/1350, which is pretty much saturating the PCIe 2.0 bus that the 13" is limited to and providing twice the write speed of the stock drive I replaced.

Only hassle was the the drive was about 1mm too long for the Sintech NGFF-C adapter so that I couldn't screw it in too tightly otherwise it bowed upwards. I suppose I could have dremeled the notch in the end a tad further in if I were sure there were no traces below to cut into but I let it go.

Sintech was thoughful enough to include a longer screw than the one already in the MacBook, which was too short to secure the combined height of the Sintech adapter and the Adata drive. Idling temps for the drive are 26ºC, so it runs nice and cool, too.
 
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tshelby73

macrumors member
Jul 24, 2018
42
9
Gillette, WY
I have a 2014 MacBook Air that needs NVMe code added to efi for it to recognize it as a internal drive and for sleep to work correctly. From browsing through this forum am I correct this cannot be done through software on my machine due to its newer rom chip and only way is by using a programmer hooked directly to the ROM chip itself.
 

gilles_polysoft

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2017
244
671
Tours (France)
Hi everyone,
really sorry for not having time to participate late weeks to this thread.

I bought 3 new NVMe SSD to tests and here is the result for the first one : Samsung 970 Evo.

This new model works perfectly as many have reported here.
It is very fast, at least while using the SLC cache (3000MB/sec read 2350MB/sec write), once the SLC cache has been filled it falls down to ~700 MB/s write.
It doesn't handle 4K blocs (so it is only compatible with 10.13 and higher, not 10.12)
It has a max design power state of 6.20Watts reported by smartctl (10W by Samsung specifications), uses 3D V-NAND TLC and costs $209 for the 512 GB model.

As every other NVMe SSDs, it works without any issue in any 2015 13" and 15" rMBP and 2015 or 2017 13" MacBook Air.
As any other NVMe SSD and with any 2013-2014 Mac, hibernation doesn't work out of the box and needs a BootRom patch (to add the proper DXE driver) as of today.


Samsung_970_Evo.jpg

Samsung_970_Evo_BlackMagic_firstrun.png
Samsung_970_Evo_BlackMagic continous.png
Samsung_970_Evo_smartctl.png
Samsung_970_Evo sysinfo.png
 
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gilles_polysoft

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2017
244
671
Tours (France)
Next new SSD tested : the Western Digital WD Black "G2".

As other NVMe SSDs, it works out of the box with the proper Sintech rev. B or C adapter, without any issue on 2015 13" and 15" rMBP, and 2015 and 2017 MacBook Air.
Again and as it is the case with every NVMe SSD, hibernation doesn't work out of the box on 2013-2014 mac.

The WD Black "G2" is waaaaaay faster than its predecessor the WD Black "G1".
While using the SLC cache it shows speeds of 2800MB/sec read 2350MB/sec write
Once the SLC cache has been filled it slows to ~1100 MB/sec write which is a good value, better than the 970 Evo.
It does handle 4K blocs, so it can work with 10.12 once setted to use 4k blocs (with the nvme-cli utility under Linux).

It has a max design power state of 5,50Watts reported by smartctl (peak of 9W not excedding 10µs), uses 3D TLC NAND and costs $177 for the 512 GB model.

I like this model a lot, because it is cheap, fast, and has 10.12 compatibility with 4LK blocs.

WD_Black_NVMe_v2.jpg
WD_Black_NVMe_v2_Blackmagic continous.png WD_Black_NVMe_v2_Blackmagic first run.png WD_Black_NVMe_v2_smartctl.png
WD_Black_NVMe_v2_sysinfo.png
 
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gilles_polysoft

macrumors regular
Jul 7, 2017
244
671
Tours (France)
Last, here is a test of a brand new Trasncend 850.

It is not a M.2 SSD, so why did I tested this model ?
Because it's a NVMe SSD specially conceived for upgrading our 2013-2015 Macs, and advertised as such.
As it is NVMe I suspect it not to handle hibernation properly on a 2013-2014 Mac with the unpatched, factory Apple BootRom.
How will this SSD handle hibernation ?
And futures BootRom upgrades ?

This NVMe SSD has 4x PCIe 3.0 lanes.
It has the Apple 12+16 connector, so it doesn't need of course the Sintech adapter.
It has a read speed of ~1600 MB/sec and a write speed of next 1200 MB/sec.

To test speed and hibernation, I tested it on both a 2015 15" rMBP and on a 2014 13" rMBP that has its original, unpatched, Apple BootRom (up to date).
I set pmset to default values, and put the rMBP to sleep.
Did it wake up from hibernation after 3 hours ? On the 2015 rMBP : yes
On the 2014 rMBP : no...
Those are the same results as with any 2013-2014 mac and M.2 NVMe drive and Sintech adapter tested here : after 3 hours hibernaiton, it did hang at wake up, with a black screen and never resumed.
I tested it many times.


So, this upgrade specially built and sold for 2013-2015 macs does not hibernate properly out of the box.
Transcend themselves have a not on their support page : "Why my Mac can't wake up from sleep mode after installing JetDrive 850?"
https://us.transcend-info.com/Support/FAQ-1171
And their answer is to install their "Transcend JetDrive ToolBox", which I presume set "standby" mode to "0".
Unfortunately, I couldn't verify that because on my test machine, on 10.13.6, the Transcend Jetdrive Toolbox doesn't launch and exits with an error.

So, after all this thread, here is where we are : results are coherent.
Hibernation on 2013-2014 Macs doesn't work out of the box with any NVMe SSD, being it a Transcend 850 made for mac or any M.2 NVMe with Sintech adapter.
This is because Apple doesn't include the proper NVMe DXE driver in their BootRom

So I'm not really surprised : the Transcend 850 runs fine, but it has absolutely no advantage against any M.2 NVMe drive with the sintech adapter.
M.2 NVMe SSD with Sintech adapter offers the exact same behaviour as Transcend or OWC upgrade (there are lots of comment on amazon that the latest OWC Aura pro NVMe have the same hibernation problem : https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RD2Y5F92SQPCY/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_btm).
The only difference is that M.2 upgrades tested here are more than 2x times cheaper than OWC or Trasncend upgrades.

What I need to test now is future BootRom upgrades : current BootRom update provided by Apple with latest macOS updates don't work with NVMe drives.
This is a good thing for us if we use a 2013-2014 rMBP patched to have hibernation (the fact that BootRom updates fail prevents from the patch being crushed by a BootRom update)

Transcend 850.jpg
Transcend 850 DiskSpeedTest 15.png
Transcend 850 system info.png
Transcend 850 about mac.png
 
Last edited:

ohnggni

macrumors member
Feb 21, 2018
46
19
Hwaseong, South Korea
Next new SSD tested : the Western Digital WD Black "G2".

As other NVMe SSDs, it works out of the box with the proper Sintech rev. B or C adapter, without any issue on 2015 13" and 15" rMBP, and 2015 and 2017 MacBook Air.
Again and as it is the case with every NVMe SSD, hibernation doesn't work out of the box on 2013-2014 mac.

The WD Black "G2" is waaaaaay faster than its predecessor the WD Black "G1".
While using the SLC cache it shows speeds of 2800MB/sec read 2350MB/sec write
Once the SLC cache has been filled it slows to ~1100 MB/sec write which is a good value, better than the 970 Evo.
It does handle 4K blocs, so it can work with 10.12 once setted to use 4k blocs (with the nvme-cli utility under Linux).

It has a max design power state of 5,50Watts reported by smartctl (peak of 9W not excedding 10µs), uses 3D TLC NAND and costs $177 for the 512 GB model.

I like this model a lot, because it is cheap, fast, and has 10.12 compatibility with 4LK blocs.

Is there any reason why write speed is getting slower as testing continuously than the 1st run? I always wonder why.
 
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