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

[zaxa]

Hey guys. What a wild ride this was. I have been reading this thread for months now and finally bit the bullet and ordered everything needed a month ago.

I used the black long Sintech-C adapter, a Samsung Evo 960, this J6100 board and a CH341A programmer for my late 2013 rMBP 15". I've got everything working now, but I wanted to note a few important caveats in case anyone else stumbles upon similar problems later:

• My J6100 board came without a status LED. That threw me off for a bit, because all the photos of it here had one attached. It's not really much of a deal, you don't need it, but I still found it worth mentioning
• Definitely backup your bootrom using ROMTool by dosdude before you do anything! Don't assume that the backup you do before flashing will be a good one! It literally saved my machine! I tried to roughly follow these instructions by ohnggni, but the CH341A software always recognised my machine's chip as something unknown. I stupidly assumed there would not be much of a difference in terms of chips between those macbooks and manually set the manufacturer and chip to those shown in the post. The worst part was that when I test read the bootrom it looked very much like the backup I did using ROMTool so I assumed it was working, when in reality the dump was totally corrupted. The writes were corrupted, too (obviously, in hindsight, as it's a completely different chip). While trying to write my patched bootrom it totally messed the data up and my machine did not boot anymore.
• I was clueless on what to do for a few hours. I knew I probably had a good backup using ROMTool, but I had no idea how to write it using the CH341A programmer software. Turns out, you just can't. It doesn't know the chip, so it can't communicate with it (was using version 1.29, so pretty recent if not the newest one).
• What finally saved me was flashrom on macOS (Linux systems would have probably worked, too). When trying to read the chip using flashrom it instantly recognised it and when writing my backup (and later on the patched bootrom) it did so and verified it without any errors.
• TL;DR: Use flashrom on macOS/Linux instead of the CH341A programmer software. You might be lucky and have your chip recognised by the latter or you might mess up badly with the data on your chip. flashrom has much better compatibility.

To get your system to be recognised at all what worked for me was:

1. Disconnect battery and power
2. Connect CH341A to second system
3. Connect J6100 port
4. Connect battery
5. Connect power (fans will start spinning)
6. Disconnect power
7. Disconnect battery (fans will stop spinning)
8. Try to dump/write using flashrom/whatever

This method consistently worked for me without any additional power source.

I have got everything working perfectly now. Major thanks to @gilles_polysoft for basically kickstarting this whole project, to @dosdude1 for saving my day, to @ohnggni for his instructions and every other helpful poster around here. We've got a good thing going here and who knows, maybe Apple will even listen to us someday and update the bootroms themselves.

 

[davibe]

I am testing the stock apple 512 ssd in my macbook pro 15" mid 2015. I wanted to get an idea of how it compares to the results i read on this post. I am getting 0.04 A while idling, measured using istatsmenu. Performance wise i am getting a very low write speed 400 mb/s and decent read speed 1800 mb/s. I am on battery.

The lowest-consunming third party ssd I have read on this thread idle around 0.17 A iirc. I also can't find any intel 760p / adata sx8200 with 2Tb capacity on amazon (Italy).

 

[Just_iWorld]

Hello everyone, I've installed Intel 760p, 1 Tb model on my MacBook Pro mid 2014. Initially, the mac did not wake up from hibernation/sleep, so had to set

sudo pmset -a standby 0

After that I tested battery overnight, after about 10 hours it woke up without any problems and the battery lost about 6%, with the original SSD it was 1%. Also, as with others, my SSD is also recognized as an external disk, so it takes an additional 10 seconds to boot the mac. While I was installing Boot Camp it gave an error, this guide helped: #1685.
In addition to that, I had to change the battery setting to "High Performance" as stated here, #1665, to make it work without a charger. If that setting is missing you can add it.
There is only one problem left, except boot room, I can't boot to Boot Camp while pressing Alt after restarting from macOS if it is chosen as a startup disk. Maybe it's because of the system ROM issue. I might modify it later by following Cmd+Q's guide, #1607.

Thank you, everyone, who have posted guides and their results here, they help a lot!

 

[ohnggni]

Hey guys. What a wild ride this was. I have been reading this thread for months now and finally bit the bullet and ordered everything needed a month ago.

I used the black long Sintech-C adapter, a Samsung Evo 960, this J6100 board and a CH341A programmer for my late 2013 rMBP 15". I've got everything working now, but I wanted to note a few important caveats in case anyone else stumbles upon similar problems later:

• My J6100 board came without a status LED. That threw me off for a bit, because all the photos of it here had one attached. It's not really much of a deal, you don't need it, but I still found it worth mentioning
• Definitely backup your bootrom using ROMTool by dosdude before you do anything! Don't assume that the backup you do before flashing will be a good one! It literally saved my machine! I tried to roughly follow these instructions by ohnggni, but the CH341A software always recognised my machine's chip as something unknown. I stupidly assumed there would not be much of a difference in terms of chips between those macbooks and manually set the manufacturer and chip to those shown in the post. The worst part was that when I test read the bootrom it looked very much like the backup I did using ROMTool so I assumed it was working, when in reality the dump was totally corrupted. The writes were corrupted, too (obviously, in hindsight, as it's a completely different chip). While trying to write my patched bootrom it totally messed the data up and my machine did not boot anymore.
• I was clueless on what to do for a few hours. I knew I probably had a good backup using ROMTool, but I had no idea how to write it using the CH341A programmer software. Turns out, you just can't. It doesn't know the chip, so it can't communicate with it (was using version 1.29, so pretty recent if not the newest one).
• What finally saved me was flashrom on macOS (Linux systems would have probably worked, too). When trying to read the chip using flashrom it instantly recognised it and when writing my backup (and later on the patched bootrom) it did so and verified it without any errors.
• TL;DR: Use flashrom on macOS/Linux instead of the CH341A programmer software. You might be lucky and have your chip recognised by the latter or you might mess up badly with the data on your chip. flashrom has much better compatibility.

View attachment 776116
To get your system to be recognised at all what worked for me was:

1. Disconnect battery and power
2. Connect CH341A to second system
3. Connect J6100 port
4. Connect battery
5. Connect power (fans will start spinning)
6. Disconnect power
7. Disconnect battery (fans will stop spinning)
8. Try to dump/write using flashrom/whatever

This method consistently worked for me without any additional power source.

I have got everything working perfectly now. Major thanks to @gilles_polysoft for basically kickstarting this whole project, to @dosdude1 for saving my day, to @ohnggni for his instructions and every other helpful poster around here. We've got a good thing going here and who knows, maybe Apple will even listen to us someday and update the bootroms themselves.

Congratulations! I also have the experience my macbook made a brick during modification.
To be sure, at the beginning of this work we have to connect battery port and plug the magsafe in order to recognize the chip. Once the chip is detected correctly, we have to unplug the magsafe and disconnect battery port prior to writing the modified bootrom so as not to make our macbook be a brick. Since my second system was only the desktop PC based on Win10, I had to use CH341A programmer v 1.29 at that time.
[doublepost=1534387716][/doublepost]

Hello everyone, I've installed Intel 760p, 1 Tb model on my MacBook Pro mid 2014. Initially, the mac did not wake up from hibernation/sleep, so had to set

sudo pmset -a standby 0

After that I tested battery overnight, after about 10 hours it woke up without any problems and the battery lost about 6%, with the original SSD it was 1%. Also, as with others, my SSD is also recognized as an external disk, so it takes an additional 10 seconds to boot the mac. While I was installing Boot Camp it gave an error, this guide helped: #1685.
In addition to that, I had to change the battery setting to "High Performance" as stated here, #1665, to make it work without a charger. If that setting is missing you can add it.
There is only one problem left, except boot room, I can't boot to Boot Camp while pressing Alt after restarting from macOS if it is chosen as a startup disk. Maybe it's because of the system ROM issue. I might modify it later by following Cmd+Q's guide, #1607.

Thank you, everyone, who have posted guides and their results here, they help a lot!

Regarding the power management setting in the Bootcamp without a charger,
you can keep "Balanced" in case that you change from "maximum power savings" to "moderate power savings" in [advanced setting]-[PCI Express]-[Link state powermanagement]-[On battery].

Please try...

 

[Tony N.]

One thing that I don't understand is why would the 970Evo hit battery life so much? P=IV right so current = 1.3A *3.3V is only 4.3W at full draw. Is it triggering something else?

Non-Apple SSD do not have the ability to enter power savings mode which let's it idle at a very low voltage. Samsung's drives idles somewhere around 1.5w constantly. That's if you're not using it. If you're using it, it'll hit that peak 4-5w range which kills battery.

 

[Eric B.]

[doublepost=1534422969][/doublepost]

MBP 13" is only PCIe 2.0 so it maxes out at 1500 read and 1350 write. Power draw spikes to around 1.2A during BlackMagic per the graph although the drop down menu indicated 1.30A. So far I am pleased with the drive. Seems frugal with the battery and none of the drawbacks of QLC drives, whilst not costing much more. Longevity is the only thing that remains to be seen.

In your opinion, which SSD do you recommend ?, The SX8200 or the WD Black (2018).
Aspects to be taken into account in order of importance:
1. Energy consumption
2. Speed
3. Sustained performance

I have a macbook pro 13" 2015

 

[weckart]

In your opinion, which SSD do you recommend ?, The SX8200 or the WD Black (2018).

There is a website which compares user supplied benchmarks. Both have their pluses and minuses. I think the Adata may run a little cooler at idle although the new WD Black looks a lot better than its earlier incarnation.

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compar...PG-SX8200-NVMe-PCIe-M2-480GB/m485459vsm482768

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12543/the-western-digital-wd-black-3d-nand-ssd-review/9

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13112/the-adata-sx8200-gammix-s11-nvme-ssd-review/8

Because the 120GB Samsung drive Apple supplied for my MBP was a bit of a slouch, pretty much any NVMe drive would offer a performance upgrade at the cost of battery life. I thought the SX8200 offered a decent balance between economy and performance and all at a below market price.

 

[Eric B.]

There is a website which compares user supplied benchmarks. Both have their pluses and minuses. I think the Adata may run a little cooler at idle although the new WD Black looks a lot better than its earlier incarnation.

http://ssd.userbenchmark.com/Compar...PG-SX8200-NVMe-PCIe-M2-480GB/m485459vsm482768

https://www.anandtech.com/show/12543/the-western-digital-wd-black-3d-nand-ssd-review/9

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13112/the-adata-sx8200-gammix-s11-nvme-ssd-review/8

Because the 120GB Samsung drive Apple supplied for my MBP was a bit of a slouch, pretty much any NVMe drive would offer a performance upgrade at the cost of battery life. I thought the SX8200 offered a decent balance between economy and performance and all at a below market price.

Some time back I remember I tried on my Macbook Pro 13 "2015 a 1TB Kingston KC1000 SSD with the long black Sintech adapter but I had the problem that the lower cover aluminium did not close, The Kingston KC1000 1Tb has dimensions of 80 x 22 x 3.5 mm and I see that the SX8200 is also equal in dimensions.The cover of your Macbook Pro 13" 2015 could close without problems? Your SSD SX8200 is the 480Gb or 960Gb version? Is the SSD SX8200 single sided or double sided?

 

[weckart]

Your SSD SX8200 is the 480Gb or 960Gb version? Is the SSD SX8200 single sided or double sided?

480GB. It is approx 1.0mm too long, so you need to use the longer screw supplied with the Sintech black adapter. I put the minimum turns in to secure it otherwise the SX8200 bows upwards from the middle. There is plenty of room to attach it, however, and my low temps don’t indicate any thermal issues.

I might open it up and see if I can push the drive a tad further into the adapter. Otherwise, if I were worried, it would be dremel time.

 

[H.H]

Some time back I remember I tried on my Macbook Pro 13 "2015 a 1TB Kingston KC1000 SSD with the long black Sintech adapter but I had the problem that the lower cover aluminium did not close, The Kingston KC1000 1Tb has dimensions of 80 x 22 x 3.5 mm and I see that the SX8200 is also equal in dimensions.The cover of your Macbook Pro 13" 2015 could close without problems? Your SSD SX8200 is the 480Gb or 960Gb version? Is the SSD SX8200 single sided or double sided?

I have SX8200 960GB on my Mbp 13'' 2015 with this adapter:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073F9LDD5

It fits just fine. No bend or any issue with the back cover.

960GB is double sided.

 

[jxjoker]

hi guys. just to share my experience with 970 evo and sintech long black adapter. I have a rmbp 15" 2015.
so far the 970 evo is the best aftermarket ssd for my Mac in my opinion.
I tried in the past kc1000 and 960 evo and 960 pro.
first, the 970 evo reaches top performance, as picture.
second: battery lifetime, is great. not as long as the apple original ssd, but not bad as 960evo-pro.
very happy with it

ps I'm not using sudo pmset standby 0

hi,seems goes well with 970 evo ,how about with 970 pro?
[doublepost=1534453039][/doublepost]can samsung 970 pro work perfectly on mbp mid 2015 15inch?
can anyone help me step by step how to upgrade ssd to 970 pro/evo?

 

[deadsoul]

Hi Guys,

I was sick and tired of 3.5 hours battery life with the 960 EVO 1TB. I bought the new Intel 660p QLC SSD 512GB (for now, waiting for 1TB to be release) for $100. It's running so much better! I'm getting 7+ hours again! I haven't tested too much but I would say if I were to surf and do light task I should get somewhere around 6 to be honest. I just got it so further testing to be done.

Here are some brief specs:
MBP 15" mid-2014 (PCIe 2.0)
Speed: 900 write/1500 read
Power consumption: 0.17A idle/0.80A active
TRIM: On

Brand new High Sierra install, the system idles at 11-12w draw. This is according to istatmenu. My battery has like 30-40 cycles on it. It's new.

Let me know if you guys have any questions!
View attachment 775977 View attachment 775978 View attachment 775979 View attachment 775980 View attachment 775981

8/15/18 Update:

I wanted to post this to make sure that I'm fair to Samsung in my review. I recently found out that the reason I was getting 3.5 hours on the Samsung was because I had two apps that was preventing my laptop from switching to integrated graphics. It was solely using Nvidia gfx which is a huge power draw. The apps responsible was Menubus and Screenconnect. For some reason these two apps kept the Nvidia graphics card on 24/7 while on battery.

Without these two apps preventing the laptop from switching to Iris Pro gfx, I'm now getting more like 5-6 hours of battery life on light use. This still not as good as the Intel 660p but it's not stupid bad like 3.5 hours. The laptop is much cooler while running on the Iris Pro as well.

I would say with the Samsung you're losing somewhere around 30-60 mins of battery time. Which is not bad if you're on a mid-2015 MBP 15" since you're able to take advantage of the speed performance. For those of us on PCIe 2.0 x4 it's not worth the extra juice drain for the performance. The Intel drive will almost max us out.

The 960 EVO idles at around 0.40A average (you could see from the picture below it spikes up and down between 0.36A and 0.53A while it's idling and spikes up to 1.0A-1.4A during full use (running Blackmagic disk test).

Before my entire laptop was idling at 23-24w average, after shutting down those two apps to allow Iris Pro gfx to switch, it's now idling at around 14-15w average. I pretty much gain 3 hours of battery life from this simple fix alone.

I'm quite happy with the Intel 660p so far and I'm probably gonna end up returning the 960 EVO.

BIG FYI - I'm also running Volta to undervolt the CPU by 80mV. This probably gain about 20-30 mins of battery.

I hope this helps someone out there. Cheers.

System draw @ idle w/ 960 EVO
View attachment 776263

960 EVO idle and full use
View attachment 776264

Some more 960 EVO info
View attachment 776265 View attachment 776266

Hi Tony where did you get the Intel 660p QLC SSD 512GB seems like a good price to me, any problems with hibernation or sleep? im want it for a macbook air 13 2014.

 

[patrickptl]

Have been going through this thread for a period of time, just want to contribute a little bit:

In short, I have done an installation without major problem.

Mine MBPr is a Mid-2014 15". I have the sintech long black adapter and a 1TB WD Black (2018) purchased.

I was with OSX Sierra (12), updated it to 10.13.6 with a small installer (2x MB),
then have the new NVMe SSD put into the machine.

Then I booted into a installation USB made with a large installer(~5GB) downloaded with a MBP early 2011 13"
The drive is recognised as internal as shown in the installer and the installation is easy.

I got a PCIe 2 X4, and the write speed is around 1300MB/s.
(The reason to choose WD black is the possible heat issue from 970 EVO and it costs much less than a 970 Pro,
I do some photography and sometimes video editing also)

Boot time is not the shortest, I didn't skip the APFS, and I used the command:
sudo pmset -a standby 0 hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0

The battery is still 100% after the machine was left sleep for ~7hr.

Is now trying to install windows 10 through bootcamp.

 

[dobow]

Have been going through this thread for a period of time, just want to contribute a little bit:

In short, I have done an installation without major problem.

Mine MBPr is a Mid-2014 15". I have the sintech long black adapter and a 1TB WD Black (2018) purchased.

I was with OSX Sierra (12), updated it to 10.13.6 with a small installer (2x MB),
then have the new NVMe SSD put into the machine.

Then I booted into a installation USB made with a large installer(~5GB) downloaded with a MBP early 2011 13"
The drive is recognised as internal as shown in the installer and the installation is easy.

I got a PCIe 2 X4, and the write speed is around 1300MB/s.
(The reason to choose WD black is the possible heat issue from 970 EVO and it costs much less than a 970 Pro,
I do some photography and sometimes video editing also)

Boot time is not the shortest, I didn't skip the APFS, and I used the command:
sudo pmset -a standby 0 hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0

The battery is still 100% after the machine was left sleep for ~7hr.

Is now trying to install windows 10 through bootcamp.

What is your SSD energy usage with iStatMenu?

 

[davibe]

Does anybody know if this adapter works with nvme disks ?
https://www.lambda-tek.it/MicroStorage-ST-NGFF2013~sh/B42335407

it's reported as being produced by MicroStorage but the product id clearly matches the syntech one and the picture shows it being used with a Samsung 960 evo (which is nvme).

Thx

 

[Jilly Bowman]

Does anybody know if this adapter works with nvme disks ?
https://www.lambda-tek.it/MicroStorage-ST-NGFF2013~sh/B42335407

it's reported as being produced by MicroStorage but the product id clearly matches the syntech one and the picture shows it being used with a Samsung 960 evo (which is nvme).

Thx

I don't know if these work but even though it shows an NVME drive, the description of the adapter clearly states that it is for NGFF drives. I have tried a different, much cheaper adapter which said NGFF and it simply did not work with NVME drives, so be careful. Maybe message the seller and ask.

 

[weckart]

Does anybody know if this adapter works with nvme disks ?

Regardless, why pay €24 when the Sintech sells for $14?

 

[davibe]

Regardless, why pay €24 when the Sintech sells for $14?

Shipping times and discharging taxes (China does not create EU invoices)
Mostly shipping times

 

[weckart]

Shipping times and discharging taxes (China does not create EU invoices)
Mostly shipping times

Mine didn't take that long. Maybe 2 weeks. The VAT threshold is €22 for Italy and for the UK it is much lower at £15. There was no VAT to pay for me.

Lambda-Tek is a UK company. You will still have to wait a few days for delivery, I would suspect, but it's your choice.

 

[Vaibhav S]

Have been going through this thread for a period of time, just want to contribute a little bit:

In short, I have done an installation without major problem.

Mine MBPr is a Mid-2014 15". I have the sintech long black adapter and a 1TB WD Black (2018) purchased.

I was with OSX Sierra (12), updated it to 10.13.6 with a small installer (2x MB),
then have the new NVMe SSD put into the machine.

Then I booted into a installation USB made with a large installer(~5GB) downloaded with a MBP early 2011 13"
The drive is recognised as internal as shown in the installer and the installation is easy.

I got a PCIe 2 X4, and the write speed is around 1300MB/s.
(The reason to choose WD black is the possible heat issue from 970 EVO and it costs much less than a 970 Pro,
I do some photography and sometimes video editing also)

Boot time is not the shortest, I didn't skip the APFS, and I used the command:
sudo pmset -a standby 0 hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0

The battery is still 100% after the machine was left sleep for ~7hr.

Is now trying to install windows 10 through bootcamp.

It'd be good to see the istat details soon please.

 

[Jilly Bowman]

Mine didn't take that long. Maybe 2 weeks. The VAT threshold is €22 for Italy and for the UK it is much lower at £15. There was no VAT to pay for me.

Lambda-Tek is a UK company. You will still have to wait a few days for delivery, I would suspect, but it's your choice.

I've had several sintechs delivered to my UK address, never had to pay anything extra and they were delivered in a few days.

 

[foliage]

Have been going through this thread for a period of time, just want to contribute a little bit:

In short, I have done an installation without major problem.

Mine MBPr is a Mid-2014 15". I have the sintech long black adapter and a 1TB WD Black (2018) purchased.

I was with OSX Sierra (12), updated it to 10.13.6 with a small installer (2x MB),
then have the new NVMe SSD put into the machine.

Then I booted into a installation USB made with a large installer(~5GB) downloaded with a MBP early 2011 13"
The drive is recognised as internal as shown in the installer and the installation is easy.

I got a PCIe 2 X4, and the write speed is around 1300MB/s.
(The reason to choose WD black is the possible heat issue from 970 EVO and it costs much less than a 970 Pro,
I do some photography and sometimes video editing also)

Boot time is not the shortest, I didn't skip the APFS, and I used the command:
sudo pmset -a standby 0 hibernatemode 0 autopoweroff 0

The battery is still 100% after the machine was left sleep for ~7hr.

Is now trying to install windows 10 through bootcamp.

Great to hear your installation went well.

Please do let us know what your battery life, temps, and SSD energy usage are like using iStatMenu.

 

[xelanaiznac]

I am testing the stock apple 512 ssd in my macbook pro 15" mid 2015. I wanted to get an idea of how it compares to the results i read on this post. I am getting 0.04 A while idling, measured using istatsmenu. Performance wise i am getting a very low write speed 400 mb/s and decent read speed 1800 mb/s. I am on battery.

The lowest-consunming third party ssd I have read on this thread idle around 0.17 A iirc. I also can't find any intel 760p / adata sx8200 with 2Tb capacity on amazon (Italy).

hi. have a look here for 2tb intel 760p
https://geizhals.eu/?fs=intel+760p&in=

 

[enlightened_monkey]

Does anybody know if this adapter works with nvme disks ?
https://www.lambda-tek.it/MicroStorage-ST-NGFF2013~sh/B42335407

it's reported as being produced by MicroStorage but the product id clearly matches the syntech one and the picture shows it being used with a Samsung 960 evo (which is nvme).

Thx

I have bought the same one for mid 2014 macbook pro 15 inch because the long one gonna take few more days to arrive. I got the adapter today but my nvme ssd is still on the way. Did you had any luck ?

 

[AbdallahRizk]

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

dude you are the best I've been trying to solve it literally about a month, finally it works thumbs up