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

[donvito92]

Hello guys. The SSD on my Early 2015 Macbook Pro Retina 13" broke down. I followed this forum and ordered a WD Black G2 SSD and Sintech black long adapter. I was on the latest OS version of High Sierra when the SSD broke down, so I suspect my firmware version should be fine? Just to be sure, I have version MBP121.0177.B00 according to system profiler. However, I am unable to see the SSD even with diskutil list command line. I am able to see the drive in Ubuntu Live USB, so the SSD is fine and the adapter is also working. I also tried to format the blank SSD as HFS+ with GParted, still not listed in diskutil list. I formatted to 4K block size so that the disk should be detected even if I had Sierra firmware. Still nothing on diskutil list. What else can I try? If it matters, I'm trying this in the internet recovery mode terminal.

 

[Audit13]

Hello guys. The SSD on my Early 2015 Macbook Pro Retina 13" broke down. I followed this forum and ordered a WD Black G2 SSD and Sintech black long adapter. I was on the latest OS version of High Sierra when the SSD broke down, so I suspect my firmware version should be fine? Just to be sure, I have version MBP121.0177.B00 according to system profiler. However, I am unable to see the SSD even with diskutil list command line. I am able to see the drive in Ubuntu Live USB, so the SSD is fine and the adapter is also working. I also tried to format the blank SSD as HFS+ with GParted, still not listed in diskutil list. I formatted to 4K block size so that the disk should be detected even if I had Sierra firmware. Still nothing on diskutil list. What else can I try? If it matters, I'm trying this in the internet recovery mode terminal.

Try installing High Sierra from a bootable usb installer?

 

[solemgar]

Hello everyone. I would like to share my experience on a 13" rmbp and bringing some questions as well.

I installed a samsung 970 evo on latest high sierra, black long sintech adapter. No problems with the install procedure. Link is 4x and I didn't apply kapton tape (yet). Speeds are 1500 read/write aprox. and I noticed more heat in the area where the disk is installed. My questions:

1. Heat is normal? Not sure if it was the same with the stock one
2. Battery drain. I see a 3% drainage per hour on sleep mode (lid closed) ! Is this expected? That's the thing driving me most nuts.
3. Should I get rid of the 970 evo and install a 760p instead?
4. Any other experience that any other user can share with a 970 and , if needed, a recommendation for a different model?

Thanks!

 

[weckart]

Any other experience that any other user can share with a 970 and , if needed, a recommendation for a different model?

Thanks!

Read at least the last couple of pages of the thread maybe?

 

[Trunkz]

Hello everyone. I would like to share my experience on a 13" rmbp and bringing some questions as well.

I installed a samsung 970 evo on latest high sierra, black long sintech adapter. No problems with the install procedure. Link is 4x and I didn't apply kapton tape (yet). Speeds are 1500 read/write aprox. and I noticed more heat in the area where the disk is installed. My questions:

1. Heat is normal? Not sure if it was the same with the stock one
2. Battery drain. I see a 3% drainage per hour on sleep mode (lid closed) ! Is this expected? That's the thing driving me most nuts.
3. Should I get rid of the 970 evo and install a 760p instead?
4. Any other experience that any other user can share with a 970 and , if needed, a recommendation for a different model?

Thanks!

1. Yes - NVMe drives run hotter than their AHCI counterparts; certainly the Samsung ones.
2. Yes if you have a pre-2015 rMBP. The Macbook doesn't go into the deeper sleep state; hence the increase in battery consumption.
3. Depends on what you want; running the 970 Evo has killed my battery life but the performance is better than the 760p. Inadvertently I have ordered a 760p and will replace it once Mojave GM comes out If the battery life improves significantly then I shall keep it and return the evo.
4. Apart from the EVO and the 760p; guys here have had good success with the WD Black v2 and the ADATA SX8200

 

[solemgar]

Hello Trunkz ! Thanks for your answers, really appreciate them. I have been reading the thread up and down but wanted to get a second opinion from someome who has been using it recently. I see that the general consensus is that the 760p or the ADATA are much less power hungry than the 970.

If someone else is having issues with the deep sleep on a 970 evo, I was able to fix it with pmstat:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25

It takes longer to wake up from sleep (a couple of seconds), but it is not really noticeable and the battery drain is about 2% per 8 hours ,which is pretty good.

I think I will test it a couple of days and probably return the 970 for a 760p. I can return the drive within 15 days and get the money back, and the price difference is not really that high.

Thanks again Trunkz and everybody else who is sharing their experiences with this! Upgrading SSD space was really needed, 128 gb gets filled up pretty quick.

May I also ask why are you waiting for Mojave GM? Everyone foresees problems with the upgrades with these drives? That worries me, to be keeping an eye on the upgrades in case it blows up!

 

[weckart]

May I also ask why are you waiting for Mojave GM? Everyone foresees problems with the upgrades with these drives? That worries me, to be keeping an eye on the upgrades in case it blows up!

Because Mojave is in beta status and contains a lot of debugging code, which will impinge on performance. A truer reflection of real life usage only really comes when the GM emerges and the extra code is stripped out. And, given Apple's history, probably only with 10.14.2 or later.

 

[ilovejamon]

Hi all!

Here is my experience with a mid-2014 15" rMBP (originally running Mojave Public Beta on stock Apple SSD).

I bought this adapter (before finding this thread) together with a 1TB Samsung EVO 970. I covered the upper part of the adapter with Kapton tape as others suggested.

Installed it without problems. Booted with an external USB drive running Mojave PB, formatted the new SSD in Disk Utility without any issue. Installed Mojave on it. Everything fine and working. Very fast disk: >= 1200 MB/s read and write speeds. Only downsides: heat (a lot!) and significant battery drain (idle power drain around 0.47A) just as others have reported here.

Returned the Samsung as it was not a workable solution for me and got a 960 GB Adata XPG SX8200. Installed using the same adapter and same procedure. Much better overall: the system runs hotter than with stock Apple SSD but nowhere near what I was getting with the EVO. Power drain at idle is 0.18A. Speeds comparable to the EVO (I get 1200 MB/s write and 1500 MB/s read).

I left the rMBP with lid closed and no charger overnight and only got a 6% drop in battery charge. No problem at all waking up from sleep. During regular use I get around 6 hours of battery life according to iStatMenu.

Overall a good solution for me. For reference here are my pmset -g values:

System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 10800
standby 1
halfdim 1
acwake 0
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap 0
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 1
autopoweroffdelay 28800
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 2
Standby Battery Threshold 50
lidwake 1

Thanks to all who made this possible!

 

[solemgar]

Hi all!

Here is my experience with a mid-2014 15" rMBP (originally running Mojave Public Beta on stock Apple SSD).

I bought this adapter (before finding this thread) together with a 1TB Samsung EVO 970. I covered the upper part of the adapter with Kapton tape as others suggested.

Installed it without problems. Booted with an external USB drive running Mojave PB, formatted the new SSD in Disk Utility without any issue. Installed Mojave on it. Everything fine and working. Very fast disk: >= 1200 MB/s read and write speeds. Only downsides: heat (a lot!) and significant battery drain (idle power drain around 0.47A) just as others have reported here.

Returned the Samsung as it was not a workable solution for me and got a 960 GB Adata XPG SX8200. Installed using the same adapter and same procedure. Much better overall: the system runs hotter than with stock Apple SSD but nowhere near what I was getting with the EVO. Power drain at idle is 0.18A. Speeds comparable to the EVO (I get 1200 MB/s write and 1500 MB/s read).

I left the rMBP with lid closed and no charger overnight and only got a 6% drop in battery charge. No problem at all waking up from sleep. During regular use I get around 6 hours of battery life according to iStatMenu.

Overall a good solution for me. For reference here are my pmset -g values:

System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 10800
standby 1
halfdim 1
acwake 0
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap 0
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 1
autopoweroffdelay 28800
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 2
Standby Battery Threshold 50
lidwake 1

Thanks to all who made this possible!

Thanks for reporting that! And thanks Trunkz for your answer as well.

Between the 760p and the sx8200 which one seems to be less power hungry? About to make the order

 

[Eric B.]

Hi all!

Here is my experience with a mid-2014 15" rMBP (originally running Mojave Public Beta on stock Apple SSD).

I bought this adapter (before finding this thread) together with a 1TB Samsung EVO 970. I covered the upper part of the adapter with Kapton tape as others suggested.

Installed it without problems. Booted with an external USB drive running Mojave PB, formatted the new SSD in Disk Utility without any issue. Installed Mojave on it. Everything fine and working. Very fast disk: >= 1200 MB/s read and write speeds. Only downsides: heat (a lot!) and significant battery drain (idle power drain around 0.47A) just as others have reported here.

Returned the Samsung as it was not a workable solution for me and got a 960 GB Adata XPG SX8200. Installed using the same adapter and same procedure. Much better overall: the system runs hotter than with stock Apple SSD but nowhere near what I was getting with the EVO. Power drain at idle is 0.18A. Speeds comparable to the EVO (I get 1200 MB/s write and 1500 MB/s read).

I left the rMBP with lid closed and no charger overnight and only got a 6% drop in battery charge. No problem at all waking up from sleep. During regular use I get around 6 hours of battery life according to iStatMenu.

Overall a good solution for me. For reference here are my pmset -g values:

System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 10800
standby 1
halfdim 1
acwake 0
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap 0
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 1
autopoweroffdelay 28800
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 2
Standby Battery Threshold 50
lidwake 1

Thanks to all who made this possible!

How was the temperature behavior with the SX8200?

 

[ilovejamon]

Thanks for reporting that! And thanks Trunkz for your answer as well.

Between the 760p and the sx8200 which one seems to be less power hungry? About to make the order

I do not have the Intel so I cannot comment from firsthand experience. However others have reported in this same thread (around page 72) pretty much the same power draw at idle for both SSDs.
[doublepost=1535892919][/doublepost]

How was the temperature behavior with the SX8200?

Hotter than with Apple stock SSD but around 10 degrees C cooler than the EVO. Not a scientific test though as ambient temps were also drastically different. Still, hot. Too hot to hold on your lap on a summer day - for me.

 

[solemgar]

I do not have the Intel so I cannot comment from firsthand experience. However others have reported in this same thread (around page 72) pretty much the same power draw at idle for both SSDs.
[doublepost=1535892919][/doublepost]

Hotter than with Apple stock SSD but around 10 degrees C cooler than the EVO. Not a scientific test though as ambient temps were also drastically different. Still, hot. Too hot to hold on your lap on a summer day - for me.

Seems that the adata is the way to go for less power drain then. I will order the 256gb one since the price is very good.

 

[donvito92]

Try installing High Sierra from a bootable usb installer?

I can confirm that the WD SSD is listed in diskutil when I boot with a USB installer. I was initially hoping that I wouldn't have to borrow another Mac and will just get the OS with internet recovery, but that doesn't seem possible.

I was able to install macOS on the SSD and there doesn't seem to be any trouble with reboot/sleep for short times (10 minutes). Yet to test longer sleep times. Using Blackmagic, I see that read speeds are a steady 1450MB/s, but write speed starts out at ~1300MB/s and falls to 500-600MB/s till the end. Again, this is with 13" rMBP Early 2015 (x4 PCIe 2.0) and WD Black G2 250GB SSD. Perhaps Kapton tape will help, it's on its way.

The power consumption according to iStat menu is 0.35A at idle.

 

[Audit13]

I can confirm that the WD SSD is listed in diskutil when I boot with a USB installer. I was initially hoping that I wouldn't have to borrow another Mac and will just get the OS with internet recovery, but that doesn't seem possible.

I was able to install macOS on the SSD and there doesn't seem to be any trouble with reboot/sleep for short times (10 minutes). Yet to test longer sleep times. Using Blackmagic, I see that read speeds are a steady 1450MB/s, but write speed starts out at ~1300MB/s and falls to 500-600MB/s till the end. Again, this is with 13" rMBP Early 2015 (x4 PCIe 2.0) and WD Black G2 250GB SSD. Perhaps Kapton tape will help, it's on its way.

The power consumption according to iStat menu is 0.35A at idle.

Glad you got it to work. Read/write speeds tend to be higher with larger capacity drives. I've got an Intel 600p in an early 2015 Air. Read/write speeds are really high but they are fine for my purposes. Many people don't notice the speed difference unless the MacBook is performing a lot of read/write functions with large files.

 

[Khaleal]

I have a 15" mid 2014 Macbook Pro with 256GB SSD and interested in upgrading to 512GB/1TB. Reliability and battery life are top priority for me, I don't care about speed as long as it's as fast as the current stock 256GB Apple SSD.
What is my best option? From my understanding, 2014/2013 Macbooks do not support NVMe natively, so let's say I install a AHCI SSD (M.2) instead of NVMe, will I have battery drain/heat/sleep issues?

 

[weckart]

What is my best option? From my understanding, 2014/2013 Macbooks do not support NVMe natively, so let's say I install a AHCI SSD (M.2) instead of NVMe, will I have battery drain/heat/sleep issues?

AHCI is supported but obsolete. Good luck finding a drive at a decent price, hence this thread. The Samsung SM951 was well regarded when it was available.

 

[Khaleal]

AHCI is supported but obsolete. Good luck finding a drive at a decent price, hence this thread. The Samsung SM951 was well regarded when it was available.

So does that mean that if I install an AHCI drive I won't have to deal with all battery/heat/sleep issues (15" mid 2014)?

 

[donvito92]

Glad you got it to work. Read/write speeds tend to be higher with larger capacity drives. I've got an Intel 600p in an early 2015 Air. Read/write speeds are really high but they are fine for my purposes. Many people don't notice the speed difference unless the MacBook is performing a lot of read/write functions with large files.

The MacBook drains about 3-4% battery when put to sleep (probably not deep sleep or hibernating because I only let it sleep for two three hour intervals). The drain will probably be slower once it goes to deep sleep/hibernate. I believe I could set hibernatemode to 25 and make it hibernate on sleep.

Buying the WD Black G2 was probably not the best decision? Is there any disadvantage to using the Adata XPG SX8200? It seems to have Samsung-level speed performance, lower price, lower power consumption...

 

[petru44o]

Hi fellas, please help me out!
I have Mid 2013 13" Macbook Air, and I use SAMSUNG MZVLW512HMJP-00000 (Samsung PM961)

Macbook cant wake up from sleep. Reboot goes fine as well as cold boot.
I tried 'sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25' but it did not help. I also removed tick on 'try to put disks in sleep if possible' in power options.

Is it the only option to disable hibernation at all as well as standby? Will it affect battery life dramaticly? Waht is the best option energywise?

 

[weckart]

So does that mean that if I install an AHCI drive I won't have to deal with all battery/heat/sleep issues (15" mid 2014)?

It won't be as optimised because the drive won't have Apple firmware on it. There is also this nugget from the forum.

#5

The last one to sell on MR went for $340 for 512GB. Not really worth it since similar results are possible from NVMe drives costing up to a third as much. Once Mojave is out, you can flash your firmware with the NVMe driver pretty safe in the knowledge that there is unlikely to be any further firmware updates from Apple.

 

[foliage]

The MacBook drains about 3-4% battery when put to sleep (probably not deep sleep or hibernating because I only let it sleep for two three hour intervals). The drain will probably be slower once it goes to deep sleep/hibernate. I believe I could set hibernatemode to 25 and make it hibernate on sleep.

Buying the WD Black G2 was probably not the best decision? Is there any disadvantage to using the Adata XPG SX8200? It seems to have Samsung-level speed performance, lower price, lower power consumption...

From reviews it seems the WD Black G2 performs more or less on par with the 970 EVO, and draws less power. How is your battery life during idle use compared to stock?

As I understand, the Adata SX8200 is regarded as the best implementation of the SMI SM2262 controller (also found in the Intel 760p and HP EX920) and they largely perform similarly (particularly idle power draw in Mac OS). However the SX8200 squeezes out better performance due to overprovisioning and a larger SLC cache over the previous SM2262 SSD’s.

An important caveat is that the 1TB ADATA SX8200 may be physically too large for the MBP enclosure when used with the long black Sintech adaptor, as it is a double sided/width SSD. It would be great if someone was able to test this if they had one on hand.

 

[donvito92]

From reviews it seems the WD Black G2 performs more or less on par with the 970 EVO, and draws less power. How is your battery life during idle use compared to stock?

As I understand, the Adata SX8200 is regarded as the best implementation of the SMI SM2262 controller (also found in the Intel 760p and HP EX920) and they largely perform similarly (particularly idle power draw in Mac OS). However the SX8200 squeezes out better performance due to overprovisioning and a larger SLC cache over the previous SM2262 SSD’s.

An important caveat is that the 1TB ADATA SX8200 may be physically too large for the MBP enclosure when used with the long black Sintech adaptor, as it is a double sided/width SSD. It would be great if someone was able to test this if they had one on hand.

With idle usage, I feel that the battery drain is 50-70% more as compared to stock. That is probably expected given that WD draws 0.35A while the stock draws around 0.15A (I have not seen the stock draw personally but others have reported this). I can live with that.

The bigger issue for me is power draw during sleep. The stock SSD was very economical with that, whereas WD draws 3-4% battery per hour. Is it the case that these aftermarket SSDs are not being put in low power state during sleep? The workaround is to set hibernatemode to 25, which is not very noticeable on wake up.

Still might be worth going for SX8200 or Intel 760p. I bet the idle usage would be lower on them as well. I don't need very high write speeds and I don't usually read/write large files.

 

[foliage]

With idle usage, I feel that the battery drain is 50-70% more as compared to stock. That is probably expected given that WD draws 0.35A while the stock draws around 0.15A (I have not seen the stock draw personally but others have reported this). I can live with that.

The bigger issue for me is power draw during sleep. The stock SSD was very economical with that, whereas WD draws 3-4% battery per hour. Is it the case that these aftermarket SSDs are not being put in low power state during sleep? The workaround is to set hibernatemode to 25, which is not very noticeable on wake up.

Still might be worth going for SX8200 or Intel 760p. I bet the idle usage would be lower on them as well. I don't need very high write speeds and I don't usually read/write large files.

Yes I believe so; that Mac OS hasn’t the necessary code to enable low power states for third party NVME drives, which is definitely a source of frustration. I wonder if someone more knowledgeble than me would be able to find a workaround for this. Anandtech’s schematic (attached) shows ‘active idle power consumption’ which may be the true power draw in the setting of Mac OS.

And yes SX8200 and Intel 760p appear to be great options re performance : power usage : price, if 970 EVO / WD Black G2 are too power hungry for one’s usage.

 

[Trunkz]

I have a 15" mid 2014 Macbook Pro with 256GB SSD and interested in upgrading to 512GB/1TB. Reliability and battery life are top priority for me, I don't care about speed as long as it's as fast as the current stock 256GB Apple SSD.
What is my best option? From my understanding, 2014/2013 Macbooks do not support NVMe natively, so let's say I install a AHCI SSD (M.2) instead of NVMe, will I have battery drain/heat/sleep issues?

This is incorrect. Pre-2015 rMBP support NVMe providing you are running the latest bootrom. This is applied by High Sierra.

What isn't supported however is proper hibernation from said NVMe - this require a bootrom patch which some have attempted (but this requires you to flash your bootrom with a programmer etc..) the downside of not doing this is increased battery usage during 'sleep'.

 

[ilovejamon]

What isn't supported however is proper hibernation from said NVMe - this require a bootrom patch which some have attempted (but this requires you to flash your bootrom with a programmer etc..) the downside of not doing this is increased battery usage during 'sleep'.

This was indeed my understanding as well. However my mid-2014 15" rMBP seems to be immune from sleep issues, which is weird but welcome. I performed another test: charged the battery to 100%, closed the lid, disconnected the charger and let the MacBook Pro sleep overnight. This morning (>12 hours later) iStatMenu was reporting only a 1% charge loss.