Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Upgrading 2013-2015 Macbook Pro SSD to M.2 NVMe
- Thread starter maxthackray
- WikiPost WikiPost
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Hi Wolva,
setup also with no problems at all. I also did a new install of HS with bootstick. I also have great weight / read speed with the drive.
But I have problems with sleep issue as well. I did not change any settings now. maybe I will try this hibernate thing which is mentioned here also.
Or would it be better to go to Mojave? I read something that Mojave is supporting third parties SSD drives...
Can some give me a hint?
Many Thanks!
Andy
Well Mojave GM should be released next week; I anticipate on the 12th September in-line with the keynote. I'm planning on doing a clean install of Mojave on my 760p as I'll be swapping my 970 evo out. I'm not sure if the Mojave beta's have had a bootrom update as those are only installed on Apple SSDs and not third-party ones.
This thread is 79 pages long and almost 2000 posts, yet there is no mention of the MCE 2TB PCIe NVMe SSD for the mid-2015 15" MacBook Pro. Why all the focus on adapters when the MCE works natively out of the box? Cost?
I have an Apple 1TB SSD in my 2015 15" MBP right now, but I am pondering a 2TB replacement. (I've actually been discussing this in this ars technica thread.) The Samsung 970 EVO 2TB PCIe NVMe + Sintech Adapter combo is $230 less than the 2TB MCE. I've seen some of your posts that talk about heat and power consumption, but does anyone have such data on the MCE 2TB?
All said, I am wondering if the MCE 2TB is worth the extra $230 over the 970 EVO + Adapter combo.
One last question. MCE sells an external USB3 enclosure for the Apple SSD you remove, costing $89. Any experiences with those?
Thanks.
I have an Apple 1TB SSD in my 2015 15" MBP right now, but I am pondering a 2TB replacement. (I've actually been discussing this in this ars technica thread.) The Samsung 970 EVO 2TB PCIe NVMe + Sintech Adapter combo is $230 less than the 2TB MCE. I've seen some of your posts that talk about heat and power consumption, but does anyone have such data on the MCE 2TB?
All said, I am wondering if the MCE 2TB is worth the extra $230 over the 970 EVO + Adapter combo.
One last question. MCE sells an external USB3 enclosure for the Apple SSD you remove, costing $89. Any experiences with those?
Thanks.
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Upgrading to Mojave with an Intel 600p in an early 2015 13" Air did not change the bootrom. Replacing the 600p with the original SSD allowed the Mojave upgrade to update the Air's bootrom.
Well, not MCE, but in post #1748, gilles_polysoft did discuss two other NVMe SSD's
(Transcend & OWC Aura) with native support of MBP and found that they are
exactly the same as m.2 NVMe + adapter but at twice the cost. I doubt MCE would
be any different.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I appreciate your opinion but such is mere speculation. That's why I would like to hear from people who have first hand use of the MCE. You see, I've purchased OWC SSDs for several other older Macs in the past, and almost all of those OWC SSDs had problems of one sort or another. I had to go through 2 RMAs to get a MBP SSD (for a 2009 MBP) to finally work. And my attempts at getting their vintage Mac friendly SSDs to work failed entirely, such that they discontinued the entire line of those!
Hearing first-hand user experiences from others is important to me because I am outside the US and often need to buy things from the US and get them shipped to me. And when a problem occurs, it takes a huge amount of time and expense to get the problem resolved or my money back. So before I plunk down the money for a Samsung 970 EVO + Adapter or a MCE 2TB PCIe SSD for my mid-2015 MacBook Pro 15", I want to assess the best 2TB SSD solution available.
By the way, if you read through my (JDW_) posts in this ars technica thread, you will see the responses I received from MCE as well as the Black Magic Disk Speed Test results they gave me. It would seem that the 2TB Samsung + Adapter may be adequate and it would cost $230 less too, but hearing success stories of that combo in a mid-2015 15" MBP would make me feel better. I am also curious about external enclosures for the stock Apple 1TB SSD that I will remove when performing the upgrade.
Thanks.
Did you boot the recovery with a high sierra boot usb ? I did the same the first time I tried the replacement and since the recovery rom on my 2015 macbook had "El Capitan" it wans't showing up until I booted with a high sierra USB.
BTW, with the SX8200, drain is bout 6% for 12 hours of sleep. Not bad.
The only weird thing is that I see the battery percentage jumping from , for example, 82% up to %84 and then down after a while again and then back down!
Hi,
ok
Yep damdest thing I was scrwing about for 10 hours, thought it was defective.
Then connected it via thunderbolt connector to another machine , did a "T" setup to put it into slave mode and it appeared on the other machine as "unformatted".
formatted it, thinking that was enough, but it still did no show up on "command+R" after a reboot of hte portable
So I guess it needs a high sierra usb boot, to fix it.
Which is what i will do now
Last edited:
Ok guys... it went cleanly and it's now running with the 8200.
But one serious issue i noticed.. when you install the
Sintech NGFF M.2 PCIe SSD Card as 2013 2014 2015 MacBook SSD & the 960
There is a screw, on the end of the sintech pcb are two pads that sit by the screw that is used to lock the PCB's in place
As you tighten down the screw, the pressure on hte pads forces the adaptor PCB over the shaft of the screw hole and cause it to become banana shaped (you need a torch to see it), the more you tighten the screw to hold the two pcb the more the bottom one bends.
Ideally you should do the screw finger tight then lock it with some thread lock, before the PCB's bend.
and yes they are seated corectly.
I had that with mine, except my drive bent, not the adapter. I just screwed it in enough to secure it without bending. It's the fault of the Sintech-C adapter. It should have more leeway for slightly longer drives like the SX8200.
If you were OCD about this, you could dremel a deeper groove in the drive if the PCB allows, I suppose.
As alluded to by an earlier post, OWC/Transcend and MCE all produce NVMe drives that plug directly into MacBook Pro. However 79 pages count that you refer to is more to do with the issues that NVMe drives seem to cause; specifically things like 512/4k formatting, hibernation, sleep, battery consumption & heat.
Pre-2015 MBP do not include the later NVMe driver in the bootrom, so are unable to come out of hibernation properly. There is a workaround using pmset for this. Obviously 2015 and later MBP are fine.
All non-Apple SSDs will run with worse battery life; irrespective of make (OWC/Transcend/MCE/Intel/Samsung etc..)
I run with the Samsung 970 EVO + Adapter combo. If you are looking for best performance, then this drive is the best you can get. (You can get a 970 Pro which is better but they don't offer those in 2TB yet) NVMe drives use more power than AHCI drives. Thats a fact for all drives, whether Apple or non-Apple branded ones. PCI2.0 drives will use less power than PCI3.0 drives (i.e. if the drive is running at PCI2.0 speeds; it will use less power than if the same drive was running in PCI3.0) Also some drives are prone to produce more heat as a result so bear this in mind.
Apple NVMe drives are able to run with less power at idle however; hence the battery life suffers with those that aren't Apple drives.
Hope that helps!
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I have a mid-2015 15" MBP so of course I am not interested in the tricks for older MBPs. However, from what I understand it is best to format with the default 4K (AFPS), for sake of speed and to ensure zero issues.
We cannot know if an Apple branded PCIe NVMe 2TB SSD would draw more or less power than the MCE PCIe NVMe because not a single person has tested that scenario. (Not a single person in this thread has claimed to use the MCE 1TB or 2TB NVMe SSDs.) But I would assume that heat output is proportional to power consumption, and I wrote MCE to specifically ask if their 2TB SSD is hotter than the factory Apple 1TB SSD I have now, and they told me it would be about the same. Whether that is the absolute truth or just a guess on the part of MCE is something I cannot know, but that is what they told me. So that is why I am curious to hear from someone who actually uses an MCE 2TB SSD in their 2015 15" MBP.
You said you are using the Samsung EVO 970. If you don't mind, I have some questions for you:
1. Do you have the 2TB model?
2. Did you see an increase in operating temperatures after your upgrade?
3. Do you use this specific Sintech adapter?
4. Can you perform firmware updates within MacOS? (I asked MCE about firmware updates, and they said none are necessary for their SSD because it is made for the MacBook Pro and not any other computer, unlike the Samsung.)
5. Can you post your Black Magic Disk Speed Test results?
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Was this Air on the latest bootrom prior to Mojave? So basically; was it running an 10.13.6 on an original SSD prior to the Mojave update?
[doublepost=1536568207][/doublepost]
Before I answer your questions, I want to make a point clear. We know for a fact that all non-Apple branded drives would use more power than the original drive. This is because non-Apple drives aren't able to enter low power states that the original drives are able to. Ok?
1. I have the 512GB model
2. Yes; the temperature around the back of my MacBook is noticeably hotter under load. iStat also reports the Samsung running around 45 - 48 under load.
3.
4. Firmware updates for the SSD are down to the manufacturer. You can update Samsung drives with their bootable images for example. Firmware updates from Apple for the bootrom can only be applied from an original apple drive; its worth it to keep the original one lying around just so you can update the bootrom as and when necessary.
5. Blackmagic reports 1408MB/s write and 1508MB/s read; PCI2.0x4 speeds as I've got a Late 2013
To give you an example of power usage; my original apple drive would register around 0.14a whereas my Samsung would be around 0.5a - that's a fair old jump. Again bear in mind the original drive is ahci whereas the Samsung is NVMe.
Last edited:
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Yes, the Air was running the latest High Sierra bootrom prior to the Mojave upgrade.
The Air was originally running Sierra on an original 128 GB Apple SSD. I installed High Sierra to the original Apple 128 GB SSD which updated the Air's bootrom. I removed the original SSD and installed an Intel 600p with a green Sintech adapter.
When the latest beta of Mojave was released, I replaced the Intel 600p with the original 128 GB Apple SSD and upgraded to Mojave which upgraded the bootrom. I then installed the Intel 600p and upgraded from High Sierra to Mojave.
Looks like I'll be doing the same when the Mojave GM hits on Wednesday. Thanks for the heads-up!
This is regarding a late-2013 15" MacBook Pro with OWC Aura SSD; this might work with an M.2 adapter, or it might not. I don't have an adapter to test it with yet.
I was able to update bootrom on this Mac manually using the following process (make sure the computer is connected to the charger):
Download or extract FirmwareUpdate.pkg from the macOS installer or updater
Then in Terminal:
/usr/sbin/pkgutil --expand /path/to/FirmwareUpdate.pkg /tmp/FirmwareUpdate # Extract the package
cd /tmp/FirmwareUpdate/Scripts # Change directory
sudo /usr/libexec/FirmwareUpdateLauncher -p "$PWD/Tools" # Stage SMC and other updates
sudo /usr/libexec/efiupdater -p "$PWD/Tools/EFIPayloads" # Stage EFI update
sudo reboot # reboot, keep computer powered and be patient!
If successful, the computer will reboot, sit at a black screen for a bit, show a progress bar that slowly fills up, then reboot again and boot into OS.
If the update is then attempted a second time, it will indicate that the update is not necessary on the Terminal if it was successful.
(This is based on https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-fix-coming-soon.2072666/page-2#post-25130045 ; Apple removed the update script in later versions of the FirmwareUpdate.pkg though.)
I was able to update bootrom on this Mac manually using the following process (make sure the computer is connected to the charger):
Download or extract FirmwareUpdate.pkg from the macOS installer or updater
Then in Terminal:
/usr/sbin/pkgutil --expand /path/to/FirmwareUpdate.pkg /tmp/FirmwareUpdate # Extract the package
cd /tmp/FirmwareUpdate/Scripts # Change directory
sudo /usr/libexec/FirmwareUpdateLauncher -p "$PWD/Tools" # Stage SMC and other updates
sudo /usr/libexec/efiupdater -p "$PWD/Tools/EFIPayloads" # Stage EFI update
sudo reboot # reboot, keep computer powered and be patient!
If successful, the computer will reboot, sit at a black screen for a bit, show a progress bar that slowly fills up, then reboot again and boot into OS.
If the update is then attempted a second time, it will indicate that the update is not necessary on the Terminal if it was successful.
(This is based on https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-fix-coming-soon.2072666/page-2#post-25130045 ; Apple removed the update script in later versions of the FirmwareUpdate.pkg though.)
Last edited:
I apologize but I didn’t read every post in the 79 pages of this thread. When you talk about the Mac’s “boot ROM,“ I assume you’re talking about a hack for older model MacBook Pros so they can take advantage of faster SSD PCIe NVMe technology, correct? It does not seem that my mid-2015 MacBook Pro 15-inch requires a firmware hack of any kind to get PCIe 3.0 speeds, and especially not with the MCE SSD.
Well that's torn it.....
Now the serial number of the mac has become "unavailable" after a keyboard NVR ram reset.
other than that the mac is absolutely fine.
Just checking the Internet & after downloading the fix... seems the serial number fixer software no longer can run on 10.13.6
No. macOS High Sierra introduced NVMe support. PCIe speeds is dictated by whether you have PCI2.0 vs 3.0; and also the number of lanes available to the NVMe drive to use. Neither of which have anything to do with the bootrom patch.
The bootrom patch is required for pre-2015 MBP (and possibly other devices) that run an older version of the NVMe driver which causes issues with hibernation; the patch simply uses a newer NVMe driver (from a 2015 MBP) to solve the issue.
Looks like as of the latest beta; there is no bootrom update for Pre-2015 MBP. So have to go down the path of bootrom patching for native hibernation to work.
Last edited:
Hi, I tried installing the Mojave Beta with a Samsung 960 EVO 500GB SSD (used my old Apple SSD to upgrade the BootROM) on a MBPr 13" Mid 2014 and still experience freezes on waking after standby. The login prompt when waking is working but as soon as I enter a password and try to unlock it the laptop completely freezes and needs to be killed by longpressing the power button. This is 100% reproducable. SMC has also been reset after the install.
I'm currently using the "bigger" green pcb adapter with taped off pins. The full length black sintech is on its way but it'll probably take a while until it arrives. Don't really think it's the adapters fault since I have no random kernel panics etc. and it recognizes all lanes.
Anyone know if this could be related to having the disk encrypted?
I'm currently using the "bigger" green pcb adapter with taped off pins. The full length black sintech is on its way but it'll probably take a while until it arrives. Don't really think it's the adapters fault since I have no random kernel panics etc. and it recognizes all lanes.
Anyone know if this could be related to having the disk encrypted?