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

[NorthCarolina]

I was referring at the ssd's temperature (thermal performance). My Samsung SSD is quite a bit hot. The Intel is colder? (I read about a different controller..)

For me it runs at an average of 95ºF. Early 2015 13" MBPr. I haven't seen any temps on Samsung, but I'd suspect they run a little hotter due to power consumption, or something else like the adapter used.

Can anyone point to a specific post as the "definitive how-to"?

Refer to my post #1999, it can give you an idea.

 

[d235j]

how did you patch your EFI firmware? Does that solve the deep sleep hibernation issue?

I roughly followed the instructions in this post: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-65#post-26224320

The ROM dump made by ROMTool ended up not working. My process instead ended up being as outlined in this post:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-81#post-26527305

Things seem to be working at the moment (and I'm not experiencing increased sleep power consumption or hibernation issues), but it does indeed look like macOS 10.14.1 will be coming with new firmware that contains the old NVMe driver, so I will need to do the process over again to get it up to date.

 

[rexoserox]

I roughly followed the instructions in this post: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-65#post-26224320

The ROM dump made by ROMTool ended up not working. My process instead ended up being as outlined in this post:
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-81#post-26527305

Things seem to be working at the moment (and I'm not experiencing increased sleep power consumption or hibernation issues), but it does indeed look like macOS 10.14.1 will be coming with new firmware that contains the old NVMe driver, so I will need to do the process over again to get it up to date.

flashing with the custom hardware seems a bit risky. If anything goes wrong during flashing you could hardbrick your mac. I think I just leave it as it is for now with the custom pmset. And the reflashing for possibly every future update is a hassle :/

 

[Marcin_K]

Hi guys, I read an interesting article recently about the new discovery of ESET company, namely rootkit "LoJax" and interference in EFI / UEFI, maybe if such a rotkit to suit our needs, you can activate the DXE driver without the use of an external programmer.

https://www.eset.com/us/about/newsr...jax-the-new-stealthy-malware-from-fancy-bear/

what do you think ??

 

[d235j]

flashing with the custom hardware seems a bit risky. If anything goes wrong during flashing you could hardbrick your mac. I think I just leave it as it is for now with the custom pmset. And the reflashing for possibly every future update is a hassle :/

It is. I used the hardware to do multiple (at least three) reads of the EEPROM and made sure they matched (using md5/shasum as well as binary comparison) before flashing the modified EEPROM. I also looked at the EEPROM contents in a hex editor to make sure it looked sane (meaning — not completely empty, containing text strings, etc). Serial EEPROMs are such that if a wire is not connected, they will not read out at all.

The first time I flashed I used a ROM read using ROMTool, and this did not work — the Mac would no longer boot at all. I flashed back the original EEPROM readout (of the three identical ROM readouts done with hardware) and it worked again. So I patched that copy (the matched hardware readout) and then wrote it back using the hardware, and it worked.

A bit of care and patience reduces the risk a huge amount.

Hi guys, I read an interesting article recently about the new discovery of ESET company, namely rootkit "LoJax" and interference in EFI / UEFI, maybe if such a rotkit to suit our needs, you can activate the DXE driver without the use of an external programmer.

https://www.eset.com/us/about/newsr...jax-the-new-stealthy-malware-from-fancy-bear/

what do you think ??

To the best of my knowledge, no Mac has ever shipped with Computrace / LoJack in its firmware. They have a software version available, but that's all it is.

 

[markintosh13]

Sitrep: late 2013 MBP(retina) 13"
SSD upgrade steps

- upgraded to 10.14 Mojave
- timemachine backup to USB SSD
- bootable USB Mojave flash drive created
- backplate off, battery unplugged, Apple 512GB SSD removed
- AData XPG SX8200 960GB inserted into JSER short adapter, not sure if tape required, tape applied as precaution
- adapter and SSD installed, screw tightened (but not too tight), supplied heatsink applied to SSD, baseplate reinstalled
- held option on boot, boot from Mojave installer, launch disk utilities, view all devices, format SX8200 as APFS, exit disk utilities, select restore from Time Machine, restore (note restore time was much faster than expected due to faster SSD write times)
- current write speeds around 1300MB/s
- current read speeds, just shy of 1500MB/s


Is the current recommended pmset for a late 2013 MBP(retina) 13" just a plain "sudo pmset standby 0" ?

Did that - pmset -g kicks out this:
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 10800
standby 0
halfdim 1
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap 1
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 22 (sleep prevented by sharingd)
autopoweroffdelay 28800
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 22
Standby Battery Threshold 50
acwake 0
lidwake 1

Any further tweaks I should be making?

With standby set to 0, how exactly will behaviour be different than it was previously?

 

[terraphantm]

Why?
After all, Apple has been writing new rom by software every time they decided, my boot room was updated by installers many times during the past years ....
Unless ROOM TOOL is unable to write ... but why can it work on Mac Pros and not on MacBook pros?

There are protections built in to make it impossible to use flashing tools, and the built in firmware updater verifies the signature before updating.

With a little bit of work it probably wouldn't be impossible to patch out the protections such that only the initial flash needs to be done with hardware and the rest can be done via software.

 

[Trunkz]

Why?
After all, Apple has been writing new rom by software every time they decided, my boot room was updated by installers many times during the past years ....
Unless ROOM TOOL is unable to write ... but why can it work on Mac Pros and not on MacBook pros?

macOS won't update the bootrom if you are booting of a non-stock SSD.

As for updating on a third-party SSD, it seems that it's possible as the bootrom has not changed for 2015 and later devices, I am uncertain and will perform my own tests when Mojave becomes more stable and I see verified results that it supports my device!

There were some bootrom updates for MacPro's. Definitely no bootrom update for pre-2015 MBP and MBA.

 

[ravic]

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.)

This didn't work for me for whatever reason. I have a Early 2015 MacBook Pro 13" with a Samsung PM961 SSD.
EFIUpdate says that it is staged for update then

1.reboots
2. Brief black screen
3. Apple logo with progress bar
4. Login screen

But I still see MBP121.0171.B00 as my Boot rom version. I believe the latest is MBP121.0177.B00.

I might have to put the apple SSD back in again and then try to force the update.

 

[zikken]

I'm planning to upgrade the SSD in my 13" MBPr 2014 running Mojave. I ordered the long black Sintech adapter (ST-NGFF2013-C). I've heard it's more stable than the short adapter.

From what I've read in this thread, it seems the Intel 760p 512GB and Adata SX8200 480GB are similar in terms of speed/heat/etc. I've heard the Samsung EVO 960 runs pretty hot so I'm not considering it. The prices for both the 760p and SX8200 are dropping but the Adata is much cheaper.

My only concern with the Adata SX8200 is that it is double-sided so I'm not sure if it will fit properly in the long Sintech adapter and/or my 13" MBP.

Any advice on how I should proceed?

 

[rexoserox]

Sitrep: late 2013 MBP(retina) 13"
SSD upgrade steps

- upgraded to 10.14 Mojave
- timemachine backup to USB SSD
- bootable USB Mojave flash drive created
- backplate off, battery unplugged, Apple 512GB SSD removed
- AData XPG SX8200 960GB inserted into JSER short adapter, not sure if tape required, tape applied as precaution
- adapter and SSD installed, screw tightened (but not too tight), supplied heatsink applied to SSD, baseplate reinstalled
- held option on boot, boot from Mojave installer, launch disk utilities, view all devices, format SX8200 as APFS, exit disk utilities, select restore from Time Machine, restore (note restore time was much faster than expected due to faster SSD write times)
- current write speeds around 1300MB/s
- current read speeds, just shy of 1500MB/s


Is the current recommended pmset for a late 2013 MBP(retina) 13" just a plain "sudo pmset standby 0" ?

Did that - pmset -g kicks out this:
System-wide power settings:
Currently in use:
standbydelaylow 10800
standby 0
halfdim 1
hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage
powernap 1
gpuswitch 2
disksleep 10
standbydelayhigh 86400
sleep 22 (sleep prevented by sharingd)
autopoweroffdelay 28800
hibernatemode 3
autopoweroff 1
ttyskeepawake 1
displaysleep 22
Standby Battery Threshold 50
acwake 0
lidwake 1

Any further tweaks I should be making?

With standby set to 0, how exactly will behaviour be different than it was previously?

Macs 2013/2014 need:
sudo pmset -a standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0

this prevents the mac going into a deeper sleep mode. The 2013/2014 Macs have an old NVMe driver that crashes if the mac goes into deep sleep/hibernation.

The only downside I had is that when your mac is low on battery you need to save all files/documents manually before it shuts down because of low battery. Since it cannot write the hibernation state to the ssd.

 

[majonex]

I'm planning to upgrade the SSD in my 13" MBPr 2014 running Mojave. I ordered the long black Sintech adapter (ST-NGFF2013-C). I've heard it's more stable than the short adapter.

From what I've read in this thread, it seems the Intel 760p 512GB and Adata SX8200 480GB are similar in terms of speed/heat/etc. I've heard the Samsung EVO 960 runs pretty hot so I'm not considering it. The prices for both the 760p and SX8200 are dropping but the Adata is much cheaper.

My only concern with the Adata SX8200 is that it is double-sided so I'm not sure if it will fit properly in the long Sintech adapter and/or my 13" MBP.

Any advice on how I should proceed?

From what I read the Intel 760p is the coolest of them all, at the same time being not far behind the Samsung EVO 970. Like I wrote earlier the Samsung EVO 970 (250 and 500 GB) are freakin hot and the Intel 760p is way cooler. I don't know why I am not able to read SSD temperature on 3rd party NVMe drives. I can only read the values on original Apple NVMe. Now the Intel 760p is dropping in price here and just a fraction more expensive than the EVO 970 which are cheaper here in Norway than the EVO 960. So for hacintosh I choose the EVO 970 but for MacBook I will go now for Intel 760p and the long black Sintec adapter. No kapton tape.

Just to note that after I upgraded to Mojave on a MacBook Air 2014 I can not see any power surge when putting the MBA to sleep over a couple of days. Maybe Mojave has better 3rd party SSD support. And I can not see any new firmware after I upgraded to Mojave (tried with original Apple ssd).

 

[d235j]

How are all of you measuring SSD temperature? Both iStat Menus and smartctl indicate fairly low temperatures (never above 46C from iStat Menus; usually around 42C for sensor 1 and 60C for sensor 2 from smartctl).

 

[ravic]

This didn't work for me for whatever reason. I have a Early 2015 MacBook Pro 13" with a Samsung PM961 SSD.
EFIUpdate says that it is staged for update then

1.reboots
2. Brief black screen
3. Apple logo with progress bar
4. Login screen

But I still see MBP121.0171.B00 as my Boot rom version. I believe the latest is MBP121.0177.B00.

I might have to put the apple SSD back in again and then try to force the update.

OK, I had to put the original apple SSD back in to upgrade my bootrom.

 

[davidrj]

Hello guys,

I hope you can help me with my issue. Maybe I have overlooked something within the last 80 pages of this thread but my situation is as follows:

Macbook Air 2013, using a Samsung EVO 960 and Sintech (small black) adapter ST-NGFF2013. I insulated it with kapton tape and put it all together. MacOS was updated to High Sierra and recently to Mojave on the stock SSD.

Now it seems to accept the EVO drive because it tries to boot into my old Windows partition I have on it. I created a Mojave USB installer, which also gets detected but when I boot from it, it shows the Apple logo with a progress bar and at about 70%, it does a hard shutdown, reboots and chimes again.

Internet Recovery with Option+Command+R (for the latest version) does the same thing. It loads it fine from the internet and when booting it, it does a hard shutdown again.

What does work, is the default Internet Recovery which boots the version that shipped with this Mac which is Mountain Lion. Sadly, I can't format the NVMe there because, obviously, it's too old to detect it.

What should I do from here? Should I plug in the NVMe into my PC and format it? Or could it be that it's not seated correctly? Strange thing is that Windows does boot from it, so I am really out of answers here.

I would be so grateful if anybody could chime in on this.

Cheers,
David

Edit: Oh, and I also tried resetting SMC and NVRAM to no avail.

Edit2: I just solved this issue! I plugged the NVMe into my PC and completely wiped all partitions. Now it works fine. I think it was because it configured in a very special RAID setup before.

Right now it's doing a Time Machine restore so I think I'm good to go. Will report back if I run into trouble. Thanks to all of the helpful replies in this thread.

 

[Trunkz]

Hello guys,

I hope you can help me with my issue. Maybe I have overlooked something within the last 80 pages of this thread but my situation is as follows:

Macbook Air 2013, using a Samsung EVO 960 and Sintech (small black) adapter ST-NGFF2013. I insulated it with kapton tape and put it all together. MacOS was updated to High Sierra and recently to Mojave on the stock SSD.

Now it seems to accept the EVO drive because it tries to boot into my old Windows partition I have on it. I created a Mojave USB installer, which also gets detected but when I boot from it, it shows the Apple logo with a progress bar and at about 70%, it does a hard shutdown, reboots and chimes again.

Internet Recovery with Option+Command+R (for the latest version) does the same thing. It loads it fine from the internet and when booting it, it does a hard shutdown again.

What does work, is the default Internet Recovery which boots the version that shipped with this Mac which is Mountain Lion. Sadly, I can't format the NVMe there because, obviously, it's too old to detect it.

What should I do from here? Should I plug in the NVMe into my PC and format it? Or could it be that it's not seated correctly? Strange thing is that Windows does boot from it, so I am really out of answers here.

I would be so grateful if anybody could chime in on this.

Cheers,
David

Edit: Oh, and I also tried resetting SMC and NVRAM to no avail.

What OS were you running on the Air prior to swapping to the Samsung? If it wasn't High Sierra; I suggest you put back the original apple SSD and reinstall High Sierra from the beginning then update to the latest version of high Sierra. Reason for this is to ensure you are running the latest bootrom

Secondly - you should of got either the large sintech green adapter or the long snitch black adapter; not the short black one as that had some PINs that weren't wired from my understanding. If you are able to return it; I'd recommend you go for the long black one as its tried and tested.

 

[davidrj]

What OS were you running on the Air prior to swapping to the Samsung? If it wasn't High Sierra; I suggest you put back the original apple SSD and reinstall High Sierra from the beginning then update to the latest version of high Sierra. Reason for this is to ensure you are running the latest bootrom

Secondly - you should of got either the large sintech green adapter or the long snitch black adapter; not the short black one as that had some PINs that weren't wired from my understanding. If you are able to return it; I'd recommend you go for the long black one as its tried and tested.

Thanks for the quick reply, yes, I was on an NVMe compatible bootrom. I was on High Sierra, and updated to Mojave 10.14 (non-beta) a few days ago.

But I just solved this issue 2 minutes ago! I plugged the NVMe into my PC and completely wiped all partitions. Now it works fine. I think it was because it configured in a very special RAID setup before.

Right now it's doing a Time Machine restore so I think I'm good to go. Will report back if I run into trouble. Thanks to all of the helpful replies in this thread.

And thanks for recommending me the other adapter, I just put in an order for the long black one. For now, I will just continue using the short black one and hope it doesn't give me too much issues.

 

[zikken]

From what I read the Intel 760p is the coolest of them all, at the same time being not far behind the Samsung EVO 970. Like I wrote earlier the Samsung EVO 970 (250 and 500 GB) are freakin hot and the Intel 760p is way cooler. I don't know why I am not able to read SSD temperature on 3rd party NVMe drives. I can only read the values on original Apple NVMe. Now the Intel 760p is dropping in price here and just a fraction more expensive than the EVO 970 which are cheaper here in Norway than the EVO 960. So for hacintosh I choose the EVO 970 but for MacBook I will go now for Intel 760p and the long black Sintec adapter. No kapton tape.

Just to note that after I upgraded to Mojave on a MacBook Air 2014 I can not see any power surge when putting the MBA to sleep over a couple of days. Maybe Mojave has better 3rd party SSD support. And I can not see any new firmware after I upgraded to Mojave (tried with original Apple ssd).

Thanks for the advice! I went with the Intel 760p. Waiting on my long black Sintech. Any reason to forgo the kapton tape?

 

[Trunkz]

Thanks for the advice! I went with the Intel 760p. Waiting on my long black Sintech. Any reason to forgo the kapton tape?

The long sintech has the exposed pins all taped up and protected; no need add extra

 

[Angel NN]

Thanks for the quick reply, yes, I was on an NVMe compatible bootrom. I was on High Sierra, and updated to Mojave 10.14 (non-beta) a few days ago.

But I just solved this issue 2 minutes ago! I plugged the NVMe into my PC and completely wiped all partitions. Now it works fine. I think it was because it configured in a very special RAID setup before.

Right now it's doing a Time Machine restore so I think I'm good to go. Will report back if I run into trouble. Thanks to all of the helpful replies in this thread.

And thanks for recommending me the other adapter, I just put in an order for the long black one. For now, I will just continue using the short black one and hope it doesn't give me too much issues.

Hi,
Can you report please once you finish with the time-machine backup, if there are sleeping issues with your Macbook. I have macbook pro late 2013 and have ordered Samsung 970 evo 1tb with the long adapter. I read that many people with 2013-2014 have issues relating to hibernation, so i am wondering if this will be solved in Mojave OS? Hope you won't have this problem, please share your outcome.

 

[davidrj]

Hi,
Can you report please once you finish with the time-machine backup, if there are sleeping issues with your Macbook. I have macbook pro late 2013 and have ordered Samsung 970 evo 1tb with the long adapter. I read that many people with 2013-2014 have issues relating to hibernation, so i am wondering if this will be solved in Mojave OS? Hope you won't have this problem, please share your outcome.

I do have similar issues as many people in this thread do. Sleep itself works just fine with some battery drain of roughly 1% per hour, hibernation is a no-no though. After sleeping for a long time and entering hibernation, my MBA has to reboot on the next wakeup. I reproduced this behaviour by using hibernatemode 25 to force it to write the RAM to the drive with a specific time, it always fails right at that point. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of going for the short black adapter, I only found this thread when I already had ordered it from Sintech in China. Your might get better results with the long black adapter that got recommended on here many times.

That being said, the new JSER adapter is on its way to me. Actually, if you search this thread, some people report having no issue at all with sleep and hibernation on a 2013-2014 Mac with JSER adapters, some already on Mojve too (doesn't matter much though since Boot ROM is he same). You can find similar reports in the reviews on Amazon (at least on the German page). Package should arrive shortly so I will keep in touch.

But even then, it's only around 1% of battery per hour in sleep, nothing too dramatic considering the very noticeable increase in performance, even on an Air. Most important is that the OS itself is 100% stable and it reliably wakes up from sleep.

For now I'm happy but I will keep trying to get hibernation to work as soon as I get my new adapter. Please also share your results when you get your drive.

 

[IdentityCrisis]

I bought them directly from sintech, they arrived very quickly too.
http://www.pc-adapter.net/categories/0/6/0/1.html

I recommend this one ...
http://www.pc-adapter.net/products/863.html

What adapter is it as your links don't take me directly to it.
[doublepost=1538699560][/doublepost]I am hoping someone can help me in this thread that has been part of it for a while. Way too much info to figure out.

I have a 2015 MBP 13" Retina with the 121GB SSD in it. I want to upgrade this SSD, and saw the OWC prices were really high for what you get. I'd like to order another brand like Samsung. What do I need to make the 2015 model work reliably without any boot, sleep, etc issues. Any help would be great from those who have been part of this thread. Links to the parts too if possible!

 

[user256]

A friend gave me their 'non working' MacBookAir6,2 (13'' 2013) awhile ago. Everything looked fine, so I decided to invest $120 into an OEM 45W MagSafe power adapter with MagSafe 2 (I've bought 3rd party power adapters before, and they always overheated. Stay far, far away from them.)

Got an amber light when plugging in, and the unit powered on in some fashion.
Booting from my only USB High Sierra installer worked as well, and everything seemed to be working at this point, except the 512GB stock SSD. Bought (and then returned) a 3rd party PCI-E adapter card to try formatting the SSD on my PC. Drive would not initialize at all, and it seemed toast at this point. Maybe if my electronic skills were better, and I had more equipment, I could have repaired it. Oh well, some day. I sold it on eBay for parts for $50.

I ended up doing a recovery installation of Mountain Lion on an external 128GB Lexar USB mini drive. Quite slow compared NVME, consuming less than 2 watts.

For some reason my ML install would only download a stub installer of Mojave from MAS, but I finally found a workaround for that, and now have Mojave on the USB stick.

Boot ROM and SMC versions are the same after installing Mojave over Mountain Lion.

Boot ROM Version: MBA61.0103.B00
SMC Version (system): 2.13f15

NVMExpress also now shows up under Hardware in System Information. This was a positive sign, and enough for me to warrant the purchase of a ST-NGFF2013-C. $16.49 shipped from their store. I imagine it will arrive sometime in November or December lol, but i'm in no rush.

Now doing some comparison on drives. 970 seems fast, but hot. Maybe some nice black friday deals will appear.

 

[infernoguy]

As Mackube pointed out there are now 3 parameters for standby in mojave.
I guess because your AC adapter was plugged in and you had enough battery life left pmset switched to standbydelayhigh 86400.
86400 seconds are exactly 24 hours. So in your case you had to close your lid for 24+ hours.

As mentioned earlier for fast results
sudo pmset hibernatemode 25
pmset sleepnow

or MacKube's solution should work too in 6+ Minutes.

Sorry to hijack this thread but are you saying that in Mojave there is a new threshold for when Macs enter standby mode? If there is enough power in the battery (50% maybe) it will keep the Mac from entering standby mode for 24 hours but if less it will wait the normal 4 hours?

 

[Audit13]

@user256, Mojave needs to be installed to the original, internal Apple SSD in order to update the bootrom. I say this based on my own experience with my early 2015 13" Air.

You may be able to manually update the bootrom using this method: https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-79#post-26432353