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

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The first post of this thread is a WikiPost and can be edited by anyone with the appropiate permissions. Your edits will be public.
Screen Shot 2018-10-27 at 11.06.45 PM.png

Intel 760p 1TB and Sintech ST-NGFF2013-C(Long) installed in my 2015 rMBP 13 inch earlier today.
 
maxgts said:
I just finished installing an Intel 760p 1TB and Sintech ST-NGFF2013-C(Long) in my 2015 rMBP 13 inch. The screw that came with the Sintech worked fine and my cover was also lifted up. Others talked about the cover sticking up in this thread. It still goes down perfectly when you put all the pentalobe screws back in.
Click to expand...

Question : you said 'cover' here is what does it mean?
 
mad cow disease said:
The Apple screw will definitely be too short. The Sintech screw is also too short. the corner of the Macbook closest to the drive is also lifted up when I reinstall the cover, which makes me think I may probably have not installed this properly...maybe time to try and install from scratch again. Or I should probably remove the heatsink...
Click to expand...

I didn't notice the corner sticking up in mine but then I didn't see a need for a heatsink with the SX8200. The cover went on easily and screwed down without any force.
 
weckart said:
I didn't notice the corner sticking up in mine but then I didn't see a need for a heatsink with the SX8200. The cover went on easily and screwed down without any force.
Click to expand...

You have to actually be picky and see that it just ever so slightly is sticking out. If you are not paying attention you won't even notice it but when you attach the cover on without screwing the bolts back, the upper right corner is sticking out by a few millimeters. Once you put the screws back in, it isn't an issue but there's definitely maybe a hair of a gap that remains near the vent towards the screen. Try to push in that corner now and see that the cover flexes a tiny bit in that corner but not the other.

That's why I mentioned that people need to forget about fitting a heatsink in there, it just won't fit unless you cut a whole or something or bend the back cover of you MacBook. You'd get a ton of dust in there with a tiny gap that will defeat the purpose of a heatsink long term.

The screw supplied by sintech is long enough, you probably didn't seat either the adapter all the way in or the SSD. Yes the adapter is slightly longer by about 1-2 millimeters, it will just be slightly off angle. Just give it a couple turns, too much and you'll put unnecessary pressure on the SSD and the connector.
 
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In other words, the SSD attached to the adapter is in contact with the bottom-cover of the MBP from the inside...

If a 'thin' heat-conduction sheet is attached to the SSD, will heat dissipate from the contact area and the bottom-cover of MBP plays a role like a heat-sink?
 
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Antonnn said:
The screw supplied by sintech is long enough, you probably didn't seat either the adapter all the way in or the SSD. Yes the adapter is slightly longer by about 1-2 millimeters, it will just be slightly off angle. Just give it a couple turns, too much and you'll put unnecessary pressure on the SSD and the connector.
Click to expand...

That's pretty much what I said. :confused:
 
Thanks to everyone who helped on this thread, very comprehensive reference.

I upgraded my wife's rMBP 13 (Mid 2014) with a Samsung 970 PRO - 1TB , below the steps for anyone joining late to this thread:
  • Ordered the below from Amazon:
  • TimeMachine backup for the laptop.
  • Download Mojave from App store, then made a bootable drive from it before I start the install
  • Upgraded to macOS Mojave, as mentioned in this thread it's required to upgrade to Mojave or High Sierra in order to make sure that the firmware is updated.
  • TimeMachine backup for the laptop again.
  • Followed the instruction to open the back-cover, remove the old SSD and insert the new one with the adaptor, you can follow this video as a reference.
  • Did a fresh install from the bootable driver, pressing ⌥ OPTION KEY after i power-up the laptop (after the chime sound)
  • Restored my wife's files from the time machine, and did a fresh install of the apps.
I did a fresh install to avoid any unforeseen issues, and I do prefer a clean installation.

The second day testing is good (first day isn't reliable due to a lot of storage activity after a fresh install and restore from TM), below my observation:
  • Temperature is ok, can't sense major change.
  • Hibernation causes an issue, have to hard reboot the laptop after it, so disabled with sudo pmset -a standby 0.
  • Read/Write speed increased between two and three folds.
  • I tried to install a heatsink, but there's no space for it.
Below some screenshots:
DiskSpeedTest.png
Screen Shot 2018-10-29 at 9.45.53 AM.png
Screen Shot 2018-10-29 at 9.53.47 AM.png
 
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chengjc said:
Hi, did you solve the problem?
My 2014 mid mbpr 13 have the same speed in 300MB/s write - 1450MB/s read with intel 760P 256GB and Sintech type B adaptor, I tried in High Sierra or in Mojave with clean SSD and install from beginning , it is the same.
Anyone with intel 760P 256GB can get a high write speed?
Click to expand...
No, I gave up this after trying with several Sintech adapters. Don't know why some get great speeds. I have returned the Intel 760p and ordered ADATA XPG SX8200 480GB. I will post back the results then hoping it is better. If not I have to get some new adapters.
 
Has anyone tested the some newly released SSDs ?

1) Corsair Force Series MP 510
(960GB)
Endurance : 1,700 TBW
MTBF : 1,800,000 Hours
read : 3480 sq MB/s, 610k QD32IO-rnd IOPS
write : 3000 sq MB/s, 570k QD32IO-rnd IOPS
DEVSLP : L1.2 < 2mW
Voltage : 3.3V, +/- 5%

2) Crucial SSD P1 Series
(1TB)
TBW : 200 TB
MTTF : 1,500,000 Hours
read : 2700 sq MB/s, 170k 4KB-rnd IOPS
write : 1700 sq MB/s, 240k 4KB-rnd IOPS


If you have tried, please give us information.
 
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Boot ROM version is updated to 149.0.0.0.0 in 10.14.1. I wonder if it includes NVMe driver..
 
solemgar said:
Tonight same thing 30% drain. Going back to regular hibernate as I can't reinstall the whole OS now.
Click to expand...

Any changes? I am running the same setup as you (2015, Mojave, 13", SX8200). I get about ~40% drain over 8-9 hours. Spotlight's finished indexing and I have run a Time Machine backup. Power nap isn't turned on. All peripherals disconnected. I've played with the pmset settings but that did not do much for me.

Scratching my head at the moment. I'm going to try and turn off WiFi/BT tonight to see what that does.
 
mad cow disease said:
Any changes? I am running the same setup as you (2015, Mojave, 13", SX8200). I get about ~40% drain over 8-9 hours. Spotlight's finished indexing and I have run a Time Machine backup. Power nap isn't turned on. All peripherals disconnected. I've played with the pmset settings but that did not do much for me.

Scratching my head at the moment. I'm going to try and turn off WiFi/BT tonight to see what that does.
Click to expand...
Same problem, and the Mac seems a bit hot.

BTW, does the new 10.14.1 update contains any bootrom update?
 
My 2013 on High Sierra just updated and now shows the folder with a question mark icon on boot up. Currently in recovery mode running first aid to check it is all fine. What can I do to fix this?

Late 2013. Adata and haven't updated the bootrom manually.
 
No bootrom update with Adata SSD, I think I will plug in the original ssd to update since there is no other way ?
 
So put the old HDD in and update to the latest High Sierra and that will fix the bootrom. Then plug this Adata back in and it should boot normally?
 
dobow said:
So put the old HDD in and update to the latest High Sierra and that will fix the bootrom. Then plug this Adata back in and it should boot normally?
Click to expand...
I just done it, yes it works, seems the simplest way.

I have now "149.0.0.0" (rMBP Mid-2014)
 
After running recovery mode it seemed to finish installing just fine. Strange that it managed to update but skip the firmware update because of that. My late 2013 on 10.13.6 (High Sierra) says MBP111.0146.B00.
 
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