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

[mad cow disease]

Nice. I just did the same upgrade on a 2015 MacBook Pro 15 and I got the Adata sx8200 960gb. She’s running really good with about 5% battery Drain overnight in a span of 7:30 mins. Do you think that is normal? I tried using Istat to check the ssd temps during usage but it’s not working for me. It just shows no temperature reading for the new drive. Can you check to see if yours work ? Thanks

My battery is about 83-86% of original capacity. I switched off the wake for WiFi setting under power and my experience is about the same, 7-9% loss overnight. Which I'll take for quadrupling the space available. The temp sensor setting is lost when you switch SSDs, my guess is that the adapter cannot translate this well; or that the onboard sensor on the original SSD communicates in a way that the new SSD does not (i.e. the software doesn't support it).

 

[Eternal 28]

Besides the 7% -9% battery loss overnight of using an aftermarket SSD are there any other benefits of buying an OEM Apple SSUBX SSD from eBay? Do you guys thing stability and reliability is much better using an Apple SSD? Thanks

 

[jackqueenking]

Besides the 7% -9% battery loss overnight of using an aftermarket SSD are there any other benefits of buying an OEM Apple SSUBX SSD from eBay? Do you guys thing stability and reliability is much better using an Apple SSD? Thanks

The OEM Apple SSDs are not NVMe drives, they are flash storage, thus you will have similar read/write performance as your stock SSD but with higher capacity and hibernate mode 25 will work, battery will be the same as stock SSD, NVMe aftermarket drives will be 4x faster at 1/3 of the cost.

Another alternative is to look into the OWC Aura Pro X

 

[Eternal 28]

The OEM Apple SSDs are not NVMe drives, they are flash storage, thus you will have similar read/write performance as your stock SSD but with higher capacity and hibernate mode 25 will work, battery will be the same as stock SSD, NVMe aftermarket drives will be 4x faster at 1/3 of the cost.

Another alternative is to look into the OWC Aura Pro X

Oh ok, Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that. What drive do you use for your MacBook Pro and do you think the Apple SSUBX is worth it ? Thanks

 

[jackqueenking]

Oh ok, Thanks for the info. I didn’t know that. What drive do you use for your MacBook Pro and do you think the Apple SSUBX is worth it ? Thanks

With my 2014 I went with ADATA sx8200 480GB simply because it was on sale in canada for 129$ and i am getting 1500MB/s read 1300 MB/s write. You might also get similar speed with SSUBX. If the 2015 in your signature is correct, then you won't have any issues going aftermarket, you may lose like an hour or so of battery life depending on what you're doing but that's the sacrifice for using a drive with a lot more performance. Going with Apple SSUBX is just way more expensive.
It also depends on the model of the SSUBX, post a link and maybe someone with more info can answer.

 

[mad cow disease]

Besides the 7% -9% battery loss overnight of using an aftermarket SSD are there any other benefits of buying an OEM Apple SSUBX SSD from eBay? Do you guys thing stability and reliability is much better using an Apple SSD? Thanks

SSDs have a limited lifespan, meaning a specific number of writes and rewrites. This usually doesn't matter for the lifespan of your average laptop, but there is no way to know what the life of a used Apple SSD is on eBay. So the risk is higher if you're trying to upgrade an older machine (like some of the 2011s and 2012s in this thread). You will get an older SSD that's had more data written and rewritten to it, meaning the odds of failure are higher.

 

[rblcd]

According to Samsung my SSD does indeed support x4 and while my adapter did come shielded from the manufacturer I've added some tape but it's still only operating at x2.

Could this be related to the fact that I also have a GeForce video card that also uses PCIe lanes?

 

[ragermac]

so with my current Macbook Pro 15" (Late 2013), stock 256gb SSD and 149.0.0.0.0 Bootrom, what are my best options for upgrading?

Thanks

 

[Eternal 28]

Thanks[/QUOTE]
After gat

SSDs have a limited lifespan, meaning a specific number of writes and rewrites. This usually doesn't matter for the lifespan of your average laptop, but there is no way to know what the life of a used Apple SSD is on eBay. So the risk is higher if you're trying to upgrade an older machine (like some of the 2011s and 2012s in this thread). You will get an older SSD that's had more data written and rewritten to it, meaning the odds of failure are higher.

Oh yeah that's a great point. Some of these SSUBX drives on eBay have a build date of 11/2015 and 9/2016 and who knows how much they have been used. I've only had my ADATA SX8200 and Sintech long adapter revision C for 2 days and so far its been running like a champ. Amazon has a great price on the 960Gb ADATA drive for $208. With Black Friday around the corner we are probably going to see incredible sales on nVME SSD's.

 

[mbosse]

Thanks

After gat


Oh yeah that's a great point. Some of these SSUBX drives on eBay have a build date of 11/2015 and 9/2016 and who knows how much they have been used. I've only had my ADATA SX8200 and Sintech long adapter revision C for 2 days and so far its been running like a champ. Amazon has a great price on the 960Gb ADATA drive for $208. With Black Friday around the corner we are probably going to see incredible sales on nVME SSD's.[/QUOTE]
Drive Dx tells you anything you need to know...

 

[Eternal 28]

so with my current Macbook Pro 15" (Late 2013), stock 256gb SSD and 149.0.0.0.0 Bootrom, what are my best options for upgrading?

Thanks

After reading this thread for the past couple of days. Most people have recommended either the Intel 760P or the ADATA SX8200 and the long version of the Sintech M.2 nVME adapter revision C. I chose the ADATA SX8200 since it seems like it outperforms the the 760P and its cheaper.

 

[jackqueenking]

SSDs have a limited lifespan, meaning a specific number of writes and rewrites. This usually doesn't matter for the lifespan of your average laptop, but there is no way to know what the life of a used Apple SSD is on eBay. So the risk is higher if you're trying to upgrade an older machine (like some of the 2011s and 2012s in this thread). You will get an older SSD that's had more data written and rewritten to it, meaning the odds of failure are higher.

That's actually a great point which I didn't think of, it's called TBW (Terabytes Written).

Personally I am going to stay with the sx8200 given the price/performance ratio, there's no point in the year 2018 to buy an overpriced OEM drive, or an OWC Aura Pro X. For 960gb you are spending a minimum of 400 USD, for Canadians like myself add an extra 30% exchange rate and duty fees LOL and its all because of the stupid proprietary connector. The technology in those drives is outdated, they should cost the same price as a 2.5" SATA SSD.

 

[ragermac]

After reading this thread for the past couple of days. Most people have recommended either the Intel 760P or the ADATA SX8200 and the long version of the Sintech M.2 nVME adapter revision C. I chose the ADATA SX8200 since it seems like it outperforms the the 760P and its cheaper.

Thanks, do I need to do anything special after installation regarding the bootrom?

 

[mad cow disease]

That's actually a great point which I didn't think of, it's called TBW (Terabytes Written).

Personally I am going to stay with the sx8200 given the price/performance ratio, there's no point in the year 2018 to buy an overpriced OEM drive, or an OWC Aura Pro X. For 960gb you are spending a minimum of 400 USD, for Canadians like myself add an extra 30% exchange rate and duty fees LOL and its all because of the stupid proprietary connector. The technology in those drives is outdated, they should cost the same price as a 2.5" SATA SSD.

OWC has always been overpriced on everything they sell. They've been around forever in the Mac world since the 80s and 90s, which is why the probably still carry name recognition. But for the most part it's old tech or rebadged items marked up with laughably ridiculous prices.

 

[MichaelDT]

The OEM Apple SSDs are not NVMe drives, they are flash storage, thus you will have similar read/write performance as your stock SSD but with higher capacity and hibernate mode 25 will work, battery will be the same as stock SSD, NVMe aftermarket drives will be 4x faster at 1/3 of the cost.

Another alternative is to look into the OWC Aura Pro X

This is poorly worded, nvme is an interface, nand flash is a medium. I guarantee you most nvme are flash as well. So both flash, just different interfaces.

 

[dadotratto]

Nessun problema con OSX, l'unica cosa che non posso installare Windows. Ho provato entrambi con bootcamp e unetbootin ma l'installazione fallisce nell'ultima fase. Penso che sia un problema con Windows ei driver nvme.

 

[Audit13]

View attachment 800867 Nessun problema con OSX, l'unica cosa che non posso installare Windows. Ho provato entrambi con bootcamp e unetbootin ma l'installazione fallisce nell'ultima fase. Penso che sia un problema con Windows ei driver nvme.

Translation:

No problem with OSX, the only thing I can not install Windows. I tried both with bootcamp and unetbootin but the installation fails in the last phase. I think it's a problem with Windows and the nvme drivers.

Are you using Windows 10? Windows 7 has no nvme support.

 

[dadotratto]

[QUOTE = "Audit13, post: 26750356, membro: 1076397"] Traduzione:

Nessun problema con OSX, l'unica cosa che non posso installare Windows. Ho provato entrambi con bootcamp e unetbootin ma l'installazione fallisce nell'ultima fase. Penso che sia un problema con Windows e con i driver nvme.

Stai usando Windows 10? Windows 7 non ha supporto nvme. [/ QUOTE]
I used the ISO downloaded directly from the site

 

[Eternal 28]

That's actually a great point which I didn't think of, it's called TBW (Terabytes Written).

Personally I am going to stay with the sx8200 given the price/performance ratio, there's no point in the year 2018 to buy an overpriced OEM drive, or an OWC Aura Pro X. For 960gb you are spending a minimum of 400 USD, for Canadians like myself add an extra 30% exchange rate and duty fees LOL and its all because of the stupid proprietary connector. The technology in those drives is outdated, they should cost the same price as a 2.5" SATA SSD.

Wow, the Samsung 1TB 970 EVO is on sale on on Amazon for $228. Do you think that drive is better than the ADATA SX8200 for a 2015 MacBook Pro 15"? Thanks

 

[jackqueenking]

This is poorly worded, nvme is an interface, nand flash is a medium. I guarantee you most nvme are flash as well. So both flash, just different interfaces.

Yeah my bad, what I meant to say was that Apple SSDs do not implement the NVMe protocol

 

[Ghokun]

Yeah my bad, what I meant to say was that Apple SSDs do not implement the NVMe protocol

SSUAX and SSUBX are not NVMe however SSPOLARIS ssds are actually NVMe drives. They can be found in 2017 iMacs.

More to read here:
https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-guide-to-specs-and-upgrades#hdr-21

 

[Audit13]

[QUOTE = "Audit13, post: 26750356, membro: 1076397"] Traduzione:

Nessun problema con OSX, l'unica cosa che non posso installare Windows. Ho provato entrambi con bootcamp e unetbootin ma l'installazione fallisce nell'ultima fase. Penso che sia un problema con Windows e con i driver nvme.

Stai usando Windows 10? Windows 7 non ha supporto nvme. [/ QUOTE]
I used the ISO downloaded directly from the site

Windows 10 iso?

 

[fduvall]

After reading this thread for the past couple of days. Most people have recommended either the Intel 760P or the ADATA SX8200 and the long version of the Sintech M.2 nVME adapter revision C. I chose the ADATA SX8200 since it seems like it outperforms the the 760P and its cheaper.

Not sure how I managed this, but picked up a 970 EVO 1TB on Amazon today for $228.00. Seems to be sold out now. Got the JSER adapter, but thinking maybe the Sintech is a better bet.

Samsung 970 EVO 1TB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E1T0BW)
Sold by: Amazon.com Services, Inc
$227.99

 

[Rayray0011]

May i know which external SSD enclosure are u guys using for your original macbook ssd after swapping it out? any recommendation?

 

[keiji11]

which adapter is better? the long or short one?
thanks