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

[notgonna]

How have others experiences been with Samsung 970 Evo? I see its on the list. I saw one poster saying a Samsung 960 Evo ran hot.

500G Samsung 970 Evo at Google Express site $99. after coupon, from Best Buy. Tax on $119.99.
HOLIDAYSAVE3X

$119.99
Subtotal$128.15
Discount$20.00
Order total$108.

Free returns Holiday policy until the New Year.

Update: sold out via the $99. via Best Buy.

 

[jackqueenking]

I have a Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2014, I switched up the SSD to an ADATA sx8200 480GB with Sintech long black adapter. The battery capacity is at roughly 87% of its original (5400 mah vs 6300 mah original)
The initial specifications for this Mac rate it at 9 hour battery life for normal day use.
With the sx8200 I am seeing about average use time of 5 hours and 30 minutes. Has anyone else observed similar results?

I did not take the time to put in the original SSD but based on the original specs and power consumption I assume I would only get baout 7h30 - 8h mac depending on usage with the original.

Someone please confirm that I am not crazy.

 

[wiregen]

I have a Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2014, I switched up the SSD to an ADATA sx8200 480GB with Sintech long black adapter. The battery capacity is at roughly 87% of its original (5400 mah vs 6300 mah original)
The initial specifications for this Mac rate it at 9 hour battery life for normal day use.
With the sx8200 I am seeing about average use time of 5 hours and 30 minutes. Has anyone else observed similar results?

I did not take the time to put in the original SSD but based on the original specs and power consumption I assume I would only get baout 7h30 - 8h mac depending on usage with the original.

Someone please confirm that I am not crazy.

I have a brand new battery with only 6 cycles on it. After putting my ADATA SX8200 960gb I did notice a pretty big noticeable loss of battery life. 15-20% from what people report here is accurate.

 

[jackqueenking]

I have a brand new battery with only 6 cycles on it. After putting my ADATA SX8200 960gb I did notice a pretty big noticeable loss of battery life. 15-20% from what people report here is accurate.

So lets take 20% worst case scenario, with a full capacity battery you would get about 7h10 minutes with the sx8200 compared to the original 9 hours, then in my case since i only have 87% I should be getting roughly 6 hours.

Are you running a 2014 model? I did notice that the specifications apple release for models 2015 and newer rate the battery life to be 10 hours, sometimes slightly more on macbook airs.

 

[mad cow disease]

I have a Macbook Pro Retina Mid 2014, I switched up the SSD to an ADATA sx8200 480GB with Sintech long black adapter. The battery capacity is at roughly 87% of its original (5400 mah vs 6300 mah original)
The initial specifications for this Mac rate it at 9 hour battery life for normal day use.
With the sx8200 I am seeing about average use time of 5 hours and 30 minutes. Has anyone else observed similar results?

I did not take the time to put in the original SSD but based on the original specs and power consumption I assume I would only get baout 7h30 - 8h mac depending on usage with the original.

Someone please confirm that I am not crazy.

Completely depends on your type of use. The "initial specifications" are a best-case scenario and always a bit rosy. Unless you have baseline information for length of time your battery lasts based on your use, there is no point comparing what it is now to the best-case scenario.

I have experienced significant battery loss on my 2015 but I can get by with 5-6 hours of life at a battery in the low 80%s.

 

[PracStats]

Hey everyone! I managed to get Bootcamp with Windows 10 installed fine. A couple quick questions.

- How do I change the default boot device to MacOS Mojave. Selecting the Target Disk on Windows doesnt load up and in Mojave it only detects the MacOS partition

- Has anyone managed to get the bootcamp partition to load under VMWARE Fusion? I'm getting BSOD's trying to load the partition up.

Wiregen could you post the method you used to install Bootcamp? Made a partition and formatted it NTFS? Did you install windows from scratch? I need to back up my Bootcamp partition, make the change with an NvMe, format and then re-install the Windows 10 apps and documents. Not sure how to do the last step. Thanks.

 

[RxJemm]

Do these aftermarket M.2 NVME ssd's prevent the Macbook pros' boot rom from being updated like what happens in the Mac Pro 2013+ (trashcan) ?

 

[Just_iWorld]

I've just updated my MacBook Pro mid-2014 to latest macOS Mojave from High Sierra with NVMe SSD, in other words, I haven't used my original SSD first to update. I thought that I would get updated bootrom too like some users did here. But I still have the same bootrom as with High Sierra: MBP111.0146.B00. Now, should I do the update with the original SSD to get new bootrom?

 

[jackqueenking]

Completely depends on your type of use. The "initial specifications" are a best-case scenario and always a bit rosy. Unless you have baseline information for length of time your battery lasts based on your use, there is no point comparing what it is now to the best-case scenario.

I have experienced significant battery loss on my 2015 but I can get by with 5-6 hours of life at a battery in the low 80%s.

Yeah this makes sense, mines at 86ish and that's what I am getting using things like XCode, Safari, maybe some netflix. I was contemplating returning the sx8200 for something like a 760p but the power difference is 6.2 vs 5.7, i think the original SSD is like less than 4 watts and the only NVME drives that come close to that are the 600p which is QLC or the HP which is just above 5 watts but not really a fan, and QLC has a terrible 100TBW endurance.

 

[Audit13]

I installed Mojave 10.14 no issues. Updated to 14.1 also no issues. I hear there is a new bootrom with 10.14.1, but as I do not have the original SSD, I am not able to verify this. Setting "sudo pmset standby 0" is the only mod I have done. I am much happier with the HP drive than the Samsung.

I upgraded to 10.14.1 on an early 2015 13" Air with an Intel 600p and the bootrom got updated without using the original Apple ssd.

 

[gerbilbox]

I installed the ADATA SX8200 960GB with the Sintech short adapter into my 15” mid-2015 MBP (11,5). It’s been nearly 24 hours so I can give an initial impression.

So far it’s been entirely stable, no crashes. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test measured 1500 MB/s read and 1600 MB/s write, which is slightly slower for read but double the write speed.

No heat problems that I can feel. Battery life seems slightly less, but it’s too early to tell. The battery is old (3.5 years) and 83.7% of its original capacity (according to coconutBattery), so a new battery could more than compensate for any increased power usage. I have’t done an overnight sleep test yet.

It’s refreshing that I don’t have to actively manage disk space anymore, and I paid less than $200 for the ADATA, so it’s a very worthwhile upgrade.

Like a lot of people I initially eyed the Samsung 970 EVO, but then I read about all the heat and battery life issues people have with it. I’m glad I read through large parts of this thread, and I’m glad picked picked the ADATA. The Intel 760P seems like a good option too, but it’s much more expensive.

 

[polanskiman]

So far it’s been entirely stable, no crashes. Blackmagic Disk Speed Test measured 1500 MB/s read and 1600 MB/s write, which is slightly slower for read but double the write speed.

I am getting a 1200 MB/s write speed with the original 256GB Apple SSD. Strange you were getting a much lower speed than that prior your upgrade. Perhaps your SSD was full and write speed was affected.

 

[Stoutman11]

I didn’t read this thread before I installed my 1tb Aura pro ssd.


I am I occasionally having the wake from sleep issue. Maybe 2 out of 10 times i have to hard start it up.

I was on high sierra. I had no room to upgrade to mohave on my original drive to upgrade os.

If i pop in my old original apple 512 ssd drive, delete some stuff, download mohave then swap it back out back to my new Aura pro will this resolve my issue?

Thank you guys!

 

[Audit13]

I didn’t read this thread before I installed my 1tb Aura pro ssd.


I am I occasionally having the wake from sleep issue. Maybe 2 out of 10 times i have to hard start it up.

I was on high sierra. I had no room to upgrade to mohave on my original drive to upgrade os.

If i pop in my old original apple 512 ssd drive, delete some stuff, download mohave then swap it back out back to my new Aura pro will this resolve my issue?

Thank you guys!

MacBooks prior to 2015 have hibernation/sleep issues that are not solved with a OS bootrom upgrade. A modified bootrom is required.

 

[mad cow disease]

I didn’t read this thread before I installed my 1tb Aura pro ssd.


I am I occasionally having the wake from sleep issue. Maybe 2 out of 10 times i have to hard start it up.

I was on high sierra. I had no room to upgrade to mohave on my original drive to upgrade os.

If i pop in my old original apple 512 ssd drive, delete some stuff, download mohave then swap it back out back to my new Aura pro will this resolve my issue?

Thank you guys!

You have to modify the bootrom anyway, why not return the ridiculously overpriced Aura and get something for 1/4th the price that has the same issue?

 

[Stoutman11]

MacBooks prior to 2015 have hibernation/sleep issues that are not solved with a OS bootrom upgrade. A modified bootrom is required.

Can you point me to a post number that explains how i can do that please? Or better yet a YouTube video or tutorial. Im a bit of a noob perhaps. I hope its not much harder than swapping my drive was.

 

[Audit13]

Can you point me to a post number that explains how i can do that please? Or better yet a YouTube video or tutorial. Im a bit of a noob perhaps. I hope its not much harder than swapping my drive was.

Which Macbook do you have?

Re-programming the bootrom is not easy and it's possible to brick the Macbook from what I have seen.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-65#post-26224320

 

[gerbilbox]

I am getting a 1200 MB/s write speed with the original 256GB Apple SSD. Strange you were getting a much lower speed than that prior your upgrade. Perhaps your SSD was full and write speed was affected.

It was about 85% full when I ran the test, so that was probably a factor. I don't remember the speed tests I did when I first bought my computer. Anyway, I'm so happy to have a lot of capacity now, both for the extra space and for the speed.

 

[Stoutman11]

Which Macbook do you have?

Re-programming the bootrom is not easy and it's possible to brick the Macbook from what I have seen.

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-65#post-26224320

I have late 2013 11,1


Thanks!

 

[Audit13]

I have late 2013 11,1


Thanks!

You will have to disable hibernation or modify the bootrom to solve the issue.

 

[Stoutman11]

You will have to disable hibernation or modify the bootrom to solve the issue.

Well i just read the guide you referenced and no way in hell im gunna be able to modify the bootrom lmao. Im not close to being savy enough for that.

I guess i will try disabling hibernation. Is there any long term damage done from having to hard start it on occasion? I guess i dont mind as i would rather have the internal storage and wait the 30 seconds on occasion to use my Machine.

 

[Audit13]

Well i just read the guide you referenced and no way in hell im gunna be able to modify the bootrom lmao. Im not close to being savy enough for that.

I guess i will try disabling hibernation. Is there any long term damage done from having to hard start it on occasion? I guess i dont mind as i would rather have the internal storage and wait the 30 seconds on occasion to use my Machine.

I don't think it would cause long-term damage.

Did you run the commands to disable sleep?

 

[Stoutman11]

I don't think it would cause long-term damage.

Did you run the commands to disable sleep?

No, it sounds like it involves terminal commands. I have never gone into terminal due to fear im going to mess something up.

I did go into energy saverand unchecked put hard drive to sleep when possible but i know that may not help.

 

[Audit13]

No, it sounds like it involves terminal commands. I have never gone into terminal due to fear im going to mess something up.

I did go into energy saverand unchecked put hard drive to sleep when possible but i know that may not help.

The required terminal commands are quite simple. I don't think you'll screw anything up.

 

[amenjas]

How have others experiences been with Samsung 970 Evo? I see its on the list. I saw one poster saying a Samsung 960 Evo ran hot.

500G Samsung 970 Evo at Google Express site $99. after coupon, from Best Buy. Tax on $119.99.
HOLIDAYSAVE3X

$119.99
Subtotal$128.15
Discount$20.00
Order total$108.

Free returns Holiday policy until the New Year.

Update: sold out via the $99. via Best Buy.

I am using samsung 970evo 500gb on macbook air 2015 4gb ram. No doubt this ssd is beast with tripple performance than apple ssd. With normal working on laptop- like mail, browsing, office and running normal low end softwares; laptop base get little bit warm. I do noticed little bit heat while running my dicom professional softs. But fan still running low. If u are using laptop for normal use and very occasionally use as professional laptop then 970evo will be fine. But if u r using laptop for regular professional softwares go for intel 760p. Beasts ssd do get hot but u will definitely notice performance on windows 10 bootcamp. Heat issues only depends on usage.