Would you make a new topic with review of the OWC drive?
I would like to hear about how well (or not) the OWC drive works.
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m.2 ssd for Retina Macbook Pro late 2013 and later
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Would you make a new topic with review of the OWC drive?
I would like to hear about how well (or not) the OWC drive works.
I linked to a similar adapter a couple of times in past threads a few weeks ago (which apparently nobody else reads 
), so I'm excited to see that somebody finally decided to try one. It is unfortunate that people are reporting these problems, but those are likely the SM951's fault, not the adapter's. I used a similar adapter in my 2010 MBA with a MyDigitalSSD M.2 SATA stick, and it works fantastically well.
The major downer about this adapter is that I am unaware of any 1TB 2280-sized PCIe AHCI sticks, so if you want to go up to 1TB of capacity, there are no M.2 options for you...you'll have to break down and buy the OWC product. (ALSO! Don't forget that if you want another option other than OWC, there is now a second vendor doing drives for the 2013 and later models!) And since AHCI with PCIe flash was a fairly short-lived phenomena, and the industry is switching to NVMe as fast as it can, it is unlikely that anybody is going to bother to make an M.2 1TB drive that will work in these MacBooks, which means high-capacity upgrade options will probably be limited (and expensive) indefinitely. (Contrast this situation with the SATA-based MacBooks from 2012, where there are value-priced high-capacity options a-plenty on the market if you use an adapter.)
I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with OS X, and everything to do with the boot firmware/EFI. The new 12" MacBook actually has NVMe-based flash in it, and of course it ships with El Cap (and the 2015 models, which also had NVMe flash, ran Yosemite from the factory). So OS X already has support for it. The problem is that the EFI in MacBooks that did not ship with NVMe drives doesn't know how to talk to NVMe storage and so can't bootstrap the OS X boot process from such a drive. And I very highly doubt Apple will ever release an EFI update for these older Macs that adds support for NVMe.
-- Nathan
), so I'm excited to see that somebody finally decided to try one. It is unfortunate that people are reporting these problems, but those are likely the SM951's fault, not the adapter's. I used a similar adapter in my 2010 MBA with a MyDigitalSSD M.2 SATA stick, and it works fantastically well.The major downer about this adapter is that I am unaware of any 1TB 2280-sized PCIe AHCI sticks, so if you want to go up to 1TB of capacity, there are no M.2 options for you...you'll have to break down and buy the OWC product. (ALSO! Don't forget that if you want another option other than OWC, there is now a second vendor doing drives for the 2013 and later models!) And since AHCI with PCIe flash was a fairly short-lived phenomena, and the industry is switching to NVMe as fast as it can, it is unlikely that anybody is going to bother to make an M.2 1TB drive that will work in these MacBooks, which means high-capacity upgrade options will probably be limited (and expensive) indefinitely.
(Contrast this situation with the SATA-based MacBooks from 2012, where there are value-priced high-capacity options a-plenty on the market if you use an adapter.)I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with OS X, and everything to do with the boot firmware/EFI. The new 12" MacBook actually has NVMe-based flash in it, and of course it ships with El Cap (and the 2015 models, which also had NVMe flash, ran Yosemite from the factory). So OS X already has support for it. The problem is that the EFI in MacBooks that did not ship with NVMe drives doesn't know how to talk to NVMe storage and so can't bootstrap the OS X boot process from such a drive. And I very highly doubt Apple will ever release an EFI update for these older Macs that adds support for NVMe.
-- Nathan
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- I'd certainly be very interested to know how you get on with it!Aw, that kind of sucks :/ I think I'll go for the kingston SSD in that case. Also, my adapter was shipped and is on its way, so I got that going for me at least
I'd say that the solution with the adapter still is a decent idea, if you've got the 128 GB model like me and want an upgrade. It's just that you shouldn't expect to get faster speeds, I guess.
- Is it just me or do those look a whole lot like Apple SSDs with a (virtual) sticker slapped on?
They apparently also offer a 512 MB option.
Of course, if I ever come around to actually installing it I'll share my experience- I'd certainly be very interested to know how you get on with it!
- Is it just me or do those look a whole lot like Apple SSDs with a (virtual) sticker slapped on?
They apparently also offer a 512 MB option.
Also, I lol'd at that sticker XD
Well, they are definitely not that. I mean, take a look at the ones for the 2012 machines. Those are very clearly adapters populated with mSATA sticks...
Someone else pointed me to these drives in a different thread. I too was (and remain) a bit wary, since I had never heard of this company, although Google + Wayback Machine seems to indicate that they have been around for a while and may even be an institution of sorts as far as the Mac community goes. But still, there is enough here to give me pause, and I posted my reaction here. I'd love to hear from someone with actual experience with one of these drives.
-- Nathan
- Maybe not, but they sure look like it. I'm not sure how you can say they definitely aren't. The ones for the earlier machines are something else, but the later ones look a lot like Apple drives.
Besides the MB/GB mistake, it is also worrisome that the supposed drive for the 2015 MacBook Airs is depicted the way it is. It's simply too wide and won't physically fit inside the machine. Compare with the iFixit teardown of that machine.
how did you measure the ssd's temperature, what kind of workload was it that made the ssd throttle ?
as far as I know the apple ssd' inside the newest MacBookPro's is also a kind of SM951 just with different connectors ?
could it be the adapter rise the temperature, could it be that the SMC reports a wrong temperature ?
Guys, I have to warn you; I was today made aware that the guys at Sintech managed to hack in to my Paypal account. This is by no means a joke. To make sure, I even called Paypal and they told me that someone in Singapore had actually managed to log in to my account. This was 1 hour or perhaps even less after I had placed my order.
Scary stuff...
Scary stuff...
No worries, I want to make sure that they do not scam any more of us. Although the item has actually been shipped and despite the fact that I have received a legit tracking number for Singapore Post, I can not say that I am calm by any means. What's mind-boggling is how they actually did it since I made sure that I logged in to Paypal through the official paypal.com website, with encryption.
Anyhow, I have sent them a passive-aggressive e-mail so I will get back to you guys later when they have responded.
I am not so sure of that. They shipped the item to me using Singapore Post, and they are called "SIN-Tech", implying that they are located in Singapore. Also, I do not see it as a coincidence that my account got logged in to merely 1h to 3/4 of an hour after the purchase was completed.
But who knows, I could be wrong. Let's see what they say when they get back to me.
- Correct. Singapore is a different country. But they obviously have some operations there, since the item was shipped using Singapore Post.
Okay, so they finally replied to me, and this is all they said:
you should report this problem to paypal instead to us.
So yeah. They didn't say hi, they didn't use uppercase, and they obviously didn't care about what I told them in my e-mail. If anything they raised my suspicion. Guilty or not of logging in to my account; This is as unprofessional as it gets. I am never doing business with this company ever again.
By the way, Paypal knows what's up since I called them.
you should report this problem to paypal instead to us.
So yeah. They didn't say hi, they didn't use uppercase, and they obviously didn't care about what I told them in my e-mail. If anything they raised my suspicion. Guilty or not of logging in to my account; This is as unprofessional as it gets. I am never doing business with this company ever again.
By the way, Paypal knows what's up since I called them.
1. What made you suspicious enough to contact Paypal and ask them whether somebody else had accessed your account to begin with?
2. If they were actually "hacking" your account, you would think that they would do so with intent of ripping you off. But you haven't said that they actually took any money from you above and beyond what you owed them for your purchase. So...what did they do, exactly, other than allegedly log into your Paypal account?
I admit I am a little dubious of this report. Like you said, how could they have gained access? I would, of course, change your password, but also call Paypal again to confirm by talking to somebody different and getting a second opinion. Perhaps the first person you talked to over there was a moron (would not be the first time, I'm sure...).
-- Nathan
2. If they were actually "hacking" your account, you would think that they would do so with intent of ripping you off. But you haven't said that they actually took any money from you above and beyond what you owed them for your purchase. So...what did they do, exactly, other than allegedly log into your Paypal account?
I admit I am a little dubious of this report. Like you said, how could they have gained access? I would, of course, change your password, but also call Paypal again to confirm by talking to somebody different and getting a second opinion. Perhaps the first person you talked to over there was a moron (would not be the first time, I'm sure...).
-- Nathan
1. When I logged in to my Paypal yesterday, I got a pop-up saying "Hey, someone logged in to your account [date and time] in Singapore, and we're not so sure it was you". That's when I changed my pass and called them to confirm that this guy had actually successfully logged in, which he apparently had.
2. I don't know how they got access. That's the thing. But what I do know is that I didn't use a VPN located in Singapore (I have used VPNs in other countries though), and I certainly haven't been there recently. And no, by the looks of it, they only logged in, they didn't actually do anything (except maybe try to steal some info from my profile).
So, right now I have sent them a new e-mail, so let's see if they reply. Again, I don't know if it was them, but I mean seriously, they used Singapore Post, and it said that this guy had logged in from Singapore... It doesn't seem to be a coincidence.
Hello again guys,
So I got the adapter a couple of weeks ago but I haven't gotten around to using it yet. But as my need for more storage has started to increase, I've started to look at m.2 NVMe drives and found one from Intel called something like "600p".
Now, the only thing that's keeping me from buying this is that I've heard people say that the rMBP 2015 doesn't support NVMe. However, the issue with NVMe seems to lie in the lack of drivers in macOS, and not in the Mac's hardware. So I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, the drive would work if I used Windows 10 on my Mac? Or will the EFI on the Mac stop me from doing this?
Thanks for your help
So I got the adapter a couple of weeks ago but I haven't gotten around to using it yet. But as my need for more storage has started to increase, I've started to look at m.2 NVMe drives and found one from Intel called something like "600p".
Now, the only thing that's keeping me from buying this is that I've heard people say that the rMBP 2015 doesn't support NVMe. However, the issue with NVMe seems to lie in the lack of drivers in macOS, and not in the Mac's hardware. So I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, the drive would work if I used Windows 10 on my Mac? Or will the EFI on the Mac stop me from doing this?
Thanks for your help
NVMe is just a protocol that runs atop the PCIe bus. So support for NVMe really is just, at the heart of it, a software issue. macOS does have NVMe support circa 10.10.3-ish -- remember that all models of the 12" MacBook *have* an NVMe SSD, so macOS has to support it.
However, as it looks like you may have guessed, your potential big problem is going to be EFI support. Even if macOS has NVMe support in the OS, that doesn't mean that the EFI firmware in your computer knows how to talk to an NVMe disk. What that means is that if you booted macOS or Windows off of a USB thumb drive, both OSes would be able to see and use the NVMe drive inside the computer, but you might not be able to boot off of an NVMe disk directly, even if the OS itself knows how to talk to the hardware, because the EFI is what has to kick off the boot process and bootstrap the OS.
On a 2015 model, though, until somebody actually tries it, my guess is as good as anyone else's about whether or not it will work as a boot disk. There is evidence to suggest that Apple snuck some NVMe SSDs into the 2015 MacBook Air's supply chain...it looks like some 2015 MBAs shipped with AHCI drives and some with NVMe drives. If this is true, that means that the 2015 MBA EFI must necessarily support NVMe. I have not heard similar rumors or news about 2015 rMBP, but if the 2015 MBA supports it, your chances are greater than 0 that a 2015 rMBP would. But somebody has to be the first one to try it!
It is very unlikely that 2013 or 2014 MBA or rMBP machines have NVMe support built into EFI, however (though, again, somebody needs to try it in order for us to arrive at a definitive answer!). My guess is that NVMe support probably exists in the EFI of any Mac model that formally removed the CSM "BIOS compatibility" layer/mode, but that is only a guess.
-- Nathan
Thank you for your post Nathan! I actually ordered the drive now, because as you said, I would at least be able to boot via a USB drive (worst case). The price was just too good to pass up on!
I will get back to you with the results when I have the drive!
Sorry for the double post but I felt like I had to tell you this.
Today I noticed that Sintech had gotten back to me about the hacking of my PayPal account. What they told me was that they had nothing to do with it, and that their company is in fact located in China, but their forwarder for Europe uses Singapore Post. Furthermore, I was informed that PayPal's main company is to be found in Singapore and that this could somehow have caused the message to be delivered.
So, since nothing happened or have happened thus far, I'm no longer suspecting them of being responsible for the hacking, if I was ever hacked at all. That was all I wanted to say for now! Have a good one.
Today I noticed that Sintech had gotten back to me about the hacking of my PayPal account. What they told me was that they had nothing to do with it, and that their company is in fact located in China, but their forwarder for Europe uses Singapore Post. Furthermore, I was informed that PayPal's main company is to be found in Singapore and that this could somehow have caused the message to be delivered.
So, since nothing happened or have happened thus far, I'm no longer suspecting them of being responsible for the hacking, if I was ever hacked at all. That was all I wanted to say for now! Have a good one.
Excellent! Do let us know how it ends up working out! And thanks for taking one for the team.
Oh, also, if you find that you can't boot off of the NVMe stick at first, do make sure that your EFI and SMC firmwares are as up-to-date as possible before throwing in the towel. It could be that a firmware update silently added NVMe support or fixes an issue preventing it from otherwise working. (And it probably goes without saying that you should bring macOS as far up to date as you can, as well.)
If it turns out that you can't boot from the drive, but you decide to keep it anyway, another option that occurs to me is that you could get one of those Transcend JetDrive Lites, stuff that in your SD card slot, and use that as your boot drive. Not sure about performance as a boot drive, but would likely be more physically elegant at least (as well as more convenient) compared to having a USB thumb drive sticking out of your computer.
Oh, and good news about Sintech and Paypal; I guess just keep a vigilant watch on your account for the next few months to be sure.
-- Nathan
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Well, I have good news and bad news.
The good news is that my SSD arrived today, and that its measurements (with the adapter on) seemed to fit in the Mac. The bad news is that the screwdriver managed to "screw" my screw so to speak, and after having tried to unscrew the screw with other screwdrivers without success, I simply gave up. There is simply no way that I am going to be able to unscrew it on my own. It's not budging.
On the plus side, I got to remove some dust from the inside of my Mac. But now the screw for my SSD is ruined...
Well, sorry guys, I will have to return the SSD :/ But honestly it could have been worse. My Mac still works fine and apart from that one screw, nothing broke. And hopefully, someone else will be able to learn from my mistakes!
Cheers,
HatMine
The good news is that my SSD arrived today, and that its measurements (with the adapter on) seemed to fit in the Mac. The bad news is that the screwdriver managed to "screw" my screw so to speak, and after having tried to unscrew the screw with other screwdrivers without success, I simply gave up. There is simply no way that I am going to be able to unscrew it on my own. It's not budging.
On the plus side, I got to remove some dust from the inside of my Mac. But now the screw for my SSD is ruined...
Well, sorry guys, I will have to return the SSD :/ But honestly it could have been worse. My Mac still works fine and apart from that one screw, nothing broke. And hopefully, someone else will be able to learn from my mistakes!
Cheers,
HatMine