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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.
Huh, looks like I need to figure out how to install that nightly build, I've only got smartmontools 6.5 installed via homebrew.
 
Earl Urley said:
How big do those transfers have to be? I'm constantly moving ripped mkv's and VM images of anywhere from 2 GB to 7 GB to a simple 3 TB USB 3.0 drive and haven't seen any KPs.
Click to expand...

It never occured for me with copy on regular platter hard drives.
It occurs on full backup with CCC on external USB 3.0 SSD : big transfer (>300GB) at high speed (>300MB/s).
I will investigate more...
At first I tought it was a temperature issue : macOS seems not to be able to read proprely temperature of NVMe SSD. I took some photos with a FlirOne of a NVMe SSD in standby and after a full zero write : it goes very fast to 75°C.

But what is strange is that the problem (KP on huge file copy) only occurs with 512B formatted SSDs (Samsung 960 Evo or Pro).
It doesn't occur with 4K formatted SSDs

Earl Urley said:
Still can't get any SMART-related software to recognize my 960, though.
Click to expand...
I showed earlier in this post : DriveDX does perfectly recognize NVMe SSDs and it works with 960 Evo :
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-6#post-25117928
 

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gilles_polysoft said:
It never occured for me with copy on regular platter hard drives.
It occurs on full backup with CCC on external USB 3.0 SSD : big transfer (>300GB) at high speed (>300MB/s).
I will investigate more...
At first I tought it was a temperature issue : macOS seems not to be able to read proprely temperature of NVMe SSD. I took some photos with a FlirOne of a NVMe SSD in standby and after a full zero write : it goes very fast to 75°C.

But what is strange is that the problem (KP on huge file copy) only occurs with 512B formatted SSDs (Samsung 960 Evo or Pro).
It doesn't occur with 4K formatted SSDs


I showed earlier in this post : DriveDX does perfectly recognize NVMe SSDs and it works with 960 Evo :
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-6#post-25117928
Click to expand...

Anyone know which NVMe SSD uses the least power?
 
I tried the following experiment to confirm the behavior difference by Format type, APFS or JHFS+.

Format external USB HDD with JHFS+ and install High Sierra (1013.1). Because it is HDD, it is not converted to APFS and remains JHFS+.
Format the internal NVMe SSD with JHFS+ and Restore (Disk Util.app) from the external USB HDD.
Start up from internal NVMe SSD and make user settings. The SSD boot disk of JHFS+'s High Sierra 10.13.1 is completed.

By specifying the no conversion option (--converttoapfs NO) of command activation, the target disk could not be specified and it failed.

JHFS + and APFS have different starting mechanisms. APFS refers to the Preboot partition inside the container.
Behavior of the internal SSD (NVMe) did not differ.


MacBook Air 13 Mid2013
Internal SSD Samsung 960 Evo 250GB with sintech small adapter & Apple MZ-JPV256
 

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Last edited:
wawon said:
I tried the following experiment to confirm the behavior difference by Format type, APFS or JHFS+.

Format external USB HDD with JHFS+ and install High Sierra (1013.1). Because it is HDD, it is not converted to APFS and remains JHFS+.
Format the internal NVMe SSD with JHFS+ and Restore (Disk Util.app) from the external USB HDD.
Start up from internal NVMe SSD and make user settings. The SSD boot disk of JHFS+'s High Sierra 10.13.1 is completed.

By specifying the no conversion option (--converttoapfs NO) of command activation, the target disk could not be specified and it failed.

JHFS + and APFS have different starting mechanisms. APFS refers to the Preboot partition inside the container.
Behavior of the internal SSD (NVMe) did not differ.


960 Evo(NVMe) 960 Evo(NVMe) MZ-JPV(AHCI)
APFS 10.13.1 JHFS+ 10.13.1 JHFS+ 10.12.6

Disk ICON External External Internal External:Orange Internal:Silver
Boot OK OK OK
Re-Boot NG 20-30% NG 20-30% OK Apple menu & Terminal sudo reboot
Sleep OK(tentative) OK(tentative) OK

Boot sound ~1sec ~1sec ~1sec from press Power button
Apple Mark 8-12sec 8-12sec ~1sec from Boot sound
Boot up ~10sec ~10sec ~12sec from Apple Mark

? folder ~16sec ~16sec — from Boot sound

Read MB/s 1500 1450 1400
Write MB/s 1300 1350 900-1150

MacBook Air 13 Mid2013
Internal SSD Samsung 960 Evo 250GB with sintech small adapter & Apple MZ-JPV256
Click to expand...

Could someone tell me if NVMe drive works on Sierra? or only High Sierra? Thanks!
 
wawon said:
MacBook Air 13 Mid2013
Internal SSD Samsung 960 Evo 250GB with sintech small adapter & Apple MZ-JPV256
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1509929390][/doublepost]
User9 said:
Could someone tell me if NVMe drive works on Sierra? or only High Sierra? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Sierra (10.12.xx) dose not support 3rd party(non Apple) NVMe SSD natively, so Kext patch(s) are need. Original Apple NVMe SSD (from MacBook Air 11-inch, Early 2015 AP0256H) may work.

http://www.macotakara.jp/blog/macintosh/entry-28839.html
(japanese)
 

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Okay, so I updated Homebrew tonight and lo and behold, smartmontools got updated to v.6.6! Guess it got declared stable.

Here's my info page:
Code: 
smartctl 6.6 2017-11-05 r4594 [Darwin 17.2.0 x86_64] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-17, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Number:                       Samsung SSD 960 EVO 500GB
Serial Number:                      ???????????????????
Firmware Version:                   2B7QCXE7
PCI Vendor/Subsystem ID:            0x144d
IEEE OUI Identifier:                0x002538
Total NVM Capacity:                 500,107,862,016 [500 GB]
Unallocated NVM Capacity:           0
Controller ID:                      2
Number of Namespaces:               1
Local Time is:                      Sun Nov  5 23:12:39 2017 EST
Firmware Updates (0x16):            3 Slots, no Reset required
Optional Admin Commands (0x0007):   Security Format Frmw_DL
Optional NVM Commands (0x001f):     Comp Wr_Unc DS_Mngmt Wr_Zero Sav/Sel_Feat
Maximum Data Transfer Size:         512 Pages
Warning  Comp. Temp. Threshold:     77 Celsius
Critical Comp. Temp. Threshold:     79 Celsius

Supported Power States
St Op     Max   Active     Idle   RL RT WL WT  Ent_Lat  Ex_Lat
 0 +     6.04W       -        -    0  0  0  0        0       0
 1 +     5.09W       -        -    1  1  1  1        0       0
 2 +     4.08W       -        -    2  2  2  2        0       0
 3 -   0.0400W       -        -    3  3  3  3      210    1500
 4 -   0.0050W       -        -    4  4  4  4     2200    6000

=== START OF SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED

SMART/Health Information (NVMe Log 0x02, NSID 0x0)
Critical Warning:                   0x00
Temperature:                        38 Celsius
Available Spare:                    100%
Available Spare Threshold:          10%
Percentage Used:                    0%
Data Units Read:                    1,068,713 [547 GB]
Data Units Written:                 982,093 [502 GB]
Host Read Commands:                 20,511,688
Host Write Commands:                5,673,913
Controller Busy Time:               43
Power Cycles:                       92
Power On Hours:                     63
Unsafe Shutdowns:                   0
Media and Data Integrity Errors:    0
Error Information Log Entries:      0
Warning  Comp. Temperature Time:    0
Critical Comp. Temperature Time:    0
Temperature Sensor 1:               38 Celsius
Temperature Sensor 2:               56 Celsius

Read Error Information Log failed: NVMe admin command:0x02/page:0x01 is not supported
 
Today a new adapter (large) of sintech arrived so I tried swapping it immediately. Surprisingly there is no problem at restart. I feel that contact has become good as the connector of the SSD has been replaced with a strong spring. The machining accuracy also improved and it fits in the same size as the genuine SSD.

On the other hand, a fatal error occasionally occurs in the NVMe controller at startup. (Attached file)
 

Attachments

wawon said:
Today a new adapter (large) of sintech arrived so I tried swapping it immediately. Surprisingly there is no problem at restart. I feel that contact has become good as the connector of the SSD has been replaced with a strong spring. The machining accuracy also improved and it fits in the same size as the genuine SSD.

On the other hand, a fatal error occasionally occurs in the NVMe controller at startup. (Attached file)
Click to expand...

....this means the Sintech adapter improved but doesn't solve the problems with NVMe SSDs
 
User9 said:
...this means the Sintech adapter improved but doesn't solve the problems with NVMe SSDs
Click to expand...

Since it seems that the fatal error at startup is not a hardware problem from the estimation below, initialization of the entire SSD and a new installation are carried out again.

No error has occurred in the memory test. (Rember http://www.kelleycomputing.net/rember/)
It only occurs at startup.
It almost coincides with the time when introduced Windows using BootCamp. Windwos introducing is for SSD's SMART information acquisition. Adapter is irrelevant.
After that, the Windows partition was preserved while several new installations of High Sierra were done.
After installing High Sierra with JHFS+, it converted to APFS with Disk Util.app (it started from Recovery Disk and executed after Unmounted with Disk Util.app), it became in a state where it can not be set on the startup disk. Recovering of Disk Util.app had no effect. It seemed that some trouble was occurring.

The probability of occurrence of fatal error was about 20-30%, but it did not occur even after restarting 10 times after reinstallation. I will see a little more. I think High Sierra is still buggy.


After clean install and user setting, the trash box was not empty?? There was the file I threw away before clean install.
Even BootCamp partition deleted, there was ever "EFI boot" entry at startup manager, ob course nothing happened if selected.
 
Last edited:
User9 said:
Anyone know which NVMe SSD uses the least power?
Click to expand...

Well, here's the power specs (average) for the 960 EVO models:

Typ. 5.3 Watts (250 GB)
Typ. 5.4 Watts (500 GB)
Typ. 5.7 Watts (1000 GB)

Peak power on the WD Black M.2 512 GB is supposed to be 8.25 Watts according to Storage Reviews, but that's not the average

Idle power is 5.5 mW on the WD Black, 40 mW on the 960 EVO.

WD Black has 160 TB write endurance, 960 EVO has 200 TB write endurance. Oddly, Samsung warranty is 3 years, WD warranty is 5 years.
 
Last edited:
Earl Urley said:
Well, here's the power specs (average) for the 960 EVO models:

Typ. 5.3 Watts (250 GB)
Typ. 5.4 Watts (500 GB)
Typ. 5.7 Watts (1000 GB)

Peak power on the WD Black M.2 512 GB is supposed to be 8.25 Watts according to Storage Reviews, but that's not the average

Idle power is 5.5 mW on the WD Black, 40 mW on the 960 EVO.

WD Black has 160 TB write endurance, 960 EVO has 200 TB write endurance. Oddly, Samsung warranty is 3 years, WD warranty is 5 years.
Click to expand...
WD Black probably has better error correction and trim function than Samsung but 160TB write endurance is a lot anyway....
 
gilles_polysoft said:
It never occured for me with copy on regular platter hard drives.
It occurs on full backup with CCC on external USB 3.0 SSD : big transfer (>300GB) at high speed (>300MB/s).
I will investigate more...
At first I tought it was a temperature issue : macOS seems not to be able to read proprely temperature of NVMe SSD. I took some photos with a FlirOne of a NVMe SSD in standby and after a full zero write : it goes very fast to 75°C.

But what is strange is that the problem (KP on huge file copy) only occurs with 512B formatted SSDs (Samsung 960 Evo or Pro).
It doesn't occur with 4K formatted SSDs


I showed earlier in this post : DriveDX does perfectly recognize NVMe SSDs and it works with 960 Evo :
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-6#post-25117928
Click to expand...

In your opinion, would AHCI drive still be the best to purchase if need sleep and hibernation or NVMe stable enough with the new sintech adapter.
 
wawon said:
Sierra (10.12.xx) dose not support 3rd party(non Apple) NVMe SSD natively
Click to expand...
Yes it does !
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-ssd-to-m-2-nvme.2034976/page-6#post-25123534
And natively with 4K formatted NVMe SSDs

As for Apple NVMe SSD (SM2048L etc) , they are supported natively from 10.10.2 on all Mac from 2015
(and with BootRom update on late 2013-2014 macs)
[doublepost=1510184298][/doublepost]
wawon said:
Today a new adapter (large) of sintech arrived so I tried swapping it immediately. Surprisingly there is no problem at restart. I feel that contact has become good as the connector of the SSD has been replaced with a strong spring. The machining accuracy also improved and it fits in the same size as the genuine SSD.

On the other hand, a fatal error occasionally occurs in the NVMe controller at startup. (Attached file)
Click to expand...

There are still issues with 512B SSDs and High Sierra, as of 10.13.1 (and even 10.13.2 beta still does not yet resolve this).

I tested Windows 10 a long time with the same hardware (rMBP 13" late 2013 and Samsung 960 Evo), there is no issue under windows 10 so this is not a hardware related problem (sintech adapter is fine, SSDs also). It's more an issue with the IONVMeFamily kext of 10.13.0-10.13.1

Hopefully, there will be an update one day to the IONVMeFamily.kext (2.1.0) from 10.13.0 which is the culprit, to my mind.
 
Last edited:
Just installed Kingston HyperX. Anyone know why the battery life got reduced by half and would anyone know how to fix this? Thanks
 
Looking at the Kingston spec sheet for the HyperX M.2:

Power Consumption: .11W Idle / .99W Avg / 4.95W (MAX) Read 7.40W (MAX) Write
 
oscarxvita said:
I'll update the experience of my setup here:
WITH CableCC/Chenyang Adapter:
Overall Usability: Tolerable. Only have reboot issues.
Macbook Model: Macbook Pro Mid-2015(A1398)
Adapter: CableCC (Chenyang)
SSD Model: Samsung 960 Pro 512GB
BootRom Version: MBP114.0177.B00
BootCamp: Installed, with problem rebooting and error launching BootCamp Control Panel
Kernel Panics: Rare when taped(<2 times/month). Noticeable when untaped(1~2 times/day)

High Sierra cold boot time: >30s with APFS, ~10s using JHFS+(forced os installer to install using JHFS+)
Sleep issues: NO
Reboot issues: YES, showing nothing but black screen, have to force turn off and start.
Any hiberate policy modified?: NO(Factory Default)
P.S.
I'm trying to buy a Sintech Adapter, it seems CableCC is not the 'authentic' one? I'm in china, so it should not take long for the adapter to arrive.
---
Update:
I just received my Sintech Adapter(new version), and the reboot problem is gone!
WITH Sintech: Work like a charm!
Kernel Panics: Rare
Adapter version: New (bigger version)
Reboot Issue: No
Sleep Issue: No
Tape? : You still have to tape it.

Go sintech!
Yey!
🙂
Click to expand...

Would you be elaborate on your last comment "you still have to tape it."? What exactly does taping do and would you be able to confirm that you Mac can sleep but can also hibernate?

Also anyone noticed their NVMe SSD read performance is lower in Sierra than High Sierra is this normal or my drive is faulty?
 
Last edited:
MacIsHard said:
Whats the large Sintech Called? Could somebody link it to me?
thanks in advance 🙂
Click to expand...

Not 100% sure, but Sintech lists this part for $16, it seems to be a revision B of the previous part most of us have been using.

http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1143.html

They have reduced the price of the older part most of us have been using to $8.99 US, and this new part is mysteriously $15.99 or twice the price of the old part. Hopefully that additional charge results in better quality.
 
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Earl Urley said:
They have reduced the price of the older part most of us have been using to $8.99 US, and this new part is mysteriously $15.99 or twice the price of the old part. Hopefully that additional charge results in better quality.
Click to expand...

The cost of $15.99 contains 2 screw drivers.

adapter and 2 drivers $15.99
NGFF M.2 PCIe SSD Card as 2013 2014 2015 MacBook SSD
http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1143.html

adapter only $8.99
NGFF M.2 PCIe SSD Card as 2013 2014 2015 MacBook SSD
http://eshop.sintech.cn/ngff-m2-pcie-ssd-card-as-2013-2014-2015-macbook-ssd-p-1139.html
 
I stuck in a Samsung Evo 960 into my MBP early 2015, and it works great, but often it fails to recognize startup disk, so I get the "flashing ?", so I turn it off and back on, and it boot fine. Is there a fix for this?
 
User9 said:
Would you be elaborate on your last comment "you still have to tape it."? What exactly does taping do and would you be able to confirm that you Mac can sleep but can also hibernate?

Also anyone noticed their NVMe SSD read performance is lower in Sierra than High Sierra is this normal or my drive is faulty?
Click to expand...
Taping means to avoid Kernel panic by taping the adapter. I can confirm that both sleep and hibernate work flawlessly on my mac
[doublepost=1510454232][/doublepost]
rmjohnso75 said:
I stuck in a Samsung Evo 960 into my MBP early 2015, and it works great, but often it fails to recognize startup disk, so I get the "flashing ?", so I turn it off and back on, and it boot fine. Is there a fix for this?
Click to expand...
Check your adapter, what brand is that
 
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