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

[vince22]

Hi form Athens, Greece.
MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015). 6/12/20 i have updated the hard disk with
ADAPTER from SINTECH: NGFF M.2 PCIe SSD Card as 2013 2014 2015 MacBook SSD (ST-NGFF2013-C)
DISK: SSD ADATA XPG SX8200 PRO 1TB

Till 7 days ago everything was perfect.Everything was working very well ( including hibernation , sleep)

After the last update of catalina ...every time that i shut down the mac...it's impossible to boot.
the only way to boot, is to open the mac's case disconnect battery and hard dis + reconnect battery and hard disk.

Do you have any idea how cn i fix this problem?
It's a big trouble to open the case , disconnect and connect cables , every time that i have to boot.

Thank you very much

no problem here, latest Catalina beta installed.

 

[savvasmi]

I've just read that Catalina is causing Macbook's 16in (the new ones) to reboot. It was identified as a bug. Maybe something related to that bug is happening with your computer (I know it is a 2015 machine, but...).

Have you tried to downgrade to the version before the boot issues?

that's a good idea.thanks. i have to try out this. but unfortunately this is my working laptop and i don't have time to do it.

The battery looks good.

Try this: disconnect the battery, connect the charger, don't touch the keyboard and see if the MacBook boot up on its own. If it boots, let it boot to the desktop, shutdown the MacBook. After it shuts down, try booting by pressing the power button.

Without the battery i can boot. the problem is that i have to disconnect battery every time after shut down in order to boot. Otherwise i have to wake up the pc from sleep mode that's works
[automerge]1590033318[/automerge]

no problem here, latest Catalina beta installed.
View attachment 917218

have you the same hard disk also ?

 

[macpro_mid2014]

that's a good idea.thanks. i have to try out this. but unfortunately this is my working laptop and i don't have time to do it.


Without the battery i can boot. the problem is that i have to disconnect battery every time after shut down in order to boot. Otherwise i have to wake up the pc from sleep mode that's works
[automerge]1590033318[/automerge]

have you the same hard disk also ?

Catalina 10.15.5 is at its last beta. We will have it very soon. Then you can try it out because Apple will address that bug with the 16in mac pros for sure.

 

[Audit13]

Without the battery i can boot. the problem is that i have to disconnect battery every time after shut down in order to boot. Otherwise i have to wake up the pc from sleep mode that's works

If it boots and shutsdown properly without the battery connected, the issue may be a bad battery.

 

[bbcoon]

Hello everyone,

Any guide, advice, anything on how to reprogram the BootRom of my mid2014?

I wonder: Can it be done with an Arduino Uno? I have one and I used it for completely different projects, never handled anything like this. I am very comfortable with soldering so my plan was to remove and bring back the chip.

Thanks

 

[Audit13]

Hello everyone,

Any guide, advice, anything on how to reprogram the BootRom of my mid2014?

I wonder: Can it be done with an Arduino Uno? I have one and I used it for completely different projects, never handled anything like this. I am very comfortable with soldering so my plan was to remove and bring back the chip.

Thanks

The only instructions I know of are contained in the first post.

 

[bbcoon]

Thank you @Audit13. Might aswell ask: the second system is mandatory, or can I borrow the bootrom file from someone?

 

[Audit13]

Thank you @Audit13. Might aswell ask: the second system is mandatory, or can I borrow the bootrom file from someone?

This I don't know. I've never tried a nvme drive in a 2013 or 2014 MacBook for more than a week.

 

[newbit]

Hello Fellows,

just wanted to confirm, that a new Kingston KC2000 2TB SSD with a Sintech Adapter works in a Macbook Pro 15" 2015.

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)
Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro11,5
Processor Name: Intel Core i7
Processor Speed: 2,8 GHz
Number of Processors: 1
Total Number of Cores: 4
L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB
L3 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 16 GB
Boot ROM Version: 197.0.0.0.0
SMC Version (system): 2.30f2

NVMEExpress Device Tree
Capacity: 2 TB (2.000.398.934.016 bytes)
TRIM Support: Yes
Model: KINGSTON SKC2000M82000G
Revision: S2780101
Serial Number: 500xxxxxxxxxxx
Link Width: x4
Link Speed: 8.0 GT/s
Detachable Drive: No
BSD Name: disk0
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
Removable Media: No



Cheers NewBit

 

[crystalwonders]

Which NVMe SSD would you recommend? Many people use the Samsung SSD, but I heard there is a decrease in battery life

 

[Audit13]

Which NVMe SSD would you recommend? Many people use the Samsung SSD, but I heard there is a decrease in battery life

All nvme drives will reduce battery life. People have had different results with the same drive in the same MacBook because of different batteries, usage, and sleep settings.

I recommend finding a drive a good price, search this thread for feedback, and then decide.

 

[goodfidelity]

I just made the NVME upgrade in a 2015 13" Macbook PRO Retina.
(i have 2013 model from before, but i got my hands on 2015 just so that i can get native sleep)

I used Samsung 970 EVO Plus with updated Firmware

I used cheap model of adapter from aliexpress, that is like a long board (not short sintec adapter).

I used SD card with adapter, and made a bootable catalina installer into this SD card.

After swapping disk, i just boot from SD and install.

I downloaded Black Magic Speed test to verify function, and seems it works very good.

I am getting about 1500 Mb/s Read and 1300 Mb/s write.

Is this normal numbers? I was under impression this disk will do double, but maybe not in at 2015 Macbook.

Thanks for any advice, thanks for this thread!

If i can get hold of 1TB blade with the most power efficient model (found in wiki post beginning of this thread) i will do another upgrade to get hold of that disc since it has most power efficient controller.

Anyhow, this upgrade was pretty straight forward, i am now in process to verify it all works before i do the major transfer from my old machine.

//GF

 

[vince22]

I just made the NVME upgrade in a 2015 13" Macbook PRO Retina.
(i have 2013 model from before, but i got my hands on 2015 just so that i can get native sleep)

I used Samsung 970 EVO Plus with updated Firmware

I used cheap model of adapter from aliexpress, that is like a long board (not short sintec adapter).

I used SD card with adapter, and made a bootable catalina installer into this SD card.

After swapping disk, i just boot from SD and install.

I downloaded Black Magic Speed test to verify function, and seems it works very good.

I am getting about 1500 Mb/s Read and 1300 Mb/s write.

Is this normal numbers? I was under impression this disk will do double, but maybe not in at 2015 Macbook.

Thanks for any advice, thanks for this thread!

If i can get hold of 1TB blade with the most power efficient model (found in wiki post beginning of this thread) i will do another upgrade to get hold of that disc since it has most power efficient controller.

Anyhow, this upgrade was pretty straight forward, i am now in process to verify it all works before i do the major transfer from my old machine.

//GF

your numbers are normal, early 2015 Retina 13" supports 4x lanes PCIe 2.0 speed (5.0 GT/s).

 

[goodfidelity]

your numbers are normal, early 2015 Retina 13" supports 4x lanes PCIe 2.0 speed (5.0 GT/s).

I now installed the old macbook SSD into a PCI adapter, and hooked it up to my Mac Pro 2009 running Windows 7.

I reformatted the drive to NTFS and ran a benchtest with the crystaldiskmark 7.0.0 application.

This is results that i got (screenshot)
about 1500 mb/s read and 660 mb/s write.


Seems original disk was more then fast enough, so it was just a improvment in storage volume.

//GF

 

[goodfidelity]

After the upgrade i notice some very high activity on the fan.
Since upgrade the fan did never shut down completly, and there seems to be high temps on the SSD and the CPU.

Attached are two images, one from the 2015 macbook with Samsung 970 Evo PLUS and one with original disk from 2014 retina. Both are 8Gb RAM and i5 processor.

on 2015 model CUP never drop below 40-50% and 70-80 C temp.
on 2014 model CPU idle around 0-20% and temp is sitting firm around 40 C temp.

Anyone have suggestions here? Is this from catalina, from the SSD or another annoying problem?

Is this due to the install is all fresh?

Looking at the SSD current draw there is HUGE difference, from 0,07A in 2014 model to 0,8A in 2015 model. This is 10x factor of increased power draw. This is when idle.

Temp on SSD is also big difference from 2014 model at 37 C degree to 35/53 in the 2015 model.

//GF

 

[vince22]

After the upgrade i notice some very high activity on the fan.
Since upgrade the fan did never shut down completly, and there seems to be high temps on the SSD and the CPU.

Attached are two images, one from the 2015 macbook with Samsung 970 Evo PLUS and one with original disk from 2014 retina. Both are 8Gb RAM and i5 processor.

on 2015 model CUP never drop below 40-50% and 70-80 C temp.
on 2014 model CPU idle around 0-20% and temp is sitting firm around 40 C temp.

Anyone have suggestions here? Is this from catalina, from the SSD or another annoying problem?

Is this due to the install is all fresh?

Looking at the SSD current draw there is HUGE difference, from 0,07A in 2014 model to 0,8A in 2015 model. This is 10x factor of increased power draw. This is when idle.

Temp on SSD is also big difference from 2014 model at 37 C degree to 35/53 in the 2015 model.

//GF

its pretty much well documented on opening page chart comparison that samsung nvme use more power and runs hotter, I've used sabrent rocket lower power consumption with my 2015 13" MBP, here a comparison just took it right now.

 

[goodfidelity]

its pretty much well documented samsung nvme use more power and runs hotter, I've used sabrent rocket lower power consumption with my 2015 13" MBP, here a comparison just took it right now.
View attachment 918309

Yes, but this difference is HUGE. I would say samsung is not usable for this application at all, if using 10x the energy.

Thing is that i cannot understand why processor idle is so high?

There two computers sit side by side on same desk doing nothing. Still the 2015 machine with catalina is using way more CPU idle and CPUS are running much hotter.

I think i will order another SSD for this machine. However i am not sure this is the problem here. Is there any documented problems with catalina gobbing up CPU, or that first hours or so after fresh installation it is very CPU intensive work going on to index the SSD or something like that?

I cant find anything that is running, but the CPU meter clearly indicates high activity compared to old machine.

On the 2014 the % drops to singel digit numbers for the cores / threads. ON the 2015 machine they dont go below 30%.

CPU current is around 0,2A on the 2014 machine, and around 0,8A on the 2015 machine. So something is going on there.

Can this be from the NVME adapter beeing used, being a "bad one" from Aliexpress? I did not use sintech since i already had this cheap one in a drawer from year back or so. Anyone noticed rare kind of behaviour from the cheaper adapters, especially the long ones? (same size as the SSD in the machine)

//GF

 

[goodfidelity]

After doing SMC reset (didnt give any effect after first reboot) and unplugging the charger, letting the machine sit for about 45 minutes the fans suddenly came to rest, and the processor activity dropped, and the disk current dropped with about 50% down to 0,4A, which is still high.

Temperatures came down, processor activity came down, and powerdraw for whole system came down.

Now system total on the upgraded 2015 machine is around 11W just like the 2014 machine.

I follow up these posts with data, so that anyone who have the same issues will not have to go through all the problems i did. And maybe the solution is to just let the machine sit idle for some time to let the fresh install sort things out in the background.

//GF

 

[adjb]

This panic looks really suspicious. Can you send me (privately) an IORegistry dump with the Samsung SSD installed? You can obtain it using IORegistryExplorer.

Hi, this is my first post here, I've had a flick through quite a lot of this thread so far, but by no means all of it, so apologies if there is something more relevant since this post (it's hard to search the thread fully other than hoping Google will land on something relevant..).

With that said, I recently (just coming up to a month now) upgraded my MPB Mid-2014 (MacBookPro11,2) SSD to a Crucial P1.

It was going fine until recently and I seem to be having Kernel Panics a lot more regularly (nearing at least once a day without fail), triggered by random events - I literally just had one now when clicking the bookmark tab on Macrumours, causing the screen to go black and reboot - see this KP attached.

I believe everything I've done up to date is correct - here is everything I've done for this upgrade;

1. I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything from my old MacBook's HDD to the new SSD using this enclosure.

2. Installed this in my new MBP Mid-2014 (MacBookPro11,2) using this adapter card.

3. Made sure Standymode was off (pmset -g | grep standby output below: )

standbydelaylow 10800
standby 0
standbydelayhigh 86400
highstandbythreshold 50

4. Made sure my Sleep Mode was set to 0 (pmset -g | grep hibernatemode output below: )

hibernatemode 0

5. Using SilentKnight, checked all of my Firmware etc., which all appears to be up to date -

Do you have any ideas that could be causing these regular Kernal Panics?

I read in another post that the "MBP 2014 is limited to Proprietary* (PCIe 2.0 x2)" - mine is a MPB Mid-2014 (MacBookPro11,2) but I think the Crucial P1 is a PCIe 2.0 x4 - could that be an issue?

Feel free to direct me elsewhere for Kernel Panics if this has been addressed/there is a clear fix(?), but it's quite hard to efficiently navigate through this huge thread!

EDIT: Just to note, I also have this adapter card, but didn't install the SSD with it because it took so long to arrive, so got the prior and installed with that - could that be another factor?

Thanks
Adam

 

[fk4517]

Hello,

I am new here and this thread has given me some hope I can upgrade my MBP. From what I understand, I should do the following (please forgive my hardware ignorance I am more of a software guy):

1. Get one of those Sintech adapters
2. Get a new SSD
3. Update my firmware
4. Swap the old flash drive for the new SSD

My question is, in 2020, running Catalina, will I still run into hibernation issues? My system details:

For example I came across this on Ebay:

Does that mean I don't need to mess with the BootRom patching thing mentioned at the beginning of the thread if I have upgraded my OS?

 

[Audit13]

View attachment 918512

Does that mean I don't need to mess with the BootRom patching thing mentioned at the beginning of the thread if I have upgraded my OS?

2013 and 2014 MacBooks must be patched to fully support hibernation.

 

[fk4517]

2013 and 2014 MacBooks must be patched to fully support hibernation.

Thank you. Suppose I bought a used 512gb PCI SSD pulled from a MBP, would that also require patching? I assume not because its an original part, am I correct?

 

[Audit13]

Thank you. Suppose I bought a used 512gb PCI SSD pulled from a MBP, would that also require patching? I assume not because its an original part, am I correct?

Correct, original Apple SSDs do not need any patching at all.

 

[fk4517]

Correct, original Apple SSDs do not need any patching at all.

Thank you! As a noob i'll try and source an original SSD lest I brick my beloved MBP!

 

[Audit13]

Thank you! As a noob i'll try and source an original SSD lest I brick my beloved MBP!

NVMe drives are good as long as you understand the positives and negatives of using them. Good luck in your search and I hope it all goes well.