Mac Mini Late 2014 and NVME SSD instability

Question

Level 1

4 points

Mac Mini Late 2014 and NVME SSD instability

Hi guys,

I have a Mac Mini Late 2014 with a 2,5" SSD I replaced myself. Recently I removed and NVME SSD from a notebook and wanted to add to the Mac Mini as the primary drive. I bought the classic L-shaped adapter and mounted it. At first boot I open Disk Utility and everything is fine, I'm able to format the drive, create volumes and so on...

But after reboot the NVME drive just disappears from Disk Utility, even if I reboot in recovery mode no luck, my disk is gone. If I shutdown and power up again, the book reappears.

Troubleshooting I've already done:

NVME disk works fine on the notebook
I've got three NVME adapters of different brands and they have the same behavior
Tried all sort of diskutil commands, but my NVME drive is never shown

What other things should I check?

Thanks!

Mac mini, macOS 12.1

Posted on Dec 28, 2021 3:58 AM

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Answer 1

HWTech

Level 9

61,160 points

Dec 29, 2021 6:21 PM in response to aleripe

I can only tell you what I've personally experienced and what I've learned from reading these Apple forums for the past few years. It is either a compatibility issue with the SSD and/or the SSD adapter, or perhaps the flex cable for the SSD is not able to handle the faster speeds an NVMe SSD uses since the original Apple SSD was a SATA based PCIe SSD which worked at much slower speeds. Which one (or combination of things listed) is hard to say.

Keep in mind that even an original Apple SSD from another model Mac may not work reliably in another Mac. I've personally experienced this, although macOS itself was what prevented the "other" Apple SSD from working since the "other" SSD worked correctly when using Linux. If macOS is that particular even with an original Apple branded SSD, then how can you expect a third party SSD and adapter to work? My instinct is a compatibility issue with the SSD and/or SSD adapter, but that is up to you to figure out. OWC does make a drop in replacement SSD and OWC supports the configuration so you may want to consider that as an option as it may end up being simpler to troubleshoot.

Perhaps you will get lucky and @bobcollard's suggestions will work equally well for your Mini.

Good luck.

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Answer 2

aleripe Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 29, 2021 2:21 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks for your detailed insights, they're very helpful.

I've thought about a bad adapter but the behavior it too consistent and also I have three different models and they exhibit the same behavior.

When I first boot the Mini (with Monterey on the Samsung Sata SSD I first replaced) I see that, every time:

I can work for hours on the Mini and the Toshiba NVME drive is always there.

Then, if I reboot I get this, every time:

The NVME drive disappeared! Please note that if I turn off the Mini and then power it up again the drive reappears.

Then if I go into recovery mode I see this, and can't install MacOS on the NVME drive:

I've read about Sintech but they're quite difficult to find here and I don't want to wait for months just to watch another probable failure. I think I'll just abort this project, but I would have really liked to reuse that NVME drive I already had in my home.

Thanks to all for your kind help! 😊

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Answer 3

Dec 29, 2021 5:52 AM in response to aleripe

Since that NVME replacement drive was formatted as an NTFS MBR, this leads me to believe that you took that out of a Windows notebook and there is no guarantee that it will play nice as a plug replacement in a 2014 mini. Time will tell.

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Answer 4

HWTech

Level 9

61,160 points

Dec 29, 2021 2:08 PM in response to aleripe

In order to use an NVMe SSD in a Mac you must be using macOS 10.13+ since only macOS 10.13+ has the necessary NVMe driver to work with the SSD. If you are booting the Mini to macOS 10.10 to 10.12, then you will not be able to see the third party NVMe SSD.

Plus the Mini must already have had the system firmware updated by having had macOS 10.13+ installed at some point in the past before you install a third party NVMe SSD. Also keep in mind that macOS 12.x Monterey will not install to a third party internal NVMe SSD until after macOS Monterey has first been installed while using an original Apple OEM SSD or hard drive (actually macOS Monterey will not even install to an external drive while an internal third party NVMe SSD is installed until after the system firmware has been updated by the Monterey installer).

There is also a chance the SSD adapter is not compatible or reliable. From reading these forums the only SSD adapter that appears to work reliably is from Sintech.

Also keep in mind that not all SSDs are compatible with all computers.

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Answer 5

aleripe Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 29, 2021 11:44 PM in response to HWTech

Thanks to all for your kind answers and support. It was an idea to reuse what I already had at home. I thought it was easy like on a PC but I was obviously wrong. I don't want to spend more money so I'll quit the project and probably use an external enclosure for the NVME drive.

Thanks

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Answer 6

Dec 28, 2021 4:41 AM in response to aleripe

Have you tried a PRAM reset? Quite often when making internal hardware changes a PRAM reset can solve some odd issues.

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 7

aleripe Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 28, 2021 4:58 AM in response to woodmeister50

Hi,

thanks for your kind answer.

I've just tried your suggestion but unfortunately the same problem reappeared after restart.

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Answer 8

Dec 28, 2021 9:00 AM in response to aleripe

How was this NVMe formatted in the notebook? Suggest a backup of this disk then erase it on the Mac mini, there could be problem with the Format from your notebook.

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Answer 9

aleripe Author

Level 1

4 points

Dec 28, 2021 11:41 PM in response to bobcollard

It was an NTFS MBR drive, but I erased it in APFS GUID multiple times with no luck. It always disappears at reboot so I can't install anything on it by using the Command+R method... :(

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Answer 10

Dec 29, 2021 4:25 AM in response to aleripe

Create a bootable USB thumb drive with the MacOS you want to install. Put it in the Mac mini then restart holding down Option. Choose the USB and see if it can find the NVMe to install on.

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