Hello all,
Been looking for this info but have not found anything. Im looking to upgrade the SSD in my 2013 Mac Pro (trash can) with a 970 evo (via adapter) I've read that these have been a issue in some earlier macbooks but works fine with 2015 models and up. I know the Mac Pro was pretty future proof so I wanted to see if someone was using this or the 960 evo in their Mac Pro and how's its working out?
Mac Pro, iOS 12.1
I''ve being using this set up for about two weeks on my late 2013 Mac Pro: my initiation to get it done properly is as follows:
1- Save you data to start because you'll be removing the default Apple internal SSD.
2- just make sure BEFORE swapping the SSD that with High Sierra with all Security updaters or Mojave was installed on that computer before pulling the default SSD. You are trying to get the latest firmware update into that computer.
3- I used the Simtech with the Samsung 970 NVMe placed into it. Seat it properly then only install either High Sierra or Mojave onto that Samsung. Anything earlier is not going to work. Don't even use Disk Utility to try and make it an HFS disk. Not going to do the job.
4- the 2013 Mac Pro boots, sleeps and wakes properly.
5- ASP shows as TRIM = YES. amazing
6- ASP shows link width as 4 another amazing
7- HEAT I used Intel power gadget to measure and the heat difference between the Apple default and this Samsung was one degree, This was placing stress using Handbrake on one full encode. I have not used a heat sink on the Samsung. If you read the Samsung readme found online they spout off about their superior product to control heat. I'm pretty sure heat will not be a big issue especially not using a program such a Handbrake. But if over time it does then I'll just swap in my Apple default. Keep that default around in case you need to make any other firmware update.
Good luck for me so far so good.
ps I did try this on my late 2013 rMBPRO , it took my install but remained screen black but turned on and would not boot. So I pulled it and replaced the Apple default and got it back to normal. I'm thinking that I did not pull the battery connector and that might have caused an SMC problem which I could not clear. I'm going to try it again but I'm not hung up on this one.
Probably easier to just check in sys info. I think if you enable it for one ssd and then clone across , it will be enabled for the second but not for a clean install but i could be wrong ...
I have this happening also!
Currently reinstalling Mojave to see if it resolves the issue. I had a similar problem with my iMac and restoring the OS fixed it.
Currently reinstalling Mojave to see if it resolves the issue. I had a
similar problem with my iMac and restoring the OS fixed it.
Just finished Mojave restore and it's actually made the boot up time worse. I am now getting a switch on to desktop time of 50 seconds. Up from 34 seconds previously....
After installing a Samsung 970 EVO in my Mac Pro Late 2013 I experienced no issues for the short time I ran it. I used the Sintech ST-NGFF2013. I have since pulled the 970 because I ran DriveDX and this was the result.
I'm not confident using this setup. I've never found DRiveDX to be unreliable but who knows? What do you think?
Hello tabosko,
I've just upgraded two days ago my 2013 Mac Pro (trash can) as you describe: Samsung 970 EVO and an adapter (Jser 12 + 16PIN 2014 2015 MacBook a M.2 SSD NGFF m-key) and everything works perfectly. MacOS High Sierra and a little bit tricky pushing the adapter into the Mac slot, but not so much.
I have a 2013 Mac Pro. I've installed the Samsung 970 EVO via the Sintech M.2 Adapter. It works with absolutely 0 issues. Hitting around 1500mb/s read and 1350mb/s write so it is significantly quicker (and cheaper) than the Apple OEM drive.
I did read that some people had issues with firmware updates during OS installs. I tested mine going from High Sierra to Mojave and had absolutely no issue whatsoever. It works exactly the same as the OEM drive. Your mileage may vary but its been great for me so far!
How did the MP get to 10.13.4? E.g. did it go through the noram update via Mac App Stre.
What was the format of that SSD at that time?
I would try reformatting as Mac OS Extended Journaled and try installing again.
A normal update to High Sierra included updating the Mac's firmware that included the ability read/write APFS. Updating to HIgh Sierra would also convert the Journaled file system to APFS.
Update.........
After inserting Apple SSD and update the firemware of my "diskless" Mac Pro 2013.
Intel 760p is recognized, and installation of Mojave can go ahead.
And it is noted disk formating in "MacOS Extended (Journaled)" at the beginning is no harm, as Mojave will convert it to APFS thereafter.
Thanka a lot.
Ben
Sorry it was confusing for you. I'll restate. I was asking a question as to whether anyone else had taken the new NVMe drive, put it in a portable enclosure, CCC'd their current bootable drive image onto it and then put it in the slot in the internal system. That is the only real question. Why I choose to test each NVMe is an internal studio process unrelated to the question; I probably shouldn't have included that.
If no one has done it, I guess I'll report back when I do. Just seemed kinda obvious as a step to explore and discuss instead of rebuilding from scratch as a default - as all these type threads seem to suggest. I don't do Apple migrations either; don't like them. A CCC of the OS drive to a new drive is not a migration in Apple terms; its a hardware bit for bit copy to a new drive. I have done this once and the enclosed Samsung 860 Evo 1TB SATA III did boot from the enclosure. Was a slow boot but was fine. I was just curious if it had been done as a part of this internal replacement process.
Thanks,
What an awesome thread. Unravelled a lot of confusion for me, and led to the discovery of DriveDx, which is pretty awesome.
My story: Bought a 2nd hand 2013 Mac Pro a few months ago - the previous owner had put a 500GB Samsung 960 EVO in it, although I didn't pay any attention to what SSD it was until today when the Mac Pro started repeatedly getting kernel panics either shortly after startup, or during boot up. Solved by re-seating RAM and SSD and doing an SMC reset (stupidly all at once, so I don't know exactly which action solved the issue).
Until I looked at the SSD I had always assumed it was some Apple-specific pinout SSD like my Late 2013 rMBP has. 500GB was never enough for me but I'd assumed the only option for these 2013 Mac Pros was the OWC AuraX range (which are $$$$ for a 1TB), so I bought a 1TB Barracuda and whacked it into a USB enclosure, and use that to store some of my less performance-intensive audio samples, iTunes library, etc. I thought I'd get 500-600MB/sec out of it and figured that'd be enough - but it turns out you only get 370MB/sec performance via USB enclosures.
So thanks to this awesome thread I can see now that if I really want 1TB of storage at 1300+MB/sec I could upgrade the internal one to a 1TB M.2 NVMe SSD rather than this out-rigger approach I've used (and just knowing that I could be running it all faster, will probably drive me to upgrade it eventually anyway :-p ) ....
BTW, I'm also seeing DriveDx is showing the EVO 960 getting a bit hot when I run BlackMagic disk speed test - that's good to know, I'd better order me a heatsink.
Thanks to everyone for posting such a great amount of information, and thanks to the folks who were happy to be guinea-pigs. I also appreciate the focus on empirical data & answers.
Solved - got all my data off the SSD, including a complete clone using SuperDuper in Target Disk Mode at about 280-350MB/sec. Added a heatsink + a 12V fan pointed at the heatsink, and that was enough to stop the SSD from melting down. The EKWB EK-M.2 NVMe Heatsink did the trick nicely, but the SSD was eventually getting hot enough to throttle itself down to 6 MB/sec, so I added a fan and that kept things working sustainably. Super pleased that I got a complete clone of the SSD as I was only expecting to grab a handful of files that hadn't made it into the latest backup - getting a SuperDuper clone is a bonus as it will make restoring onto the replacement SSD much easier than restoring via Backblaze.
Check in Apple System Profiler first to see if Trim is already enabled.
As far as I am aware the Samsung 970 Evo Pro should support this. Remember Samsung make the SSDs Apple use even if they are slightly different.
DId the Evo have a heat sink attached?
The original SSD in the 2013 had a heat sink and a lot of PCle cards that accept an NVMe SSD include a heat sink and one can purchase the heat sink separately.
970 evo mac pro
