Here's how to upgrade the SSD on your MacBook to NVMe for cheap! 

Several people have been asking so i figured I'd add a pinned comment: 2012 and early 2013 MacBook Pros can be upgraded, but not with NVMe SSDs. They use an mSATA interface with different pin map, so you'd need a different adapter and an mSATA SSD. The hardware upgrade would be the same, and the software process should be largely the same as well. Also, a word from our sponsor: PDFElement is a great all-round tool for editing PDFs right on your mac! Download free trial: @t

I do this to macs a lot and there are a couple of very important things that luke skipped. 1. when he formatted the drive, you need to make sure the partition map is GUID, to do this before formatting, go to view along the top then "show all devices". then format the drive and it will allow you to choose the partition map. Otherwise it wont work. 2. I have only had luck with samsung drives, many cheap SSDs are not even detected by mac OS or linux when installed. 3. Once you install the OS, you need to do some tweaks in the terminal and settings to fix sleep and hibernation issues you will have. first, go to settings then energy saver and uncheck "put hard drives to sleep when possible". then go to terminal and put in the command sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0 out in password then it should say somthing like ":idle sleep timings for battery power may not behave as expected" when all this is done, you will still have issues with 5G wifi networks dropping out on the laptop, since both the wifi chip and ssd now use the same PCI lane. 2.5GHz networks work fine, but if you have 5G, you will lose internet randomly.

I never cease to be amazed by how both informative and practical your videos are. One of the only channels I've seen so far that gives contextual cost-effective advice for us broke folk. Thank you Luke.

I just wanted to say that I like the style and format of your videos. I know you don't have a ton of subscribers but keep plugging away and you will get there.

was filevault turned on? Found that was making my mac a bit slower and was taking about 50mb read/write. And please do more flipping videos

Damn a video with a TRUE and ACCURATE comparaison, thank you Luke.

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks Luke for a great video. Now if there was only a way to upgrade the RAM.

Fyi, OS X Mojave installation will convert the journaled format to apfs regardless . I recommend right off the bat formatting apfs while installing Mojave . It’s the most reliable way to make sure osx gets installed without any issues .

Thank you very much for this Tip Luke. Did the upgrade with the Crucial P1 1TB and it works great!!

Did you encountered sleep issues with this adapter installed?

Great video. Running a late 2013 MBP w/Retina and replaced the 512Gb drive with a 1 Tb. More than doubled my read/write speeds.

You just saved me some serious cash with this video. All the other videos online just push you to buy OWC stuff like it's the only way possible to upgrade a late 2013 macbook pro 15". All these listed components are available for reasonable cheap as well, here in Brazil. Thanks a lot and keep up with this amazing content

It's a shame the 2016 and newer MacBook pros can't be upgraded 😕 Great video as usual Luke 👌

Thank you for your hint. I was looking for a a SSD upgrade. That's the perfect solution. Regards from switzerland!

Awesome Build. Please also tell us where do you buy these used laptops??

Next time I would unplug the battery first since that could cause issues if your unlucky

This was truly a great money saver! I just upgraded my Macbook Pro (Late 2013) and the process worked flawlessly. I used the exactly same inland Premium SSD 512GB and adapter. Once I formatted the drive, restoring my stuff through Time Machine worked out great! Thanks for the video! Excellent process and easy to follow!

This is a very informative video. I saw in a similar upgrade video commenting that some of these adapters (and some NVME drives) do not properly support sleep/hibernate. In fact, the QNINE you link to in your video states: Don't support Samsung PM981, Samsung 950 Pro, Samsung 970 Evo Plus. You are kindly reminded that macOS failed on resume from hibernating with some NVME SSDs of some brands. Have to turn off laptop all the time instead of close the lid and go. It would be great to know from you (or others) the safe combinations of adapters and drives to avoid this headache. Because a laptop that you can't close the lid on to make it sleep...kinda sucks.

Good deal! I’m trying to flip my 2011 MBP upgraded with 16GB with 500 Gb SSD looking for Retina 15” MBP

Thank you for this Tutorial. I have a MacBook Pro 13“ Retina 2015. Can the RAM and the GPU be replaced or are they soldered? If there is a possibility, a tutorial would be great. LG

I was always a little suspicious about these adapters. Good to know that they actually work lol

Oh Luke, your Apple upgradeability grace came to me thanks to your awesome recommendation. I was on vacation in US trying to decide to buy a new Macbook Pro or not. Now I'm back to Argentina with a 1TB of Crucial P1 working fantastic in my 2015 15' mbp. You Rock!

Thank you so much. This was a lifesaver doing this myself.

Your effects are great in this video 👏

will this work on an early 2015 pro 13?

Great video! I did something similar and installed a WD Black 500GB drive on my 2015 MBP. It worked great for the first month, although battery life was considerably worse, especially while sleeping where the drain was up to 30% overnight! Since then I've started to have regular kernal panic issues when waking and the occasional mouse lock up as well. I'm struggling to find any solutions and I'm thinking of going back to the original 128GB drive.

Another super video! I love ❤️ these repurposing and upgrading videos. I like to use my old electronics as long as possible.👍🎥💻👨‍💻📱✅

How far back can you go to be able to put one of these new " stick " drives in a Mac Book ? I would expect you cannot add one of these to anything before 2012 but I am not certain about that.

Thanks so much for this. Today I fitted a Samsung V-Nand SSD 970 Evo Plus to my MacBook Pro 13" i7 Late 2013. I've now got a 1TB SSD rather than the 256GB SSD I had before. It's saved me a fortune as this MBP still runs all the music apps I use with ease, it was just that I was running out of storage. As a new MBP is out of the question then this was the perfect solution. The drive cost me just over £150 on Amazon UK on Black Friday, and the adaptor was around £5. A heck of a lot cheaper than a OWC drive. The install was easy. Thanks again.

Do sleep work after you install the SSD? Or did you have to disable it using a terminal command?

great viideo, I was about to upgrade same ssd on my macbook pro.....and now I am going to be even happier with this upgrade, thank you for this video.

Love the lighting! Great quality on your video, thank you for doing this! =D

Can I upgrade the SSD of a MacBook Pro 15" Touch Bar 2019?

What about reliability and longevity, not just pure speed the day it is installed?

Hi Luke, First, thanks for "all" your useful videos. I want to know if your SSD advice for upgrading an old Macbook pro late 2013 stays a good choice, or did you have an 2021 up to date advice? cheers. Alex

The adapter is computer life saver. I had a co-worker's Macbook Air flash storage kick the bucket and I was able to save it with minimal amount of cost to him using the adapter.

7:51 when the apple fan finally does the math on Apple Tax...

7:56, was when Miani realised how bad Apple rips off people's wallet, at times(very rarely), not offering value for money. Apple's storage is insanely priced, that's for sure. Great video.

I heard that third-party SSD cause the Mac not to sleep correctly. Is OWC’s version better since it doest’t need the adapter? Thanks for the great content.

I was successful upgrading SDD using this video and few others. Thank you Luke! I used Sabrent 1TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 Internal SSD High Performance Solid State Drive (SB-ROCKET-1TB) & Sintech NGFF M.2 nVME SSD Adapter Card for Upgrade 2013-2015 Year Macs(Not Fit Early 2013 MacBook Pro) I was able to restore from Time Machine backup with latest OS update. I was little nervous opening MacBook for first time but all is well!

Successfully did this on late 2014 iMac 27” 5k

Love to see how to upgrade SSD on Macbook Pro 2019 😍😍😍

Hey Luke! Great video as always. I’ve read an article that says that MBP 2013-2015 has some issues with sleep/hibernating. Any experiences of those on your upgrade?

Thank you for making this!

time to start buying all of the 'No SSD" macbook Pro's and flipping them!

Hey man, how about in latest 2019 MacBook pro?

How is your computer doing coming back from hibernation after being asleep for awhile? I had to change some pmset stuff up.

Man you are right on the ball 🎾 You know your stuff I have been getting the best info from your site Thank you very much your a champion mate Crouch

came for the content, subbed and liked for the cat.

Thanks! I upgraded my early 2015 MBP 13" with a WD Blue NVMe SSD 1T drive and it worked perfectly. I found the following additional links helpful: - Written overview of how to upgrade the SSD to NVMe: appleinsider.com/articles/20/08/23/how-to-use-an-nvme-drive-to-upgrade-your-macs-ssd - Written how-to make a USB installer: www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/bootable-mac-installer-3575875/ - Video walk-through of how to make a USB installer: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-51UXmhcS8C0.html Thank you!

Awesome video. Very helpful. Will be trying it out on my late 2013 Retina MacBook Pro.

Good deal. Worth it. Would like to get a 13” similar MBPro. Suggestions?

Lol, 150$ for 500gb, here in germany 480gb cost around 250€, ~278$... I read that adapters or non "apple" ssd's in general cause issues with standby mode by draining way to much battery or dont get started at all, so i wanted to ask before upgrading, you guys got any issues with that?

I've heard some NVMe users in macbook pro that it cause some freeze and sleep issues. You will have to shut down when close the lid, Can't close the lid and go anymore. Anyone here can confirm this happened or not?

Most helpful video yet thanks - just was looking for the link for the correct adapter - I only see for the drives. Am I missing something ?

Great video Luke! Have you ever repaired or upgraded an IPad?

4:46 :D

This ist awesome, I can finally upgrade my super small 128gb MacBook Pro's storage to 512gb without spending as much as the whole machine on the used market. Seriously who would spend almost $700 on a 512gb SSD? Greetings from Germany

It works smoothly for my MBP retina late 2013 with Samgporse S5 512GB for only US$55

Thank you Luke, it is time for me to upgrade to a MacBook Pro mid 2015 15 inch from a MacBook mid 2012 13 inch

he buys at least 1 macbook per week tf man

If anyone sees this can answer my two questions I'd appreciate it. I use a 2019 16in MacBook pro (I think it's 16, I bought the biggest MacBook in Q1 2020) with the top cpu, mid gpu and 500gb ssd. I need atleast 1tb of storage now to store 1 days worth of 4k raw footage shot at 120fps. So I am considering upgrading my internal storage to a 2tb nvme ssd. My other option is to buy a 2tb USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 or tb3 ssd and record directly to that from my camera and then I wouldn't need to buy a new SD card adapter and it would be quicker. This would cost me about $300 for the nvme ssd, $300 for the 2x2 (20gbps) that has a finger print lock which is nice if I lost 6 hrs of footage no1 could steal it, or $600 for a chonking tb3 ssd with no lock. Also consider I don't have my camera yet, nor a SD card reader nor any SD cards, so those need to be factored in if I upgrade the nvme in the Mac, instead of editing in final cut directly from a portable drive my camera recorded the raw directly to. I may consider also recording to the SD card if it supports it So I have a backup if the drive fails. Which of the 3 do you recommend and why? Bonus question for you Mac nerds, I'm new to Mac so help me out, I've been loving it. What do I do to ensure all of my settings and files transfer from the previous Mac to the new one? I was thinking if I could use a windows machine, I have one with 2 nvme drives open. Would I be able to plug em both in, with the new one pre formated in the MacBook and do a simple transfer? Or is it more complex and will require lots of effort/pay a local service $150 type deal?

Hi all, quick question. I have a Mid-2013 13" MacBook Air with 8GB RAM. Without upgrading the RAM or any other hardware, what impact will upgrading the SSD have on my overall user experience? I'm an architecture student who uses Rhino, Illustrator and Photoshop. I downloaded the Blackmagic Disk Speed Test app and got a 345 MB/s write speed and 415 Mb/s read speed. How will upgrading the SSD benefit me?

I love your vids keep up the work!

5:00 To format the drive: He launched Disk Utility from the Utilities menu in the installer.

worth every penny. used and older model macbooks are best deals. ty

Great video Luke...one quick question. is it possible add a second HHD (data or name) as a boot drive and use NVME as a second drive?

Wait, what MacBook Pro did you use as an example in this video?

Wow this is great stuff! Love your videos more and more. I will definitely be doing this upgrade on my 2012 MacBook Pro Retina

So is a 2013 MBP a good used option these days? Do they suffer from the same over heating/failing GPU problems that the 2011 MBPs suffered from? Is there a better year model that can be upgraded? I’m thinking ssd and ram

I enjoyed your video. I don't yet have an Apple laptop, but want to jump in at a bargain price. Where do you buy a good used Macbook and are there any particular things to avoid?

Hi Luke. Thanks for this video. Could you explain -- does the OS need to be installed separately from a time machine backup to a new SSD? @4:35 you kind of skimmed over this as it might have not applied directly to this video, but I'm unsure how to go about this correctly. I have a 2014 MacBook pro running Mojave. I want to upgrade the SSD without changing the OS. Do I need to install the OS separately to the new SSD before running Time Machine? Or, will Time Machine automatically restore my OS for me during the backup to the new drive? If I need to restore the OS beforehand how would I go about this? I don't want to upgrade my OS. I would like to keep Mojave. I appreciate any help you can offer. I've had a hard time trying to find a good article on this subject.

Can you confirm this will work with a 2019 iMac with a fusion drive and do you need to remove the hard drive? I plan on using a 1TB SSD.

I feel you were raised by educators- because of quite but powerful explanations Thanks for the insights

Luke, are you having sleep wake problems with this drive?

Technically the SSD read/write speed will affect by the empty space remain in the drive, do you clean up some space before you test on the original Macbook Pro SSD? PS: My 13" 2015 Macbook pro stock 256gb SSD achieve over 1000mb/s read/write speed when i free up around 50% of the storage

Despite the caption in the video saying that you can do all of this by simply booting your Mac in recovery mode, my MacBook Pro didn’t seem to notice that it had an SSD in it at all while it was in recovery mode. For whatever reason, I could only get this to work by creating a bootable USB. Only when booted with the USB did my MacBook recognize its new SSD so that I could erase/reformat it.

Excellent and easy-to-follow instructions. I have two questions, please? I have just bought a new (as in March 2020) MacBook Air 13 DC i5 1.6GHz/8Gb/256Gb. Can the memory be upgraded to 16 Mb RAM and can the SSD be upgraded to 1Tb? Thank you

@Luke Miani on my 2015 15” MacBook Pro my crucial ssd is just a hair too long and I cannot screw the ssd back into place. Any suggestions?

Hey @LukeMiani, can the 2017 MacBook Air's SSD be also upgraded??

looking forward to do this!!

Would this be a good MacBook Pro to get given the Change over to the New Chip that Apple and of course the accompanying systems will do in the next few years???

I have early 2013 macbook pro retina. I am little confused, which crucial SSD and adaptor should I use for the upgrade?

Hi there, it was so informative video. I have a question is it gone work for my Mac book pro 2017, 128GB, 8 GB of Ram, 2.3 GHZ processor. Thanks

hibernation mode is still a problem with this upgrade?

Luke....this video made my day however, I have one question. Mid 2015 MBP I have installed OWC's first gen Aura SSD NVME and it recognizes it as an external HD. With this adapter would it do the same ? Did it show up as a reg internal HD when you did your testing ?

Thank you. My 2015 MacBook Pro 15" Retina is now running a 1TB NVMe SSD without issue. Appreciate the help.

I got MacBook Pro 13” 2019 2-Thunderbolt 3. Does this same metod/upgrade work with my mac? They said that RAM-uprgrade is not even possible. Adter opening tMacBook Pro, is there anything else that should replaced? Like superbattery, Wi-Fi6 card ect?

But regardless of the speed of the new NVMe, isn't the speed actually based on the PCIe bus. For example, MacBook Air early 2015 I think the bus is PCIe 2.0 which I assume has a max speed of about 1,500? It would be nice to see if you tried a faster drive that can handle speeds in the 3,000 to see what happens, especially on a MacBook Air with PCIe 2.o bus

Hey, Would be please confirm if it is possible to upgrade SSD on MacBook Air 2020, the same way you did in this video? Thank you.

So this doesnt auto sleep? You have to click sleep in the os first, rather thn closing the lid and go? Very important since I'm gonna be upgrading . Please let me know. Thanks

Do you have a video on how to install MacOS and get it set up? I'm really interested to learn

you just saved my life! Thanks!

please make a video upgrade specific specs for Macbook pro 2017 , what to buy SSD. thank you

Read an article that with the adapter plus ssd (non apple/owc) it is too “big” for the macbook air 2017 causing returning the cover problematic? Is this true?

Will it really not affect the performance? Will it avoid guarantee??

This sounds ridiculously simple. I think I'll give it a try!

Please, please share where did you buy this Mac. Please @Luke.

In some videos they do something with the battery connector first. Is it important or you can directly change the ssd?

Thanks man. You helped me a lot. Good job