macOS High Sierra 10.13 NVMe Support  

Posted by: luki343

Hey,
I have MBA 13 mid2013 without SSD, my bootrom is mba61.0099.b04, will it work if i buy ssd nvme?

I'm not sure but I'm going to suggest no.  Not unless you can install 10.13.3+ on an original MBA 2013 drive first. After updating the MBA firmware, you could install from a USB installation key (you'd have to make this key i think).

from the OP ...

I was holding my breath at first boot after installing the NVMe M.2 drive. The MacBook Air was not able to boot. I could not get to the Boot Selector screen either by holding OPTION key. After an hour testing the 12+16pin to M.2 NGFF M-Key adapter through another PCIe adapter inside my Mac Pro to verify it's working, I determined it must be something with the firmware of the MacBook Air.

I proceeded to perform a clean installation of macOS High Sierra Beta 9 on the original drive so that the latest firmware for this MacBook Air can be applied. That did the trick. My mid-2015 11" MBA is now running Boot ROM version MBA71.0170.B00. I did another clean installation of 10.13b9. This time on the Samsung 960 EVO NVMe.

Well, I went ahead and bought a 960 EVO + adapter. Let's see how it goes 😉

Successfully running the 960 EVO on the MBP. Having previously clean-installed High Sierra multiple times while working on purge-wrangler/purge-nvda I had no issues with EFI/boot, etc. The biggest problem was the Torx screw securing the SSD - it never budged. Used a knife to file the screw, then a drill + rotary to smoothen and widen the wedge. Finally used a flat screwdriver (took 2 hours lol). Sad upgrade experience, but works. 

EFI takes time to detect new SSD on boot -> resetting NVRAM + SMC + option-setting disk to default boot disk resolved it.

Odd. I just reset SMC + NVRAM -> speeds on the 960 EVO down to around 700 MBps for both read/writes - were previously about 1400. Any ideas? Makes the upgrade rather pointless.

Update: Managed to resolve the problem by booting into Recovery and running first aid on the SSD device. Write speeds are fairly inconsistent - ranging from 650-1500 MBps while reads are nearly consistent, surpassing 1500 MBps in consecutive tests.

After prolonged sleep (default hibernation mode settings), speeds are down to ~700 again. Weird.

@mac_editor I read about odd behavior with these newer PCIe NVMe drives. Some have had success by formatting the drive with a non-default variable sector size. One user on macrumors did it under Linux. I forgot the details and can't locate it now.

@itsage I did come across something like that. For now I'll probably stick with what I have (reboots sometimes fix the issue). Maybe I'll look into it further once I have the time.

@ppespepe have you managed to make Intel p3600 work ?

There are multiple annoying problems with using a 3rd-party NVMe SSD. After a bit of digging and testing, here are my findings:

# Boot Failure Sometimes: System fails to boot -> kernel trace signal NVMe kext crash CSTS=0x3 (or something like that). Typically happens after sleep-wake failure once.

Workaround: Didn't dive deep, since occurrence rare in my case. May have something to do with adapter signals. Try different adapters.

# Sleep-Wake Failure: System may kernel panic after waking up from prolonged sleep.

Workaround: Disable hibernation. Use purge-wrangler (has an option to do so) or do so manually using pmset command. If using pmset -> set standby, autopoweroff, and hibernatemode to 0 for all power states (-a).

# Lower (PCI2x2) Speeds: For SSDs exceeding 1400MB/s speeds, they may sometimes run at half-speeds.

Workaround: Boot into Recovery mode. Repair SSD as well as boot disk.

# Slower Boot (Apple Logo Delay): Apple logo may appear after significant delay while booting.

Workaround: Hold Opt while booting and control select your macOS boot disk once to set it as primary boot disk again. Should improve subsequent boots.

Hope it helps 😉

Hi, guys.

I'm kinda new here and it is nice to meet ya' all.
So I notice about this information about NVMe with macOS High Sierra.
Now, I have an urgent question about NVMe because I need a faster workflow for Adobe. Down below is the host I am currently using.
Computer hos: Mac Pro 6,1 with the OS version of 10.13.6.
Recently, I found this one "NA611TB3" and it has Thunderbolt 3 interface.
My question is this: Would the NVMe SSD be recognized by Mac Pro 6,1 using Apple adapter TB3 to TB2?
Has anyone have done this before? If yes, I would like to know the results so I can go further to my decision on getting one.
The NVMe SSD I decide to get is Samsung EVO 960 500GB.
Gladly to receive your comments, cheers!!!