Chosen Solution

I recently purchased a Grade A used 15” MacBook Pro 11,5 Dual Graphics 2.8GHz 16GB RAM which I have upgraded with the OWC 2TB Aura Pro X2 2TB SSD. This is an excellent system with great performance, and replaced my previous 13” MB Pro 2012. My only minor gripe is with the size of the SSD - I’m not going into detail, but I genuinely need to have more than 2TB of SSD internal storage, my old system had 3TB internal storage (after taking out the CD drive), and had it not been that it was getting too old and slow for my needs, I would have gladly kept it just because it was so easy to upgrade everything. I am aware that Sabrent manufactures both 4TB and 8TB NVMe M.2 Gen.3 blades, which have similar performance to the (excellent) OWC I own and can be installed in my laptop using the Syntech NGFF to M.2 adapter, but I am concerned about thermal issues with a larger NVME blade, and whether this might cause some erratic behaviour when CPU and GPU get going. I have found hardly any information at all about such an upgrade on the web, and before I commit to spend another £500 on an SSD, I’d like to hear from anyone who might have tried the 4TB configuration (8TB is excessive from any possible point of view!) and ask them if they found the system stable. To reassure anyone about my present system: I am quite experienced with Mac upgrades and found it very easy to upgrade the SSD on this system (with the right screwdrivers, of course), I’ve been running this laptop flat out for about 6 months now, and it is very, very stable. I started on Mac OS High Sierra (I generally try to be 2 Mac OS behind latest, for stability and compatibility reasons), but I’ve just upgraded to Mojave without any hiccups. I regularly have at least 8-10 apps open at all times, Firefox browser with at least 200 tabs open, Mail, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, Zoom and various audio apps (Logic, ProTools or Live, Loopback, Dante etc.) which I use for lecturing. I very rarely get apps to hang and overall found this to be a great rig for a fraction of the cost of a new MBP.

I would stick with the OWC SSD! There is too many issues with the M.2 SSD’s using an adapter. I just cleaned out a large drawer of dead SSD’s and adapters I have been pulling out of Mac systems as they just don’t hold up. As far as thermal issues of a larger 2/4 TB blade SSD. Given your workflow you are not rendering, just running slide ware and finished videos. At most, you might show a quick example of editing on a small vid which will not be very long. So you are not keeping the system churning! That would be an issue. I would recommend getting a good thermal management app like TG Pro It’s what I use. If you are going to push your system you can ramp up the fans which will also cool your SSD and as the app can access the SSD’s onboard thermal sensors you can watch whats happening. Heat sink design This is the ideal heatsink design to shed heat. Offers a good balance of Mass and air heat transfer, you still need to have enough air flow.

The other design is to use the case as the heat dump using a similar design Apple used in the their early iMac systems

My Samsung 970 Evo Plus 2TB is still working, but it still runs hot. I think the heat over the almost 3 years now yes what finally did my battery in. I did get the TG Pro fan monitor software, and I just replaced my ballooned battery, put new thermal paste on the CPU and GPU. But still looking for ways to lower the heat. Even if I have to move to another brand that runs cooler. Overall, the SSD has been a completely awesome upgrade, and has been a risk worth taking, for me at least. Soooo, Has anyone tried the 4tb ones yet in a Mid 2015 Macbook Pro? e.g the Sabrent? Can the MB Pro handle 4tb? Thoughts on lower heat SSD? Someone mentioned Sabrent. Others? I also would like to maintain Samsung’s performance as best as possible Has anyone tried adding these type heatsinks for the SSD? https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07YC1… Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

In my own research, I’ve found no widespread reports of failures using recent M.2 adapters from Sintech, especially when paired with Sabrent 2280’s. In fact, Sabrent 2280’s seem to be quite reliable. OWC upgrades, on the other hand, have a reputation for problems, particularly regarding overheating. I built my first computer back in 1979, and I can confidently say heat is the biggest enemy of electronics. (My kitty once urinating on my old receiver not withstanding!) So Marco’s concern for overheating is quite understandable. The biggest reason I didn’t upgrade my memory years ago with OWC was out of concern for overheating. Sabrent 2280 sticks are some of the lowest wattage SSD’s on the market today. Low power equals low heat. As for the issue of losing data, everyone knows if you don’t back up your data, you’re asking for trouble. It doesn’t matter what kind of storage you use, sooner or later, it will fail—100% guaranteed. The reason I just upgraded my own MacBook Pro was because its original SSD failed.