Installed 1T Feather M13 SSD in 2015 rMBP, crashes every boot / wake and during use. Returning

My laptop now spins for a few seconds, then crashes every time I wake it from sleep, or power on from a complete shutdown.

I’ve reached out to their tech support, so far I’m getting crickets.

I would like to make it work, and would appreciate any suggestions. I need the room, but can send it back.

A few questions:

  • Did you have Mojave installed on the old drive before you installed the new memory?
  • How did you translate your old install software to the new drive?
  • Have you done any diagnostics or disk utility checks/repairs on the new SSD?

I have a 1TB Fledging. In a preliminary install process about a month ago, I did a nuke, partition (900 MB volume + 100 MB volume), and clean install of Mojave. I had no issues in the short time I ran the SSD. I hope to complete the switch after Memorial day when my workload relaxes.


JJW

Thanks for your reply.

Just after posting here, I received replies to the crash issue, and possibly the speed issue (running only as fast as the OEM drive).

Regarding crashing, tech support said:

This is a known issue that occurs when using NVMe SSDs with some MacBooks. However, you can circumvent this issue using the following steps. This will still allow for regular sleep, just not deep “hibernation” mode.

1.     Open up Terminal (open your Applications folder, then open the Utilities folder. Open the Terminal application.)
2.     Type in the following code in the Terminal: 
sudo pmset hibernatemode 0 standby 0 autopoweroff 0
3.     Press enter (return). 

I just powered off and back on, and slept and woke the laptop with no issues. I suppose this is a fair tradeoff.

To answer your questions

  • I had Mojave on the old drive.
  • not sure of your second question, but I used CarbonCopyCloner to backup, installed the Feather, booted from the CCC backup and restored to the Feather.
  • No, I haven’t.

Regarding the speed issue

I suppose I’ll reinstall the OEM drive, (re)install Mojave on it, then reinstall the Feather drive. This should patch the firmware and speed up the drive (hopefully). I would think this would be available in System Report, but apparently not.

My laptop crashed while using it today, something that has never happened with the oem drive, so the Feather is going back, and I’ll just have to make do with the 512GB I have.

A while back, Fledgling sent me a complementary drive. They have done some re-engineering of the drive. I’ve had it installed for several months now (since around Catalina’s release), and it is working well for me. No hangs or kernel panics.