Replacing a 256 Mb SSD in a 2015 Macbook Pro 15 with a higher capacity SSD

The OWC Aura SSD uses the proprietary SSD connector. It is a drop in replacement for the original Apple OEM SSD. The only caveats are:

• • macOS 10.13+ must have already been installed on this laptop prior to using any third party SSD internally. This is because the laptop's system firmware needs updated to recognize an NVMe SSD which are the only third party SSDs compatible with this laptop for internal storage. The OWC product page has this information.
  • macOS 12.x Monterey must already have been installed on this laptop while the original Apple SSD was installed. If Monterey was never previously installed, then it cannot be installed now since the Monterey installer requires a working internal Apple OEM SSD installed which you no longer have to stage the system firmware update....so you can at most only install up to macOS 11.x Big Sur. I Monterey had been previously installed, then you can reinstall Monterey with the third party SSD. I don't think the Monterey issue is mentioned on the OWC product page.

The only third party SSDs which require an adapter are the standard M.2 NVMe based SSDs that are used with every manufacturer other than Apple. If you use an M.2 NVMe SSD, then you will need a SinTech USB Adapter as that one is the most compatible & reliable.......this is from reading this forum for the past decade. Plus not all SSDs are compatible with all devices or adapters.

The OWC Aura SSD is the only one where the manufacturer will actually support it on the Mac. None of the other SSD manufacturers will support their SSDs internally on this laptop. You are own when using an M.2 SSD

on this laptop if you encounter any issues.

OWC IS a Mac-centric company.

In the case of these aftermarket SSD drives, they had their own private label drives designed, and they work great.

Everything they sell works in Macs, because they support what they all, and stuff that is troublesome in a Mac is removed from the product line.

OWC says,

"it works in your Mac,

or your money BACK"

Note, you are mistaken about OWC being non-Mac using sales people. OWC is considered the go-to experts for Macs. While I don't recommend spending more than $5 on an obsolete, antiquated Mac. You can find all the instructions you need in https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook_pro_retina_15_inch_2013_2014_2015_ssd/MacBookPro11-2/

You may have watched this however I suspect if you did you may have missed some critical areas so I recommend watching it at least 2-3 more times to fully understand.

Note, you are mistaken about OWC being non-Mac using sales people. OWC is considered the go-to experts for Macs. While I don't recommend spending more than $5 on an obsolete, antiquated Mac. You can find all the instructions you need in https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook_pro_retina_15_inch_2013_2014_2015_ssd/MacBookPro11-2/

You may have watched this however I suspect if you did you may have missed some critical areas so I recommend watching it at least 2-3 more times to fully understand.

Finally moving forward, operating ANY computer without a sound backup plan is a disaster waiting to happen as you have found out. At the very least you should be using Time Machine to backup your data to an External Hard Disk. If somehow you are not familiar with Time Machine please click Back up your Mac with Time Machine. You will need an external HD to backup to, I'd recommend an OWC Mercury Elite Pro.

ACGypsy60 wrote:

I was actually look at a 2019 16 inch MBP as a replacement from Mac Of All Trades but figured I'd see what it would cost to fix the one I have first.

Run away from that model. The MBPro 16" (2019) model specifically has an extremely high rate of Logic Board failures (personal experience & multiple posts on this forum where even the "repaired" ones had another Logic Board failure sometimes on first use after the repair).

Besides, macOS 26 Tahoe is the last supported version of macOS for that model, plus that model gets extremely hot especially with the i9 CPU. You need to get an M2+ Mac if you wish to stay with Apple.

I was not trying too be dismissive of OWC in general as They have been a big help in all of this. It was just the agent I was chatting with who didn't seem to know a lot about the product she was trying to sell me. She kept trying to sell me on the kit with Envoy external enclosure and I kept telling her I already had an Envoy enclosure. Anyway.

Sales people are always a mix when it comes to understanding user's needs. OWC tech support though has always been great in my personal experience over the past 25+ years (rarely need them, but always easy to work with them).

HWTech wrote:

ACGypsy60 wrote:

I was actually look at a 2019 16 inch MBP as a replacement from Mac Of All Trades but figured I'd see what it would cost to fix the one I have first.

Run away from that model. The MBPro 16" (2019) model specifically has an extremely high rate of Logic Board failures (personal experience & multiple posts on this forum where even the "repaired" ones had another Logic Board failure sometimes on first use after the repair).

When Apple introduced the first 12" Retina MacBook in Early 2015, it was supposedly too thin to use a regular keyboard and a regular trackpad. So Apple put in a "butterfly-switch" keyboard – along with a "Force Touch" trackpad that didn't really "click", but just simulated it using haptic feedback.

Butterfly-switch keyboards soon spread throughout all Mac notebook lines, even to notebooks that were thick enough not to require them. Unfortunately, it turned out that this key switch design made it easier to get dirt trapped in the key switches in a way that required a very expensive keyboard replacement to fix. There was a keyboard service program to repair affected units for free – but it expired.

The 16" 2019 MacBook Pro does not have a butterfly-switch keyboard – but its 15" predecessor from the same year (which cannot run Tahoe) does. As do most Intel-based Mac notebooks with a hardware model year between 2015 and 2019.

https://www.idropnews.com/faq/faq-which-macbooks-have-the-butterfly-keyboard/172306/

Looks like the only three Intel-based Mac notebooks that are much newer than the OP's 2015 MacBook Pro, and that don't have a "butterfly-switch" keyboard, are the 16" 2019 MBP you say to "run away from", and the two 13" 2020 models. Note that the 13" 2020 Two Thunderbolt 3 model cannot run Tahoe.

ACGypsy60 wrote:

As noted in a previous discussion, the original 256 Gb SSD from my 2015 Macbook Pro 15" Retina died this past week and all efforts to recover the data on my own have failed. It is now with recovery experts. So I'd like to replace the SSD with something like a 1Tb SSD which is far more useful. After watching several videos it would appear in order to do this you need an adapter. No problem.

However I went to price said SSD at OWC and spoke to one of their "agents" who swears their Aura Pro X2 SSDs are basically plug and play. I did remind the agent that I'm replacing the original lower capacity SSD with a higher capacity SSD and everyone else says you need an adapter but the agent swears that their kit (which doesn't include an adapter) has everything I need to install the drive internally.

I'm not really willing to accept the advice of non-Mac using sales people for something like this. Does anyone here have experience with this kind of swap and recommendations for where to get the necessary parts?

If OWC/MacSales can not help you, I certainly can not...they typically have excellent customer support.

ref: https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/macbook-pro-retina-display/2013-2014-2015

search the install vids if in doubt

https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook_pro_retina_15_inch_2013_2014_2015_ssd/MacBookPro11-2/

Well this is why many experienced users have redundant backup plans. Personally I have 2 backups of my system running at any given time. Why, life issues such as what you experienced and second, backup can fail too. That’s what caused me to have redundant backup, I had a system failure and thought my backup would save it, turns out that was exactly when my backup decided to fail. I lost a lot of valuable data. That was years ago now, but it taught me to use backup redundancy!

HWTech wrote:

ACGypsy60 wrote:

I was actually look at a 2019 16 inch MBP as a replacement from Mac Of All Trades but figured I'd see what it would cost to fix the one I have first.

Run away from that model. The MBPro 16" (2019) model specifically has an extremely high rate of Logic Board failures (personal experience & multiple posts on this forum where even the "repaired" ones had another Logic Board failure sometimes on first use after the repair).

Besides, macOS 26 Tahoe is the last supported version of macOS for that model, plus that model gets extremely hot especially with the i9 CPU. You need to get an M2+ Mac if you wish to stay with Apple.

Yeah, I have wondered whether the Intel issues and instabilities were wider than the models above 65 W (more), having met several late-era Intel x86-64 Macs that became unstable, and with mainboard replacements ensuing.

How the Intel x86-64 processor instabilities were initially detected and reported was interesting, too.

I’d absolutely skip forward to Apple silicon M2 or later, if replacing.

Even assuming the Intel processors are stable and reliable and entirely unaffected (and they may well be!), Intel x86-64 is still the outgoing (outgone) architecture.

The current macOS 26 (2026) version is the last with Intel x86-64 Mac support, per Apple.

ACGypsy60 wrote:

I was actually look at a 2019c16 inch MBP as a replacement

macOS Tahoe is the last OS compatible with the 2019 16 inch MBP Intel Machine.

It has been good machine for me however it is already 6 years old and the end of the line.

See see vintage and obsolete in the following Apple help topic:

ref: Vintage and Obsolete

Going price for a working 15” 512 GB / 16 GB i7 MacBook Pro 2015 is around USD$240.

How much more do you want to spend on a non-working Mac?