Other World Computing today announced the launch of new Aura Pro X2 SSDs, which are designed to offer double the speed of Apple's SSDs at half the price.
Compared to its existing Aura SSD options, the Aura Pro X2 offers lower power consumption, lower heat, and better battery life. OWC says the SSDs it's offering to Mac users are cheaper, faster, and better.
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The Aura Pro X2 SSDs offer read speeds up to 3200MB/s and write speeds up to 2400MB/s, with a maximum of 2TB of storage. OWC has designed the SSDs to be compatible with the latest versions of macOS, with support for APFS.
OWC says the new Aura Pro X2 SSDs are available for MacBook Air models from Mid 2013 to 2017, Retina MacBook Pro models from Late 2013 to Mid 2015, the 2013 Mac Pro, and the 2014 Mac mini, making OWC's upgrade option a solid one for eking more life out of an older Mac.
The Aura Pro X2 SSDs are not compatible with the 2018 MacBook Air or the redesigned MacBook Pro models released from 2016 to 2018.
OWC ships SSDs with an Envoy Pro enclosure designed to house your original SSD so you can repurpose it as an external USB drive and also use it to transfer your data to the new SSD.
Pricing on the Aura Pro X2 SSD starts at $120 for the 240GB model with SSD only, and goes up to $700 for the 2TB model. OWC offers 240GB, 480GB, 1TB, and 2TB options. Slightly more expensive packages with tools, transfer enclosures, heat sinks (desktop machines) and more are available for those who need the extra equipment.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with OWC. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
Top Rated Comments
What ever happened to the bottom case attachment yoy were making for new MBP’s to add ports/functionality?
DEC lives - our Inxtron acquisition adds needed engineering resources to bring the full vision to realityHibernation is not presently supported on pre-2015 systems and doesn't enable. If a system that is sleeping is allowed to fully run out of power, it will be a restart event vs. resume. Short of the noted hack to the Apple EFI, this is the state of things today. This has been a discussion point with Apple for over a year and something that may be addressed by Apple in the future, but they really do not have any true motivation to do so.
That being said - we have over two years now into development of our own NVME driver solution which can solve this without the EFI change for pre-2015 models. It is a lot further reaching than just that as well. I hope to see us release this driver by late summer in beta, but there is substantial testing and qualification before we release this kind of solution. The driver also goes way beyond just the internal SSD upgrades.
I apologize for the previous incorrect information on hibernation.
MacBook models before 2015 don’t include the NVME DXE drivers so don’t support standby and hibernation with NVME unless flashing the EFI with modified firmware. How did you get around that? Thanks!
[doublepost=1555600179][/doublepost]Between posts think answered the hibernation. There are no sleep issues once so ever with the Aura Pro X or X2.With respect to the Apple EFI / firmware / bootrom updates - We require that Apple OS 10.13 or Later has been previously installed on Mac for use of the Aura Pro X2 (and was same for Aura Pro X). There have been zero issues with Apple firmware updates pushed out post 10.13 with our NVME drive models.
Dear Larry:
Thanks again.
To #2: I was referring to Apple Firmware and bootrom updates, not SSD firmware ones (there are problems usually as well for Apple users).
You can confirm no sleep and hibernation issues with pre-2015 Apple MacBooks and iMacs?
Your answers are very much appreciated.
Magnus
Here are my before and after.
Kinda wish there was a similar upgrade for the 5K iMac. Would be fun to get a Fusion drive, and upgrade both the SSD & HDD.