Other World Computing (OWC) today unveiled two times faster flash storage upgrades for the DIYers who want to avoid paying Apple’s exorbitant prices and instead upgrade the SSD themselves without being pushed into purchasing a whole new computer.
OWC’s new Aura Pro X2 SSDs come in capacities up to 2TB and are up to twice as fast as the stock SSD in older Macs, resulting in theoretical data transfer rates of up to 3.1 gigabytes per second when reading data and write speeds up to 2.3 gigabytes per second.
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Such performance is possible with the latest Mac notebooks out of the box, but Aurora is bringing these read and write speeds to older machines dating as far back as 2013.
Replacing an SSD is often all that’s required to breathe a new lease of life into your Mac—especially if it’s an older model with a hard drive or worn-out flash storage. Best of all, it can be done in under 10 minutes by following OWC’s step-by-step instructions.
If you’re going to be editing 4K video, recording podcasts, developing apps or running other resource-heavy tasks, you’re definitely going to need snappy SSD for smooth operation. We spent some hands-on time with OWC’s older Aura Pro PCI-e drop-in SSD upgrade kits released there years ago so be sure to check out that article and watch the video review that I’ve embedded below for our quick step-by-step installation guide.
OWC says these SSDs runs cooler and consumes less power, even at double the speed, which helps prolong your notebook’s battery life. Aura Pro X2 is compatible with most 2013 to 2017 model year Macs, including MacBook Air (mid-2013 to 2017), Retina MacBook Pros (late-2013 to mid-2015), the current 2013 Mac Pro model and the late-2014 Mac mini.
The Aura Aura Pro X2 SSD can be purchased standalone or as part of upgrade kits that include an aluminum enclosure so you can turn the notebook’s stock SSD into a fast USB 3 external drive for transferring large files between computers, booting into Windows 10 or another operating system, backups and so forth.
OWC’s SSDs come with a 5-year limited warranty and are available in 240GB, 480GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities in exchange for $120, $180, $300 and $700, respectively. For an even better feel of OWC’s affordable prices, consider for a moment that Apple charges nearly twice as much to get your $2,400 15-inch MacBook Pro from the stock 256GB SSD to two terabytes.
Here is the price comparison (SSD-only upgrades without enclosures):
- OWC Aura Pro X2 240GB SSD — $120
- OWC Aura Pro X2 480GB SSD — $180 (compares to Apple’s $400 factory upgrade from 128GB to 512GB)
- OWC Aura Pro X2 1TB SSD — $300 (compares to Apple’s $800 factory upgrade from 128GB to 1TB)
- OWC Aura Pro X2 2TB SSD — $700 (compares to Apple’s $1200 factory upgrade from 256GB to 2TB)
They’re also offering a trade-in rebate on your original SSDs, whether they’re OWC or Apple-branded, as long as they are in working condition.