Other World Computing (OWC) has launched a brand new line of NVMe SSD upgrades for a number of Mac fashions that used Apple’s customized not-quite-M.2 kind issue. The new Aura Pro X2 is OWC’s third era aftermarket storage improve for Apple’s customized SSD kind issue.
Apple was an early adopter of PCIe SSDs within the shopper house, introducing them to a number of fashions in 2013. In latest years they’ve phased out the usage of replaceable SSDs in favor of utilizing their very own SSD controller inbuilt to the T2 safety chip, however there’s nonetheless a big set up base of pre-TouchBar MacE book Pros and non-Retina MacE book Airs that may settle for storage upgrades. Aftermarket improve choices for these machines had been initially very restricted till macOS 10.13 added NVMe help, which allowed off the shelf M.2 NVMe drives for use with a passive adapter—nevertheless, these adapters are a bit too thick for Apple’s notebooks (they match simply nice within the cylinder Mac Pro).
Before macOS supported NVMe, OWC offered the Aura SSD, which was basically two SATA SSDs in RAID-Zero behind a Marvell controller that solely supported a PCIe 2.Zero x2 host interface. The Aura’s efficiency was poor, however it did provide the choice of upgrading storage capability, which was notably helpful for the MacE book Air fashions that by no means supplied a manufacturing unit 1TB SSD choice. The Aura was adopted up by the Aura Pro X primarily based on the Silicon Motion SM2260 controller, which meant OWC was nonetheless struggling to supply higher efficiency than the Samsung and SanDisk drives Apple shipped. The new Aura Pro X2 makes use of the Silicon Motion SM2262EN and provides efficiency and energy effectivity on par with present high-end SSDs in customary M.2 kind elements, and contains the primary 2TB SSD in Apple’s kind issue.
| OWC Aura Pro X2 Specifications | ||||||
| Capacity | 240 GB | 480 GB | 1 TB (960GB) |
2 TB (1920GB) |
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| Form Factor | Apple customized, double-sided | |||||
| Interface | NVMe 1.Three PCIe 3.1 x4 | |||||
| Controller | Silicon Motion SM2262EN | |||||
| NAND | IMFT 64-layer 3D TLC | |||||
| Sequential Read | 2989 MB/s | 3282 MB/s | 3194 MB/s | 3194 MB/s | ||
| Sequential Write | 1208 MB/s | 2432 MB/s | 2488 MB/s | 2488 MB/s | ||
| Power | Active | 5.7 W | ||||
| Idle | 0.Three W | |||||
| Endurance | 150 TB 0.34 DWPD |
225 TB 0.27 DWPD |
450 TB 0.27 DWPD |
900 TB 0.27 DWPD |
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| Warranty | 5 years | |||||
| MSRP | $119.99 (50¢/GB) |
$179.99 (37¢/GB) |
$299.99 (31¢/GB) |
$699.99 ( 36¢/GB) |
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OWC sells the Aura Pro X2 as both a standalone drive or in an improve equipment that features their Envoy Pro USB enclosure for the inventory SSDs the Aura Pro X2 replaces, and the required pentalobe and Torx screwdrivers to carry out the improve. The improve equipment is $70-80 dearer than the naked drive.
Prices for the Aura Pro X2 are fairly steep in comparison with retail M.2 NVMe SSDs—they’re extra like what the MLC-based Samsung 970 PRO sells for, reasonably than in keeping with different TLC-based NVMe SSDs.
We have a evaluate pattern of the 960GB Aura Pro X2 readily available. It has already accomplished most of our regular shopper SSD check suite and people outcomes can be found in our Bench database, however for the complete evaluate we’ll even be performing some macOS testing.
