It's good to see more third-party options pop up for SSD expansion on post-2013 MacBooks. Though it definitely needs time to further develop and become cheaper, given the Aura's performance, lack of TRIM, etc.
Problem is there are no real options. Had done some estimates one year ago and concluded that, based on customer reporting, OWC must have a controller failure of 20-30% to have multiple users reporting repeat SSD failure. Apple's Toshiba and Samsung, very pricey indeed, are also worth their 0.0001 failure rate. When you are a busy professional on the go, or travelling, loosing your SSD is the most difficult IT problem you can face.
I'm confused, those prices look MORE expensive than Apple:
"Many Apple customers are put off by the steep price of build-to-order SSD upgrades: $200 to upgrade from 128GB to 256GB, another $300 to move up to 512GB, and another $500 to move up to 1TB for the MacBook Pro. At $347.99 for 480GB and $597.99 for 960GB"
So Apple charges $500 for 1TB vs OWC charging $600.... Please explain how they're cheaper than the Apple BTO SSDs?
Apple charges $500 to upgrade from 512GB to 1TB, on top of the $300 to upgrade from 256GB to 512GB. There's an $800 difference between the 15" rMBP with 256GB and the same with 1TB. If you've already got a MacBook Pro or Air then your existing SSD is a sunk cost, but if you're looking to maximize the storage on a new machine the Aura is way cheaper.
And I now realize you're the author, Billy Tallis. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but the way you constructed that sentence in the article does not convey that each dollar amount is in addition to each smaller upgrade.
Because Apple's charging $500 to *upgrade* your SSD from 512GBs to 1TB (discounting the $500 spent to go from 128 to 512). Not $500 outright for the SSD. If you want a standalone 1TB SSD for a rMBP using the custom form factor you'll pay more than $500!
Prices on Ebay for the relevant rMBPs are $1/GB or more. Even if used.
So yes, a standalone SSD from OWC at $600 for 1TB is still cheaper than a standalone 1TB SSD from Ebay at $1000. Or, if you're considering the upgrade paths and you are choosing between ordering a 128GB rMBP and adding in the 1TB OWC drive vs. just getting a 1TB rMBP from Apple, you're still looking at $600 for 1TB from OWC (and you get the 128GB drive which you can sell) vs. $1000 for 1TB from Apple.
Maybe cheaper, but lost time is the most expensive commodity. Transcend has a pretty good reputation for reliability. OWC has atrocious failure rates. Could be 6 days, could be 6 months. 20-30% to have the replacement fail. Take Samsung and Toshiba with failures rated at less than one in ten thousand, and I consider them cheaper. Been travelling for the last year, and I'd rather pay the $9.99/month 1 TB One drive cloud storage (do not have it, but, if forced, would get it), and always have access vi wifi, than 400-600$ USD for OWC and have it fail then wait for replacements to arrive somewhere. Never had a Samsung/Toshiba SSD fail on me no matter the unit.
One really gets what they pay for. When it comes to SSD's we pay for the controller, subsequent R&D, firmware upgrades, not just the storage.
I wish I had read this comment 4 months ago... I upgraded my 2015 MBP to 500GB with an OWC SSD and it didn't fail per se but I had to downgrade to the original 128GB SSD because the speed wasn't nearly enough to run a medium sized Logic project without crackling sounds and constant crashes. All they did when I made them aware of the situation was sending me some speed testing software and confirming that the SSD was working within the accepted speeds... $500 down the drain when you include the customs charges form the UK
The way I read it is that to go from 512MB to 1TB Apple charges you $500. That is $500 above the cost to get the original 512MB ($200+$300+the original cost factored into the base model). That works out to be $1k + of upgrades.
This is $600 for a replacement. And thus cheaper.
Now that said I hope you can keep the apple SSD in the enclosure so you'll have 2 SSD drives to work with. SInce in my opnion 1TB is getting to be a bit small.
This still has a long way to come but still, fantastic.
What's the cause for the lack of TRIM? Third party SSD TRIM functionality has been a breeze since at least Yosemite. Is it due to the RAID controller usage?
"The PCIe Aura SSD's RAID design unfortunately does not support passing through TRIM commands nor retrieving SMART information from the individual SSD controllers." M
The SM0128G (128GB pcie ssd) is used in both some fusion drives as well as MBPs, so my guess would be they just _might_ be compatible. But don't quote me on that, maybe it just got the same name by coincidence without being really the same, apple might just be crazy enough :-). I think for iMacs, you'd be far better off just replacing the sata-based hdd with an ordinary cheap sata ssd however (of course, for some models, at least for all the the new ones, that means you're required to order it with either a hdd or a fusion drive, unless you're really brave and good with soldering, since otherwise the pcb will just have solder pads instead of the not required (either sata or the one for the proprietary ssd) connector...). You could get pretty much 2TB for the price of 1TB from OWC (or 512GB from apple...) that way.
I hate it that apple overcharges for the SSD storage as much as the smartphone vendors do, I really need around 1TB of storage in my main day-day laptop but I don't need all of it to be high-speed as most of my data is not speed-sensitive so having it read at 50MB/s or 500MB/s makes no perceptible difference, however I also need a sizable chunk of high-speed storage for example for the operating system. Currently I have the best solution for my needs from the value point of view. I bought a laptop with only HDD storage namely 750GB 2.5 HDD and despite the Quad Core i7 CPU it felt slow and I couldn't leave my modern laptop in such a sorry state and MSI was wise enough to realize that a modern computer really needs to have NAND storage if not for the proper data retention than at the very least as a caching solution. The laptop has a M.2 slot for adding in an SSD that is sorely needed. I bought a 256GB version so it is large enough for me to manage the data on my own but even a 64GB SSD acting as a caching solution would make the computer feel like an another machine compared to an unaided mechanical storage. Not installing an SSD in that laptop would be a travesty and a waste of a fast laptop for the time and even now, (i7 3630QM IVY BRIDGE at 3.2GHz and the cooling is adequate to keep it at the all core turbo frequency all the time, but the higher bins are elusive, I only saw very brief spikes to 3.3GHz even at 1T load and I've never seen it boosting to 3.4GHz which is the advertised maximum turbo frequency of that CPU a claim that is apparently false at the very least in my laptop. I won't make a fuss about 100MHz-200MHz but I think this is due to MSI being overly conservative in their BIOS. (I have the MSI GE70) Unfortunately the storage solution that I use is only viable for large laptops as it needs a 2.5'' slot and M.2 connector like my laptop.
Used to think the same until I learned more about the technology. Apple, Samsung, Dell, Microsoft are some of the cheapest SSD drives you can buy- at that high cost. yes, they are cheap, because they are even more expensive if not manufactured in bulk. OWC has atrocious failure rates. Could be 6 days, could be 6 months. 20-30% odds to have the replacement fail. Take Samsung and Toshiba with failures rated at less than one in ten thousand, and I consider them cheaper. Been travelling for the last year, and I'd rather pay the $9.99/month 1 TB One drive cloud storage (do not have it, but, if forced, would get it), and always have access vi wifi, than 400-600$ USD for OWC and have it fail then wait for replacements to arrive somewhere. Never had a Samsung/Toshiba SSD fail on me no matter the unit.
One really gets what they pay for. When it comes to SSD's we pay for the controller, subsequent R&D, firmware upgrades, not just the storage.
Like the touchscreen on phones, SSD storage is expensive, particularly GOOD SSD storage, industrial grade, no fail.
Using trimforce won't accomplish anything. The limitation is not in OS X's willingness to send TRIM commands, it's that the SSD controllers can't receive those commands through the RAID controller on the drive.
Are the drives in MBA 2015 and MBP 2015 identical? Meaning, could I swap them over? I have 500gb in my MBA, but only 256 in a MBP I'm thinking of switching to.
Purchased OWC 250gb aura ssd for my MBA (13-inch, early 2015). Complete waste of my money. Constant crashes and the heat generated doing simple task (browsing internet no video watching) is unbearable. No solutions from OCW. Had to downgrade to the original Apple 128gb ssd and take the lost of my $.
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kefkiroth - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
It's good to see more third-party options pop up for SSD expansion on post-2013 MacBooks. Though it definitely needs time to further develop and become cheaper, given the Aura's performance, lack of TRIM, etc.~Belisarius~ - Sunday, March 13, 2016 - link
Problem is there are no real options. Had done some estimates one year ago and concluded that, based on customer reporting, OWC must have a controller failure of 20-30% to have multiple users reporting repeat SSD failure. Apple's Toshiba and Samsung, very pricey indeed, are also worth their 0.0001 failure rate. When you are a busy professional on the go, or travelling, loosing your SSD is the most difficult IT problem you can face.cygnus1 - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
I'm confused, those prices look MORE expensive than Apple:"Many Apple customers are put off by the steep price of build-to-order SSD upgrades: $200 to upgrade from 128GB to 256GB, another $300 to move up to 512GB, and another $500 to move up to 1TB for the MacBook Pro. At $347.99 for 480GB and $597.99 for 960GB"
So Apple charges $500 for 1TB vs OWC charging $600.... Please explain how they're cheaper than the Apple BTO SSDs?
Billy Tallis - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
Apple charges $500 to upgrade from 512GB to 1TB, on top of the $300 to upgrade from 256GB to 512GB. There's an $800 difference between the 15" rMBP with 256GB and the same with 1TB. If you've already got a MacBook Pro or Air then your existing SSD is a sunk cost, but if you're looking to maximize the storage on a new machine the Aura is way cheaper.cygnus1 - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
Your wording makes sense. The wording in the article parses out such that all the prices are upgrades "from 128GB". The author should clarify.cygnus1 - Friday, March 11, 2016 - link
And I now realize you're the author, Billy Tallis. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but the way you constructed that sentence in the article does not convey that each dollar amount is in addition to each smaller upgrade.Space Jam - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
Because Apple's charging $500 to *upgrade* your SSD from 512GBs to 1TB (discounting the $500 spent to go from 128 to 512). Not $500 outright for the SSD. If you want a standalone 1TB SSD for a rMBP using the custom form factor you'll pay more than $500!https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Air-13-In...
Prices on Ebay for the relevant rMBPs are $1/GB or more. Even if used.
So yes, a standalone SSD from OWC at $600 for 1TB is still cheaper than a standalone 1TB SSD from Ebay at $1000. Or, if you're considering the upgrade paths and you are choosing between ordering a 128GB rMBP and adding in the 1TB OWC drive vs. just getting a 1TB rMBP from Apple, you're still looking at $600 for 1TB from OWC (and you get the 128GB drive which you can sell) vs. $1000 for 1TB from Apple.
~Belisarius~ - Sunday, March 13, 2016 - link
Maybe cheaper, but lost time is the most expensive commodity. Transcend has a pretty good reputation for reliability. OWC has atrocious failure rates. Could be 6 days, could be 6 months. 20-30% to have the replacement fail. Take Samsung and Toshiba with failures rated at less than one in ten thousand, and I consider them cheaper. Been travelling for the last year, and I'd rather pay the $9.99/month 1 TB One drive cloud storage (do not have it, but, if forced, would get it), and always have access vi wifi, than 400-600$ USD for OWC and have it fail then wait for replacements to arrive somewhere. Never had a Samsung/Toshiba SSD fail on me no matter the unit.One really gets what they pay for. When it comes to SSD's we pay for the controller, subsequent R&D, firmware upgrades, not just the storage.
Check out the OWC failure forums.
RAFAEL MARCHANTE - Wednesday, January 4, 2017 - link
I wish I had read this comment 4 months ago... I upgraded my 2015 MBP to 500GB with an OWC SSD and it didn't fail per se but I had to downgrade to the original 128GB SSD because the speed wasn't nearly enough to run a medium sized Logic project without crackling sounds and constant crashes. All they did when I made them aware of the situation was sending me some speed testing software and confirming that the SSD was working within the accepted speeds... $500 down the drain when you include the customs charges form the UKIthaqua - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
@ cygnus1The way I read it is that to go from 512MB to 1TB Apple charges you $500. That is $500 above the cost to get the original 512MB ($200+$300+the original cost factored into the base model). That works out to be $1k + of upgrades.
This is $600 for a replacement. And thus cheaper.
Now that said I hope you can keep the apple SSD in the enclosure so you'll have 2 SSD drives to work with. SInce in my opnion 1TB is getting to be a bit small.
Space Jam - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
Pardon my French but HOLY SHIT! IT HAPPENED!Space Jam - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
This still has a long way to come but still, fantastic.What's the cause for the lack of TRIM? Third party SSD TRIM functionality has been a breeze since at least Yosemite. Is it due to the RAID controller usage?
TLC usage is shameful.
Still, it did finally happen.
Ryan Smith - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
Yes, it's due to the RAID controller usage.JoeMonco - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
The article states quite clearly the issue:"The PCIe Aura SSD's RAID design unfortunately does not support passing through TRIM commands nor retrieving SMART information from the individual SSD controllers."
M
Taristin - Wednesday, March 9, 2016 - link
Are these the same form factor and pinout as the PCIe SSDs used in the iMac line? Meaning will these also work in a Retina iMac?mczak - Thursday, March 10, 2016 - link
The SM0128G (128GB pcie ssd) is used in both some fusion drives as well as MBPs, so my guess would be they just _might_ be compatible. But don't quote me on that, maybe it just got the same name by coincidence without being really the same, apple might just be crazy enough :-).I think for iMacs, you'd be far better off just replacing the sata-based hdd with an ordinary cheap sata ssd however (of course, for some models, at least for all the the new ones, that means you're required to order it with either a hdd or a fusion drive, unless you're really brave and good with soldering, since otherwise the pcb will just have solder pads instead of the not required (either sata or the one for the proprietary ssd) connector...).
You could get pretty much 2TB for the price of 1TB from OWC (or 512GB from apple...) that way.
Lepton87 - Thursday, March 10, 2016 - link
I hate it that apple overcharges for the SSD storage as much as the smartphone vendors do, I really need around 1TB of storage in my main day-day laptop but I don't need all of it to be high-speed as most of my data is not speed-sensitive so having it read at 50MB/s or 500MB/s makes no perceptible difference, however I also need a sizable chunk of high-speed storage for example for the operating system. Currently I have the best solution for my needs from the value point of view. I bought a laptop with only HDD storage namely 750GB 2.5 HDD and despite the Quad Core i7 CPU it felt slow and I couldn't leave my modern laptop in such a sorry state and MSI was wise enough to realize that a modern computer really needs to have NAND storage if not for the proper data retention than at the very least as a caching solution. The laptop has a M.2 slot for adding in an SSD that is sorely needed. I bought a 256GB version so it is large enough for me to manage the data on my own but even a 64GB SSD acting as a caching solution would make the computer feel like an another machine compared to an unaided mechanical storage. Not installing an SSD in that laptop would be a travesty and a waste of a fast laptop for the time and even now, (i7 3630QM IVY BRIDGE at 3.2GHz and the coolingis adequate to keep it at the all core turbo frequency all the time, but the higher bins are elusive, I only saw very brief spikes to 3.3GHz even at 1T load and I've never seen it boosting to 3.4GHz which is the advertised maximum turbo frequency of that CPU a claim that is apparently false at the very least in my laptop. I won't make a fuss about 100MHz-200MHz but I think this is due to MSI being overly conservative in their BIOS. (I have the MSI GE70) Unfortunately the storage solution that I use is only viable for large laptops as it needs a 2.5'' slot and M.2 connector like my laptop.
kaidenshi - Thursday, March 10, 2016 - link
Holy run-on sentences Batman! Slow down and take a breath, dude.~Belisarius~ - Sunday, March 13, 2016 - link
Used to think the same until I learned more about the technology. Apple, Samsung, Dell, Microsoft are some of the cheapest SSD drives you can buy- at that high cost. yes, they are cheap, because they are even more expensive if not manufactured in bulk. OWC has atrocious failure rates. Could be 6 days, could be 6 months. 20-30% odds to have the replacement fail. Take Samsung and Toshiba with failures rated at less than one in ten thousand, and I consider them cheaper. Been travelling for the last year, and I'd rather pay the $9.99/month 1 TB One drive cloud storage (do not have it, but, if forced, would get it), and always have access vi wifi, than 400-600$ USD for OWC and have it fail then wait for replacements to arrive somewhere. Never had a Samsung/Toshiba SSD fail on me no matter the unit.One really gets what they pay for. When it comes to SSD's we pay for the controller, subsequent R&D, firmware upgrades, not just the storage.
Like the touchscreen on phones, SSD storage is expensive, particularly GOOD SSD storage, industrial grade, no fail.
Check out the OWC failure forums.
bull2760 - Monday, March 14, 2016 - link
You can manually enable trim in OSX, for a tech article you sure did not do enough research.http://www.storagereview.com/how_to_enable_trim_wi...
http://blog.macsales.com/31619-how-to-execute-trim...
that is just 2 articles I found in 10 seconds.
Billy Tallis - Friday, April 1, 2016 - link
Using trimforce won't accomplish anything. The limitation is not in OS X's willingness to send TRIM commands, it's that the SSD controllers can't receive those commands through the RAID controller on the drive.ingvoldSTAR - Monday, May 30, 2016 - link
Are the drives in MBA 2015 and MBP 2015 identical? Meaning, could I swap them over? I have 500gb in my MBA, but only 256 in a MBP I'm thinking of switching to.tipoo - Tuesday, September 27, 2016 - link
About time, but without TRIM and speeds that only match the last generation SSDs in Macs, ehh.Still biding my time for a better option.
Warrionex - Saturday, January 14, 2017 - link
Purchased OWC 250gb aura ssd for my MBA (13-inch, early 2015). Complete waste of my money. Constant crashes and the heat generated doing simple task (browsing internet no video watching) is unbearable. No solutions from OCW. Had to downgrade to the original Apple 128gb ssd and take the lost of my $.