Finally, an ssd upgrade for MacBook airs and retina MacBook pros that doesn't cost as much as the computer.

[DocSwag]

Source: http://www.anandtech.com/show/10128/owc-introduces-ssd-upgrade-for-macbook-pro-and-macbook-air-pcie-ssds

Finally, an ssd upgrade for your Mac that doesn't cost as much as your computer (I guess I'm exaggerating, but the Mac ssds on eBay cost a crap ton of money)

Quote

Apple's Retina MacBook Pro and all but the earliest MacBook Air models have relied solely on SSDs for internal storage, as Apple slimmed down the designs to the point that even a 1.8" hard drive was too bulky. Rather than adopt the mSATA or later M.2 form factor, Apple's SSDs have used custom form factors and pinouts. This has contributed to keeping the market for third-party upgrades very small. Only a few companies have produced SSDs in Apple-specific form factors, most notably Other World Computing (OWC) and Transcend. Transcend has generally used Silicon Motion controllers while OWC has used SandForce controllers, but until now their offerings have been limited to SATA-based SSDs.

Quote

In order to keep costs under control, OWC has opted to not use a native PCIe SSD controller. Instead, the PCIe Aura SSD uses a Marvell 9230 SATA RAID controller and a pair of Silicon Motion SM2256 SATA SSD controllers. The Marvell 9230 has a PCIe 2.0 x2 host interface, so the PCIe Aura SSD has the potential to outperform SATA SSDs but won't be able to approach the peak transfer rates of the recent Samsung SM951-based Apple originals. The Silicon Motion SM2256 controllers mean the PCIe Aura SSD is almost certainly using TLC flash, which is less expensive but also performs worse and draws more power than MLC flash. The PCIe Aura SSD's RAID design unfortunately does not support passing through TRIM commands nor retrieving SMART information from the individual SSD controllers.

OWC Aura PCIe SSDs
	480GB	1TB
Usable Capacity	480GB	960GB
Controllers	Marvell 9230 + 2x SM2256
Interface	Apple custom PCIe x4 @ PCIe 2.0 x2
Peak Read Speed	763 MB/s
Peak Write Speed	446 MB/s
TRIM support	No
Price (drive only)	$347.99	$597.99
Price (upgrade kit)	$399.00	$649.00
Warranty	3 years

 

These ssds obviously aren't as fast as the ones that come with your Mac, but at least their available. Lots of Mac users probably have ran out of storage and not have had any option to go to-Either you'd have to pay a lot of money for a bigger ssd, get a new computer, or just deal with it. These new ssds are more expensive than most ssds on the market by a factor of 2, but they are still cheaper than apple's.

Unfortunately, they don't support TRIM either, and use TLC flash (looks like a pretty bad combo to me). 

 

Ultimately this his is a good option for some but if you ask me, you probably should just get more storage in the first place.

[zacRupnow]

That's still way overpriced for the amount of space and the speeds.

[bobhays]

4 hours ago, zacRupnow said:

That's still way overpriced for the amount of space and the speeds.

The apple tax applies to even 3rd parties making things for apple. Have you seen some of the apple gpus? the ones that are the same as the normal version with a flashed bios, they go for like 3x the price.

[Trixanity]

It's a start. I mean hasn't Apple so far blocked all third-party drives? 

 

With that being said: these are too expensive and too awful. With the exception of the added capacity, it's a massive downgrade. 

 

Hopefully this will lead to better things later. Or perhaps Apple will get its head out of its ass and switch from proprietary to industry standard (ie m.2) although that obviously won't help existing customers. 

[suicidalfranco]

And that's why my 2012 MBP will be the last MacBook i'll ever get. Soldering RAM onto the motherboard and using non-standard components is just next level greed

[DocSwag]

3 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

And that's why my 2012 MBP will be the last MacBook i'll ever get. Soldering RAM onto the motherboard and using non-standard components is just next level greed

I have the old one (that doesn't have every component have a custom connection or be soldered on) so I was able to upgrade the ram and the hdd to an ssd. But yeah. I highly prefer to have a laptop I can upgrade, cuz your laptop won't last forever or anything.

[Trixanity]

Soldering ram is a necessary evil for thin laptops. They take up less space when soldered. So I don't consider it that bad although of course it shouldn't be soldered without a good reason. I mean a thick gaming laptop shouldn't need soldered ram. 

 

Proprietary components and white lists etc: that's pure anti-consumer behavior. 

[Crowes]

That peak read speed is pretty nice. Write speed is... meh.

[TechGod]

12 hours ago, Trixanity said:

It's a start. I mean hasn't Apple so far blocked all third-party drives? 

 

With that being said: these are too expensive and too awful. With the exception of the added capacity, it's a massive downgrade. 

 

Hopefully this will lead to better things later. Or perhaps Apple will get its head out of its ass and switch from proprietary to industry standard (ie m.2) although that obviously won't help existing customers. 

Apple has NEVER blocked third party drives or RAM upgrades. Wtf are you on?

[NickTheMajin]

How dare apple use PCI E SSDs instead of the aging SATA SSDs every other company uses. Death to Apple!

[Trixanity]

32 minutes ago, TechGod said:

Apple has NEVER blocked third party drives or RAM upgrades. Wtf are you on?

I never said RAM. WTF are you on? Seriously. What are you on? That was pulled out of thin air (or perhaps a certain cavity)

 

And regarding the drives. Let's look at the topic we're discussing. I was referring to drives using Apple's proprietary PCI-E SSD implementation. Have you seen any third-party drives until just now? If so, please do link to them.

 

If not, why could that possibly be?

Due to a lack of market? Doubtful.

Apple trying to maintain sales of large capacity SKUs? Quite probable.

Long development time for compatible drives? Also a possibility although should be simple enough, especially if given documentation.

[79wjd]

2 hours ago, NickTheMajin said:

How dare apple use PCI E SSDs instead of the aging SATA SSDs every other company uses. Death to Apple!

The xps 13 uses a standard m.2 drive I believe. At the time it was fine since the m.2 standard basically just came into existence, but now it would be nice if they switched to m.2.

[BuckGup]

Another reason the 2009 17inch macbook pro was the last good macbook. I am sorry but they all just suck for the price.

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, SamStrecker said:

Another reason the 2009 17inch macbook pro was the last good macbook. I am sorry but they all just suck for the price.

Then all ultrabooks suck for the price.

[Dabombinable]

On 3/10/2016 at 8:20 PM, suicidalfranco said:

And that's why my 2012 MBP will be the last MacBook i'll ever get. Soldering RAM onto the motherboard and using non-standard components is just next level greed

Its more like Apple herpa derping along thinking "thinner=better aesthetics".

[79wjd]

2 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Its more like Apple herpa derping along thinking "thinner=better aesthetics".

It's not like they're entirely wrong. For a lot of people thinner is better -- I for one would take a rMBP over the non-retina version even if all the specs were identical simply for the lighter and smaller body. 

[suicidalfranco]

23 hours ago, DocSwag said:

I have the old one (that doesn't have every component have a custom connection or be soldered on) so I was able to upgrade the ram and the hdd to an ssd. But yeah. I highly prefer to have a laptop I can upgrade, cuz your laptop won't last forever or anything.

same for me, 16GB of RAM upgraded myself and two SSDs in RAID0 (the real benefit of still having a disc drive)

[suicidalfranco]

5 minutes ago, Dabombinable said:

Its more like Apple herpa derping along thinking "thinner=better aesthetics".

yeah and it sucks, not sure if ill ever buy a laptop again too, cause this seems the direction everyone is taking and i really love OS X on the laptop (Linux every other place)

[Dabombinable]

5 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

yeah and it sucks, not sure if ill ever buy a laptop again too, cause this seems the direction everyone is taking and i really love OS X on the laptop (Linux every other place)

The writing has been on the wall for a while. I'm lucky that my laptop is only thin by 2010 and 2011 standards, and it still lets me upgrade/replace anything.