OWC Certifies 480 GB Aftermarket SSD Upgrade for 13-Inch Retina MacBook Pro

[skunnykart]

Originally Posted by xxgilxx

Nice...

Not really.
Don't be fooled by the OWCs benchmarks and read/write data.

Swapping out the Samsung 830 for a sandforce controlled OWC SSD is a "downgrade" overall (except more capacity).

Not worth it.
You void your warranty for a SSD that is a poor performer.

If you really need more storage then you're better off getting an external drive via USB 3.0 on the 13inch rMBP.

A 256 Samsung 830 which can be purchased for around $200 housed in a USB 3.0 external enclosure would be better for more capacity than swapping out a good ssd for a poor performer like the OWC ones.

[designgeek]

Originally Posted by Virtualball

Yikes, that's a lot of money... A fast 480 GB SSD is $400-500 but those are standard. Hopefully these will go down in price as time goes on

I used to say this too, but that was years ago and OWC's prices seem to never come down. It probably doesn't help that they have the market cornered.

[nick_elt]

Originally Posted by IGregory

Because most of us don't go screwing around with a nicely built machine.

Wow. So doing something simple like upgrading the storage is now "screwing around".

----------

Originally Posted by OldSchoolMacGuy

Werd. Very very few people will do this to their machines. Far less than 1%. Decent chance more than that will consider a Smart Cover.

I hope you post your smart cover unboxing and personal review. I cant wait!

[itsamacthing]

I got an OWC SSD last year for my Mini and it was very unstable, after a few firmware updates that changed and it has been stable...but the read and writes are not that great. It's their top of the line SSD and I only get 200 read, 400 write... the Apple Samsung SSDs are crushing that. As for me, I would never buy an OWC SSD again. I will only buy the SSD from Apple, I like a stable and fast Mac.

[JGRE]

OCZ does not use the Sandforce controller anymore in their Vertex 4 SSD drives, because they were rubbish.......

[ikir]

OWC SSD are best quality and support. Great to see they works on 13" retina too. For sure next year I will buy a new notebook and it will be a MacBookPro 13" retina.

[tbrinkma]

Originally Posted by nick_elt

Wow. So doing something simple like upgrading the storage is now "screwing around".

You misunderstand. If you were to take a random sample of 100 desktop computer owners, you could, statistically speaking, count the number of people who have even opened their case on one hand. If you were to do the same for laptops, you'd have trouble doing that, because odds are you wouldn't have anyone to count.

So, yes. Something as simple as upgrading storage *is* 'screwing around'. If you were to grab a random sample of people from *here*, or a tech-centric site, those numbers would be drastically different, but don't get that confused with the general population.

[ThomasJL]

Apple has configured OS X to enable TRIM support only with Apple-provided SSDs.

[All Taken]

Originally Posted by ThomasJL

Apple has configured OS X to enable TRIM support only with Apple-provided SSDs.

Enabling trim on non-apple SSDs is no more complicated than adding a photo of somebody using google search to Facebook. One app download called TrimEnabler, and selecting 'On'.

[Jibbajabba]

Originally Posted by skunnykart

Swapping out the Samsung 830 for a sandforce controlled OWC SSD is a "downgrade" overall (except more capacity).

Pretty much - but people usually do that anyway - how many people swap out their stock HDDs in PCs with 7200RPM to get higher capacities ending up with 5400RPM

[ThomasJL]

Originally Posted by All Taken

Enabling trim on non-apple SSDs is no more complicated than adding a photo of somebody using google search to Facebook. One app download called TrimEnabler, and selecting 'On'.

That's a wonderful way to risk data corruption. For people who consider their data valuable and precious, gambling with it by using a non-Apple-supported TRIM enabler is highly foolish.

[All Taken]

Originally Posted by ThomasJL

That's a wonderful way to risk data corruption. For people who consider their data valuable and precious, gambling with it by using a non-Apple-supported TRIM enabler is highly foolish.

The third party SSD receives the same command an Apple SSD would receive, this enabler simply tells OSX to support trim on xyz SSD.

I really don't understand your point, seems to me you're trying to instil an air of fear because it's something you don't understand. 'It's not an apple rule so it must be wrong and bad!'

Apple purposely handicapped TRIM on any SSD othr than their own for one reason, greed. It does no harm to use this command with other SSDs.

You're truly foolish if you think that enabling TRIM is leaving people open to data corruption.

[skunnykart]

Originally Posted by Jibbajabba

Pretty much - but people usually do that anyway - how many people swap out their stock HDDs in PCs with 7200RPM to get higher capacities ending up with 5400RPM

But the difference between OWC and Samsung is pretty big.
Benchmarks may suggest to you that the difference is negligible but in real life usage the OWC is a really poor performer. When it comes to encryption and working with in-compressible files the OWC is really noticeably slow.

Going from 7200 RPM to 5400 RPM is technically a downgrade but there are enough positives to make a worthwhile "downgrade". With 5400 RPM you can get bigger capacity, and also less noise and vibration which is pretty significant for many noise conscious people.

But going from Samsung 830 to OWC is really not worth it. the negatives significnatly outweighs the positives.