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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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Other World Computing (OWC) today announced new 1TB and 2TB Aura SSD upgrades designed for the Mac Pro, offering Mac Pro owners a way to upgrade the storage in their machines without needing to purchase upgrades directly from Apple.

owcupgrade.jpg
Apple's 1TB upgrade option costs $800 over the base 256GB SSD option, and while OWC's 1TB upgrade option is priced slightly higher at $899, it gives users an option to convert their existing SSD into an external USB 3.0 drive.

Apple offers a maximum of 1TB of storage, so OWC's 2TB solution, priced at $1,479, is a good solution for users who are looking for additional storage for their Mac Pros. The 2TB option also comes with a kit for converting an existing SSD into an external USB 3.0 drive.

The kits, which are available for pre-order, come equipped with the tools needed for a do-it-yourself storage upgrade, a step-by-step installation video, and tech support provided by OWC. The kits are expected to ship in two to three weeks.

Article Link: OWC Announces First 1TB and 2TB SSD Upgrades for 2013 Mac Pro
 

Keerock

macrumors regular
Feb 9, 2005
225
72
Worth it?

Is the internal BUS so much faster than using SSD via external thunderbolt that you should spend $1500? Yeah, I know, the system should be on the internal but man, I don;t get the bang for the buck here.
 

Peace

Cancelled
Apr 1, 2005
19,546
4,556
Space The Only Frontier
I'd like to know exactly what SSD's they are using because my 256GB SSD is much faster than what they advertise their 1TB drive to be.

From their page :

Performance

Read: 730MB/s
Write: 698MB/s

------------------------

My Mac Pro :
 

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Goftrey

macrumors 68000
May 20, 2011
1,853
75
Wales, UK
Can someone please explain to me why Apple decided to only put a storage bay on the back of ONE of the Pro's GPUs? It's baffled me from day one and I've still yet to find an answer.
 

logicstudiouser

macrumors 6502a
Feb 4, 2010
532
1,069
I saw 2TB SSD in the title and jumped out of my seat...until I saw 'for mac pro'.
I have been waiting so long for a macbook pro 2TB SSD. ADATA promised one in the 4th quarter of this year at two tech events (one in Janurary and one in June). Still no 2TB SSD for laptops by any company! :(
 

Piggie

macrumors G3
Feb 23, 2010
9,109
3,974
Can someone please explain to me why Apple decided to only put a storage bay on the back of ONE of the Pro's GPUs? It's baffled me from day one and I've still yet to find an answer.

2015 Mac Pro :)
 

lukadjokic

macrumors newbie
Dec 9, 2014
2
0
Correct me if I'm wrong but these SSDs should also work on Late 2013 and above Retina MacBook Pros?
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,422
4,390
Delaware
Correct me if I'm wrong but these SSDs should also work on Late 2013 and above Retina MacBook Pros?

If the picture of that SSD mounted in a Mac Pro is any indication, that SSD card looks too large to fit inside a laptop of any kind, let alone the thin models that Apple sells.
 

lukadjokic

macrumors newbie
Dec 9, 2014
2
0
If that's the case, then they should be including a custom Mac Pro cover with a cut-out in a kit.
 

mikeboss

macrumors 68000
Aug 13, 2009
1,517
790
switzerland
I'd like to know exactly what SSD's they are using because my 256GB SSD is much faster than what they advertise their 1TB drive to be.

From their page :

Performance

Read: 730MB/s
Write: 698MB/s

------------------------

My Mac Pro :

according to the tech specs the OWC SSD will be connected using only 2 PCIe lanes. this explains the max throughput of approx. 700 MB/Sec. the Apple/SAMSUNG PCIe (at least the 1.0 TB version) SSD uses 4 lanes and it tops out at approx. 1100+ MB/Sec.
 

Yuck9

macrumors member
Dec 9, 2014
86
38
California
I'd like to know exactly what SSD's they are using because my 256GB SSD is much faster than what they advertise their 1TB drive to be.

From their page :

Performance

Read: 730MB/s
Write: 698MB/s

------------------------

My Mac Pro :

This just taken from my 1 TB SSD That Apple Installed.

Wonder why OWC Price is higher.
 

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andycho7

macrumors member
Dec 2, 2013
74
2
Where are the SSD upgrades for 2013-2014 MacBook models!?

I know I'm waiting for that as well.

Also, from the article there exists a pci-e to usb3.0 enclosure I assume? I've been looking for that thing all over the Internet but I only found those Chinese knockoffs that's not compatible. I don't see any adapters for the pcie SSDs at owc's website? Anyone knoe about this?
 

MikhailT

macrumors 601
Nov 12, 2007
4,582
1,325
It is clear that 2015 is the year of the 2 TB+ SSDs (3D NAND memory and so on). In 2020 4-8 TB are possible.

I doubt 2TB SSDs will come out for consumers in 2015. I expect 2016 at the very least when the fabs scale up.

Samsung is the leader on 3D NAND memory and they generally have 6+ month lead on competitors. They just released their first 3D NAND product, 850 EVO, and they told Anandtech that no 2TB model will be available for this due to limited demand caused by the high price. 1TB EVO is around 500$ now.

2TB SSD would cause an issue with the NAND supply and they're just going to limit to 1TB until there is enough for 2TB models at lower costs.

----------

Finally! Really annoying that Apple will not sell you these.

I rather third party companies sell these than Apple. Apple would not pass on the cost savings to its customers, they'd add another 20-50% markup just to ensure a high profit margin.
 

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
native trim support ?

A properly designed SSD doesn't need trim support. Trim is a low cost half assed solution to a problem better handled by the drive itself.

----------

Can someone please explain to me why Apple decided to only put a storage bay on the back of ONE of the Pro's GPUs? It's baffled me from day one and I've still yet to find an answer.

I actually think they ran out of PCI Express lanes. If you figure that they used 32 for the GPUs that only leaves 8 for the rest of the entire system. I don't know a lot about the architecture of the Mac Pro so look at this as a guess based on what I know of Xeon.

If you look at the GPU cards, at least some of the early released pictures, it actually looks like they had the intention of putting an SSD on each card.
 

benji888

macrumors 68000
Sep 27, 2006
1,889
410
United States
I know I'm waiting for that as well.

Also, from the article there exists a pci-e to usb3.0 enclosure I assume? I've been looking for that thing all over the Internet but I only found those Chinese knockoffs that's not compatible. I don't see any adapters for the pcie SSDs at owc's website? Anyone knoe about this?
At the moment it appears to only be available with the pre-order kit, but, I'm sure we'll see it available on it's own at some point:

"The OWC Aura SSD for Mac Pro kit includes the award-winning Envoy Pro SSD enclosure, allowing you to easily repurpose the factory-installed Mac Pro SSD as an elegant aluminum USB 3.0 external drive for incredible portable performance."

..."Compatible with the stock Apple Flash SSD module for all PCIe SSD based Macs"

source: https://eshop.macsales.com/preorder/OWC-Aura-SSD-for-Mac-Pro/

A properly designed SSD doesn't need trim support. Trim is a low cost half assed solution to a problem better handled by the drive itself.

----------

...
Exactly! I have an OWC SSD in my MBP, no "Trim" needed, no speed or other issues. See this: http://blog.macsales.com/21641-with-an-owc-ssd-theres-no-need-for-trim
 

Frost7

macrumors regular
Oct 15, 2012
193
2
Republic of Texas
If only OWC would stop using those craptastic Sandforce 2281 controllers and go with Marvell or Intel or something along those lines. I love OWC in general, but it took four returns to finally get a Mercury that doesn't have TOO many problems (although it still freezes up when doing multi-GB writes unless I literally place it on an icepack), and from what I've read it's all due to that stupid 2281 and not all that uncommon an issue with SSDs that use it. Kind of soured me on ever buying an OWC SSD again.
 

JDW

macrumors 6502
Jul 12, 2005
337
249
Japan
This just taken from my 1 TB SSD That Apple Installed.

Wonder why OWC Price is higher.

Although there is no 2TB option currently, nothing beats the LaCie TB2 Little Big Disk 1TB SSD in terms of performance:

http://www.storagereview.com/lacie_little_big_disk_thunderbolt_2_review

So for now, it would look like you get the most CAPACITY for your Dollar with OWC, albeit with a drive slower than Apple's factory SSDs and much slower still than the external TB2 LaCie.
 
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