The Aura Pro X2 is really an amazing solution and it benefits from the latest controller and NAND generations available. SSD in general has come a long ways since the first mainstream drives of a decade ago. It is an interesting challenge and frustration with respect to working with a platform that has been less than open.
That said - all of today's Aura Pro SSDs run exceptionally cool, are low power, and provide performance well beyond that of the drives Apple originally provided. Sleep, hibernate issues are long in the past and were truly a factor of how Apple was making substantial changes between OS versions to how they were finding to best implement these operations.
There are always options and work to be the best option in the space. Compared to a year ago and vs. the original Aura Pro X, the price per GB is down by a whopping 50% for high performance. There are lower cost ways to populate NAND - but those solutions don't support the performance sought. They burst with high speeds for only a small 1-3% of their capacity and then can slow down until have time to flush. Fine for most basic uses, not fine for photo, video, anything that puts a write demand of more than a few GBs onto the drive. Having said all of that, we will have a lower cost Aura Gen 2 very soon as well - but even this model, while not being as fast as the Pro X2 - will provide end to end performance that doesn't tease and then disappoint.
I truly wish the Aura Pro X2 could have been our very first PCIe/NVME solution for Apple systems. It is truly the best option on the planet today for these systems and checks all the boxes. It reflects years of work and for anyone running 10.13 or later, provides the most reliable, highest performance, lowest power, seamlessly compatible solution for the PCIe type Macs - period. The same goes for our 2018 gen Aura Pros for the SATA models. We're always going forward and always seek the path onward and upwards.
- OWC Larry
[doublepost=1555503728][/doublepost]That is not an issue under any circumstances with any of our models.
The question is do these have the same issues as the previous version with cursor lag? I put one in for a client of mine and eventually got so annoyed with her constantly texting me about it I just gave her my Apple drive instead.
[doublepost=1555503935][/doublepost]We are in testing right now for iMac 2013-2017+. We do extensive qualifications prior to release - and in the iMac it's beyond extensive with respect to the screen needing the 'cut' off the Mac/the glue tape sliced to get inside those systems. We plan to release iMac model supports (each model/year and type goes through certification) within the next few weeks. Testing for iMac started last year. We want everything about Aura Pro X2 to be 100% perfect for every Mac we support it in.
Mac mini 2014 we support right now. Mac mini 2018 is, unfortunately, soldered.
I was looking online today about it. I guess a lot of these aftermarket SSD upgrades are NVMe, but Apple's bootrom doesn't fully support sleep/hibernation with these. Looks like there are workarounds (disabling hibernation, or installing a modded rom/firmware), but either disable something, or are hard to do for the basic consumer.
Kinda wish there was a similar upgrade for the 5K iMac. Would be fun to get a Fusion drive, and upgrade both the SSD & HDD.
[doublepost=1555504232][/doublepost]Adapting would have been an easier solution - but it adds multiple points of failure, has signal impact to the lanes, and in general is not a great idea. Beyond just the hardware side, the other aspect is that the firmware we've evolved over many years for the moving Apple requirements is specific on our drives to be seamless for all Apple & Mac OS requirements. That is not the case with other hacked in solutions and such is reflected in issues commonly reported with such adapted/hack 'solutions'.
I can't imagine why someone would buy this when the sintech NVME adapter exists.
Cult of OWC, I guess.
