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OWC's MacBook Air SSD Replacement and Benchmarks

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Apr 12, 2001
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ArsTechnica provides an extensive walkthrough and installation of the OWC MacBook Air SSD replacement kits. The OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express is the only presently available SSD replacement for the MacBook Air's new compact SSD drive.

Installation requires some disassembly of your MacBook Air as well as the lengthy backup/restore process to migrate your data. The new drive offers some performance benefit over the original Toshiba SSDs, and is about on-par with the recently shipping Samsung SSD drives.


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The main benefit for the replacements are increased storage capacity, but it comes at a price with 180GB/240GB/360GB drives costing $499.99/$579.99/$1179.99 respectively.

Article Link: OWC's MacBook Air SSD Replacement and Benchmarks
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/04/owcs-macbook-air-ssd-replacement-and-benchmarks/
Last edited by a moderator:
interesting, i dont think its worthy upgrade for me but it might be some who need more space or have the spare money for a faster performing ssd.
 
Is it just me or does that sound REALLY expensive? I mean, for the capacity of the drive that seems like at least twice what it should be.
 
Looking at the speed difference and knowing that MacBook Air is not a workstation of any kind i'd say Toshiba SSD is good enough. Would be a waste of money in my opinion.
 
Way over priced!!!

The cheap one is half the price of the AIR itself. $150 would be a nice starting point.
 
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Waaaaaaayyyyy too much cash. But now those sweet new iMac's are out do I plump for a pimped 11" MBA or a replacement for my 4 year old iMac?

Arrrghh!!! Apple, why do you force me into these decisions???!!!
 
Seriously prohibitive pricing, as in I'd be surprised if they sell into three figures unit-wise.

Words cannot express the magnitude of fail. I know SSDs are still expensive but this is beyond ridiculous.

I'd rather carry round a sleek Lacie Starck 500GB drive for $150.
 
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Dang. Very price prohibitive for the vast majority of consumers. Still feels maybe 5 years out from prices more proportionate to median household incomes.
Unless this iCloud thing can really take off and riddle local storage moot. But that feels even further out than affordable SSDs.
We'll see...
 
lazyrighteye said:
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Dang. Very price prohibitive for the vast majority of consumers. Still feels maybe 5 years out from prices more proportionate to median household incomes.
Unless this iCloud thing can really take off and riddle local storage moot. But that feels even further out than affordable SSDs.
We'll see...
Click to expand...

These SSD upgrade prices are much too high. Also, I believe Apple could have added at least 1 RAM slot for upgrades. Even so, the 11" base unit is a fast little computing tool powerful enough for most general office tasks and the occasional light gaming.

The 64GB SSD in my MB Air is fine when combined with Dropbox's selective sync. The only thing on the Air are the OS and my business Apps (ok SC2 as well). All the documents I need are sync'd with Dropbox and the rest are stored on Dropbox and can be accessed through the browser when needed. This makes the 11" Air perfect for travel and it fits in the same small case I carry the iPad in.

Whatever that iCloud turns out to be it better be as fast and easy to use as Dropbox.

Cheers,
 
I'm interested....I mean, not know, despite my Air being pretty full, but in 2 years, when my they are cheaper and my Air is feeling old, this will be a nice upgrade.
 
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SSD drives? Fix the post. You guys should be better than that.
 
What about the ones that ship with the newer Samsung SSD? I think those specs are actually higher than the OWC SSD if I am not mistaken.
 
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Lucky736 said:
What about the ones that ship with the newer Samsung SSD? I think those specs are actually higher than the OWC SSD if I am not mistaken.
Click to expand...

+1
Samsung SSD might be even faster!
 
Yeah, costly ... but ....

I have to disagree with some of you who seem to feel the product won't even succeed at these price-points.

I've been in this industry long enough to know that there's definitely a segment of the market out there who can afford to buy something like this -- and it's a segment somewhat likely to already own a Macbook Air.

You can compare the cost of the SSD to the cost of the whole machine and argue it's "ridiculously overpriced" from that standpoint -- but that doesn't tell the whole story. CAD designers and 3D animation people have been buying video cards that cost more than the entire rest of the computer they sit in for years and years.

For someone who really likes the lightweight, portable nature of the Air and feels that the only thing it lacks is sufficient fast storage space? They might very well say, "Sure, I'll pay another $1,000+ to have 3x the storage capacity it came with originally, and faster storage at that!"
 
I'm really eager to see the MBA refresh! I know it may not happen this year but I'm hoping it does since it brings so much cash to Apple now...
 
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I knew there was a reason I switched to PC.
 
Optimus Frag said:
Waaaaaaayyyyy too much cash. But now those sweet new iMac's are out do I plump for a pimped 11" MBA or a replacement for my 4 year old iMac?

Arrrghh!!! Apple, why do you force me into these decisions???!!!
Click to expand...

SSD drives are a luxury item for many folks... unless they are part of the MBA purchase... I have the MBA 13" late 2010 and love the instant on feature.

I too have a 4yo iMac that I would like to upgrade. But I have a significant other that we are joining households with this month - and between us we have two MBA's (one 11" and 13"), two iPad's (my new iPad 2, and them with my old iPad 1), and my current iMac.

For them their needs are simple, so their MBA 11" and iPad are enough. For me I would like the Quad Core and 8GB RAM for the main home computer. And my MBA 13" and iPad 2 are used for extra credit at work.

So far we have agreed to do a "reboot" on new Mac purchases as we meld our lives together. Saves us money for making my condo ours. And some well deserved travel together.
 
I love all the allegations that the price is "too high" as if OWC is just raising the price needlessly because they want to sell less.

Yeah, they're expensive. That's because they're still expensive to make. There's no big conspiracy here; it's not like everyone in the world except OWC sells SSDs at a super-cheap price.
 
Small White Car said:
I love all the allegations that the price is "too high" as if OWC is just raising the price needlessly because they want to sell less.

Yeah, they're expensive. That's because they're still expensive to make. There's no big conspiracy here; it's not like everyone in the world except OWC sells SSDs at a super-cheap price.
Click to expand...

Exactly. It's not like OWC is ripping people off. Yes there probably is a bigger profit margin in $$$ terms but standard in % terms. This is a luxury upgrade for those with the $$$ who must have the ultimate.
 
And I had previously experienced problems with my OWC SSD in my MBP, they had plenty of minor issues with it - didn't wake up after sleep, freezing randomly and you cannot update the firmware version on them on a mac if I am not mistaken. Even with TRIM enabler 1.1, it enhances the Toshiba's SSD in my MBA and prevents further degradation of performance lost by writing zeros instead of rewriting used data on the drive.

OWC is way overpriced for an "average" individual with normal income, but at least they provide an option and being the only company that supplies SSDs for the MBA I think they have a significant Market share for hardware enthusiasts or people just into SSDs.

Want it or not, at least they provide us the option to upgrade. Hopefully solid state drives will decrease price per GB in the future.
 
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