Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Transcend Debuts JetDrive SSD Upgrade Kits Up to 960GB for MacBook Air, Retina Macbook Pro

tivoboy said:
Which are these the same as, the Aura or the Aura Pro? Not really sure how much faster the pro is to the Aura. but the Aura is now this price or cheaper actually from OWC.

----------



Any real world speed read/write tests comparing your new drives with the OWC Aura and Aura Pro drives?
Click to expand...

Hello tivoboy,
We have detailed speed comparisons between our JetDrive SSDs and Apple OEM SSDs on our website (click on "Performance Chart" under "Supercharge your Mac"). We're using Blackmagic Speed test, which uses compressed data, to perform the comparison. You can compare our numbers to those of our competitor. You'll see that we have nearly double the write speeds under compressed data rates and a 5 year warranty policy as well. Three year old SandForce controllers just can't keep up with the latest generation of SSD controllers.

----------
that1dj said:
I never really post here, but just wanted to say that I (surprisingly) received my 960GB model today and was able to install it just fine. It fit with a very small amount of space to spare. Screwed everything back in and so far so good.

My Retina Macbook Pro is from the very first batch (Mid-2012).
Click to expand...

Hello that1dj,
Good to hear everything worked out for you!
 
Last edited:
TranscendInfo said:
Hello JGO,
Our proprietary controller is a completely different design from SandForce controllers and doesn't rely on data compression to accelerate transfer rates. Subsequently, our JetDrive SSDs perform well even when using benchmarks such as Blackmagic which utilize incompressible data.

Hope that helps!
Click to expand...

Can you confirm or deny that the controller chip and arrangement of channels/dies/flash is (logically rather than physically) the same between the 400/500/520/720 variants of these drives? And if that is the case, why is the 400 variant a few megs slower than the other three in your performance chart?
 
one thing

Well, one thing is for sure, used or slightly used prices for OWC Aura's on ebay for Retina MBP have cratered. Kudos to all those sellers who managed to sell in the 385-400+ ranges (and whose auctions l now THANKFULLY lost).. those days are ovah!

Is there an alert one can set for when the new fixed rMBP version will be available? I ordered one last week, thankfully was able to cancel it before it shipped.
 
tivoboy said:
Well, one thing is for sure, used or slightly used prices for OWC Aura's on ebay for Retina MBP have cratered. Kudos to all those sellers who managed to sell in the 385-400+ ranges (and whose auctions l now THANKFULLY lost).. those days are ovah!

Is there an alert one can set for when the new fixed rMBP version will be available? I ordered one last week, thankfully was able to cancel it before it shipped.
Click to expand...

Hello tivoboy,
Thanks for your interest! If you or anyone else wants a reminder, you are more than welcome to PM our Macrumors account, and we will send out an update when they are ready to purchase. At this point its still on track for a late june/ early july release.
 
I received my JetDrive 720 (960GB) drive from Amazon yesterday and just installed it with no issues at all.

I have an early 2013 rMBP and listed below are the before and after speed tests.

Before:

DiskSpeedTest_Before_zps1385f10a.png


After:

DiskSpeedTest_After_zps13578ccf.png


I am very pleased!

Edited to add...I just noticed there is an adhesive rubber pad in the kit but no instructions on where it should go, or if its needed. Never mind, looking at the parts list it is foot pads for the enclosure. Now I feel complete!
 
Last edited:
a bit slight of hand

Naimfan said:
Talk about reactionary - OWC lowered their prices.
Click to expand...

So, I think what OWC has done is a bit slight of hand.

they USED to have just ONE product like this, for say rMBP. Aura PRO I thought it was called. Now, they have Aura AND Aura PRO. I can't really see much difference other than 3 vs. 5 yr warranty and a TINY speed difference.

So, they have either lowered the pricing on the previous product, or they have introduced a lower priced product OR they are trying to introduce some product differentiation in order to have a lower priced product.

**update. I'm pretty sure the legacy OWC model was the Aura PRO - which is now the higher priced model. I can't really imagine that OWC has TWO SKU's for these products though. But, on the surface it appears they have simply introduced a lower priced PRODUCT. if not actually just a lower PRICE for the same product.
 
Last edited:
tivoboy said:
So, I think what OWC has done is a bit slight of hand.

they USED to have just ONE product like this, for say rMBP. Aura PRO I thought it was called. Now, they have Aura AND Aura PRO. I can't really see much difference other than 3 vs. 5 yr warranty and a TINY speed difference.

So, they have either lowered the pricing on the previous product, or they have introduced a lower priced product OR they are trying to introduce some product differentiation in order to have a lower priced product.

**update. I'm pretty sure the legacy OWC model was the Aura PRO - which is now the higher priced model. I can't really imagine that OWC has TWO SKU's for these products though. But, on the surface it appears they have simply introduced a lower priced PRODUCT. if not actually just a lower PRICE for the same product.
Click to expand...

I think you meant "sleight of hand." ;) Don't worry - I've got your six on that one.

I think you're right - I didn't look too closely, as I'm not a big fan of OWC. Funny, though, how this happened only AFTER Transcend started going for the same market, don't you think?
 
Naimfan said:
Funny, though, how this happened only AFTER Transcend started going for the same market, don't you think?
Click to expand...

Not funny, smart. You have to react to the market-place or die, especially when in a tech company. An argument could be had saying they charged too much for their product, but had no real competition until now.
 
tivoboy said:
OWC comes out swinging
Click to expand...

HaHa. They're FOS. TRIM is built into the Apple OS and Apple employs it by default in their SSDs. But it's NG:confused: I don't think so:eek:

As seen in my earlier Transcend review, I had both an Aura Pro and a JetDrive in my MBA. IMHO, the OWC SSD was nowhere near the quality of the Transcend SSD.

Lou
 
Jetdrive works only erratically, and absolutely no tech support

I bought a Jetdrive 720 (480 GB size) and installed it -- it cloned fast and seemed perfect, but my laptop didn't boot (I got a "no entry" sign on startup, which I've never seen before; it looks like a "no smoking" sign but without the cigarette). I restarted into the recovery partition and everything looked fine, tried to reboot again and it worked perfectly, until the next time I had to restart, when I got the same "no entry" sign. Seems like every reboot is a random coin toss -- will it work flawlessly or refuse to boot? I opened the computer up and made sure the drive cable was securely attached, and it was. But the randomness of when it worked and when it didn't was obviously troubling!

I filled out a support ticket on Transcend's site early morning Friday, May 23. I have still had no response to my support ticket. I tried emailed the email address on their support site, and even sending a private message to the MacRumors Transcend official account. Absolutely no response even after 5 business days.

I wanted to love this drive -- but how can I trust a drive that only works some of the time and a company that doesn't respond in a reasonable amount of time?
 
high5ths said:
I opened the computer up and made sure the drive cable was securely attached, and it was.
Click to expand...

I'm confused... these drives for the Retina and MBA snap directly into a slot on the logic board and there is no cable. What cable are you referring to?

Can you swap the Trancsend drive back in to the external enclosure they provided and option key boot from there? That would tell you if it is something with the drive of maybe an issue with your Mac.
 
Weaselboy said:
I'm confused... these drives for the Retina and MBA snap directly into a slot on the logic board and there is no cable. What cable are you referring to?
Click to expand...

Thanks, Weaselboy -- yes, I didn't detach any cables, but there is a cable from the SSD slot assembly to the motherboard which could become loose as you replaced the SSD. (You can see it in step 12 of this iFixit repair guide.) iFixit actually shows removing the whole assembly by detaching the cable, though I didn't do that. And in fact that cable wasn't loose at all, I just thought that was the one possible weakness in the connection.

Weaselboy said:
Can you swap the Trancsend drive back in to the external enclosure they provided and option key boot from there? That would tell you if it is something with the drive of maybe an issue with your Mac.
Click to expand...

Yup, my original drive boots perfectly and consistently both from the enclosure they provide and when I swapped it back internally. The new drive also seems to boot okay from the enclosure, which is why I can't quite figure out what the problem is when I installed it. (I've booted from the Transcend drive in the enclosure about 10 times and it worked perfectly every time. But installed internally it was about 1 in every 4 reboots that would work.)

What might be most frustrating is that the times the computer booted properly from the hard drive, it worked without any problems for as long as I used the computer (hours, days), until I restarted, when it usually would not boot at all.

I would think the drive just needs to be replaced, but I'm really alarmed that I couldn't get any response from the company. The hard drive is a pretty mission-critical piece of hardware...
 
high5ths said:
Thanks, Weaselboy -- yes, I didn't detach any cables, but there is a cable from the SSD slot assembly to the motherboard which could become loose as you replaced the SSD. (You can see it in step 12 of this iFixit repair guide.) iFixit actually shows removing the whole assembly by detaching the cable, though I didn't do that. And in fact that cable wasn't loose at all, I just thought that was the one possible weakness in the connection.



Yup, my original drive boots perfectly and consistently both from the enclosure they provide and when I swapped it back internally. The new drive also seems to boot okay from the enclosure, which is why I can't quite figure out what the problem is when I installed it. (I've booted from the Transcend drive in the enclosure about 10 times and it worked perfectly every time. But installed internally it was about 1 in every 4 reboots that would work.)

What might be most frustrating is that the times the computer booted properly from the hard drive, it worked without any problems for as long as I used the computer (hours, days), until I restarted, when it usually would not boot at all.

I would think the drive just needs to be replaced, but I'm really alarmed that I couldn't get any response from the company. The hard drive is a pretty mission-critical piece of hardware...
Click to expand...

Hello high5ths,
We'd like to apologize for not responding sooner. We've been updating our global website this week, and it seems like your support ticket went unnoticed in the confusion.

We have noticed an issue with OSX 10.8 that prevents an earlier batch of our JetDrives to not go to sleep properly. We have fixed this with all new JetDrives that left our manufacturing facility starting two weeks ago.

There are three things we can do from here:
1. Update to OSX 10.9

2. We can start an RMA process to get you a new drive with the latest firmware

3. We can send you a firmware update tool. (This will take a little longer since its not yet ready.)

Again, we're very sorry you had to wait this long for a response. Our direct email is support_ibu@transcend-info.com
 
re: drive issues

I just installed one of these drives (a 960GB model) in a 15" retina Macbook Pro, and it's working great so far.

Initially though, I had some problems getting OS X to boot. What I'd done was to install the new Transcend drive and immediately try to install OS X on it using the Internet Recovery feature (holding down OPTION-R at boot).

This caused it to start installing Mountain Lion (as I guess that was the original OS that shipped on the machine). A bit annoying as my goal was to get Mavericks on it, but I figured I could go about it this way and download the Mavericks upgrade once it was running.

When Mountain Lion completed installing, though, it would only reboot to that same symbol you describe (circle with a line through it). I found out this is a known issue with some of the Macbook Pros from 2012 and early 2013, and Apple apparently never really fixed the problem. It happens only with OS X restored from the Internet Recovery option.

So next, I wound up creating a bootable USB drive with OS X Mavericks (created from another machine) and installed from it. That did the trick, but I also took someone's advice to do a PRAM reset and to make sure that once OS X booted, I went to System Preferences and Startup Disk, and selected the Transcend drive.


high5ths said:
Thanks, Weaselboy -- yes, I didn't detach any cables, but there is a cable from the SSD slot assembly to the motherboard which could become loose as you replaced the SSD. (You can see it in step 12 of this iFixit repair guide.) iFixit actually shows removing the whole assembly by detaching the cable, though I didn't do that. And in fact that cable wasn't loose at all, I just thought that was the one possible weakness in the connection.



Yup, my original drive boots perfectly and consistently both from the enclosure they provide and when I swapped it back internally. The new drive also seems to boot okay from the enclosure, which is why I can't quite figure out what the problem is when I installed it. (I've booted from the Transcend drive in the enclosure about 10 times and it worked perfectly every time. But installed internally it was about 1 in every 4 reboots that would work.)

What might be most frustrating is that the times the computer booted properly from the hard drive, it worked without any problems for as long as I used the computer (hours, days), until I restarted, when it usually would not boot at all.

I would think the drive just needs to be replaced, but I'm really alarmed that I couldn't get any response from the company. The hard drive is a pretty mission-critical piece of hardware...
Click to expand...
 
TranscendInfo said:
Hello high5ths,
We have noticed an issue with OSX 10.8 that prevents an earlier batch of our JetDrives to not go to sleep properly. We have fixed this with all new JetDrives that left our manufacturing facility starting two weeks ago.
Click to expand...

Thank you so much for your response -- I'm glad to hear this is a known issue and can be solved, because otherwise the drive is fantastic! I would love to upgrade to 10.9 but some software I use is not compatible. I will email the address you gave and start the RMA process to get a new drive with the latest firmware. Thanks so much for your time and your help, and also thanks to the others who chimed in with info!

Jeff
 
status

Any status on the 720 rev 2 for the rMBP? I'm hoping to get one and get my install of Yosemite on it soon!
 
I just wanted to post an update for anybody interested: after my difficult time getting in touch with Transcend tech support, they have gone above and beyond to help me, including emailing and calling me to get it sorted out. It seems that my support request just happened to come at a website changeover and got lost in the shuffle -- but boy, I could not ask for better tech support once they found my cries for help. They are 100% committed to getting me a working drive with the latest firmware.


Jeff
 
Any idea why wake from sleep is so slow now? It used to wake to the password login within 1-2 seconds with the old Apple SSD Drive, now it takes about 10+ seconds. I even did a complete fresh install of 10.9 from a USB and the issue remains, even on a default Mavericks install. Have you heard of this issue yet?

I have the JetDrive 720 480GB for MacBook Pro Retina mid-2012
 
moebis said:
Any idea why wake from sleep is so slow now? It used to wake to the password login within 1-2 seconds with the old Apple SSD Drive, now it takes about 10+ seconds. I even did a complete fresh install of 10.9 from a USB and the issue remains, even on a default Mavericks install. Have you heard of this issue yet?

I have the JetDrive 720 480GB for MacBook Pro Retina mid-2012
Click to expand...

Moebis,

Did you change your default boot device to be the JetDrive and not the original Apple SSD? If not, please ensure that you do, as well as enabling TRIM with the JetDrive Toolbox that can be found here - http://www.transcend-info.com/Support/Software-181

If you want to speak to us regarding any issues you are having, please contact us by sending an email to Techsupport-us@transend-info.com or call us directly at 714-921-2000. Please copy and paste this into your email so that we have information to refer to :)
 
tivoboy said:
Any status on the 720 rev 2 for the rMBP? I'm hoping to get one and get my install of Yosemite on it soon!
Click to expand...
This is an important question. I'm ready to take my chances with the current model on my 2012 15-in rMBP, but if I have information suggesting that the rev 2 will be coming out in the next few weeks, I'll hold off. TranscendInfoLA, can you provide some guidance to us? Thanks.
 
MassMacMan said:
This is an important question. I'm ready to take my chances with the current model on my 2012 15-in rMBP, but if I have information suggesting that the rev 2 will be coming out in the next few weeks, I'll hold off. TranscendInfoLA, can you provide some guidance to us? Thanks.
Click to expand...

Hello MassMacMan,
The earliest possible date for a delivery will be around the second week of July at this point. If you can hold off until then, that would be best.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back