If you bought a MacBook Pro with Retina display in 2013 or later, there's a good chance you wound up with less on-board flash storage than you really wanted. When those models were first introduced back in 2013, you could get the 13-inch version with as little as 128 GB of PCIe-based flash storage on board. (Even today, the 15-inch model starts at just 256 GB, and it costs an extra $800 to bring that up to 1 TB.)
This is how to format an SSD on Mac OS X. OWC SSD Formatting Guides. OWC Aura N Formatting Guide (1.97MB PDF ) OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (2012-2013 MacBook Pro Retina) (3.99MB PDF ).
It didn't seem like a bad deal at the time. If you were carrying an external drive for data storage, the increased speed of booting from the SSD (and installing your programs there) made up for any inconvenience. But if you're constantly pushing against the upper limits of your MacBook Pro's storage capacity, you now have the chance to upgrade it yourself with OWC's new PCIe Aura SSD, finally available for mid-2013 and later MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops.
The drives come in 480 GB and 1 TB capacities, dramatically expanding the capacity of a 128 or 256 GB Mac. The downside, of course, is that you have to perform the hardware upgrade yourself. And, yes, that means you are likely voiding warranty coverage on that computer. Yes, OWC has said this isn't true, but enough users have shared anecdotes about Apple's refusal to honor warranties when aftermarket modifications have been made that you should probably open up your Mac only if you're willing to take that risk.
The installation process seems fairly simple — OWC has instructional videos available on its site — involving the removal of a handful of screws securing the MacBook's bottom plate, snapping the plate off the body of the compueter, disconnecting a battery cable, and unscrewing and unseating the stock drive to replace it with the OWC model.
- OWC has announced the availability of the new Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD, in capacities from 240GB up to 4TB. OWC's newest 2.5-inch SATA SSD is among the most versatile and reliable on the planet, featuring state-of-the-art components and engineering that bring older Macs and PCs up to current model performance levels.
- OWC SSD Formatting Guides. OWC Aura N Formatting Guide (2.1MB PDF); OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (2012-2013 MacBook Pro Retina) (4.2MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (2012 MacBook Air) (2.3MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (2010-2011 MacBook Air) (2.5MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (Late 2012 iMac) (4.2MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro X Formatting Guide.
Owc Format New Ssd Hard Drive
The Aura SSD is a tier 1 flash device with 7% overprovisioning, OWC said. It features three-level error correction, cell-level data refresh, and a global wear-leveling algorithm for extending the drive's life. The data transfer rate is clocked by OWC at 764 MB/sec read and 447 MB/sec write.
The Upgrade Kit versions of the Aura SSD include the required tools for getting into your computer (Torx T5 and Pentalobe P5 screwdrivers) plus an Envoy Pro USB 3.0 enclosure that you can use for data migration after you finish the job. The 480 GB version has a $450 MSRP (with a $399 introductory price) and the 1 TB drive has a $720 MSRP ($640 introductory price). A drive-only version with no tools or USB enclosure can be had for $380 for the 480 GB version ($348 introductory price) or $649 for the 1 TB drive ($598 introductory price).
OWC launches Accelsior PCIe SSD for Mac Pro up to 8TB
You can ship your media to us or visit one of our offices.
January, 2020Apple has just announced the availability of the 8TB SSD upgrade option for its new high specification Mac Pro and OWC has announced the launch of its Accelsior PCIe SSD for Mac Pro. The new high-end SSD combines multiple M.2 drives to offer up to 8 TB of storage, with aggregate read/write well over 6000 MB/s.
According to the company, the Accelsior 4M2 is the fastest SSD ever built by OWC and is the perfect storage solution for large format video editing, VR/AR/MR environments, extreme gaming, compute-intensive applications, and other high bandwidth needs. In addition to the new Mac Pro 2019, the Accelsior 4M2 SSD is compatible with PCs and 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro machines, delivering the blazing performance, unstoppable reliability, and stunning versatility. It fits into a half-height or full-height PCI 3.0 or 3.0 8x or 16x slot but if no expansion slot is available, it also works with Thunderbolt 3-based external enclosures.
The installation process seems fairly simple — OWC has instructional videos available on its site — involving the removal of a handful of screws securing the MacBook's bottom plate, snapping the plate off the body of the compueter, disconnecting a battery cable, and unscrewing and unseating the stock drive to replace it with the OWC model.
- OWC has announced the availability of the new Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD, in capacities from 240GB up to 4TB. OWC's newest 2.5-inch SATA SSD is among the most versatile and reliable on the planet, featuring state-of-the-art components and engineering that bring older Macs and PCs up to current model performance levels.
- OWC SSD Formatting Guides. OWC Aura N Formatting Guide (2.1MB PDF); OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (2012-2013 MacBook Pro Retina) (4.2MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (2012 MacBook Air) (2.3MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (2010-2011 MacBook Air) (2.5MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro 6G Formatting Guide (Late 2012 iMac) (4.2MB PDF) OWC Aura Pro X Formatting Guide.
Owc Format New Ssd Hard Drive
The Aura SSD is a tier 1 flash device with 7% overprovisioning, OWC said. It features three-level error correction, cell-level data refresh, and a global wear-leveling algorithm for extending the drive's life. The data transfer rate is clocked by OWC at 764 MB/sec read and 447 MB/sec write.
The Upgrade Kit versions of the Aura SSD include the required tools for getting into your computer (Torx T5 and Pentalobe P5 screwdrivers) plus an Envoy Pro USB 3.0 enclosure that you can use for data migration after you finish the job. The 480 GB version has a $450 MSRP (with a $399 introductory price) and the 1 TB drive has a $720 MSRP ($640 introductory price). A drive-only version with no tools or USB enclosure can be had for $380 for the 480 GB version ($348 introductory price) or $649 for the 1 TB drive ($598 introductory price).
OWC launches Accelsior PCIe SSD for Mac Pro up to 8TB
You can ship your media to us or visit one of our offices.
January, 2020Apple has just announced the availability of the 8TB SSD upgrade option for its new high specification Mac Pro and OWC has announced the launch of its Accelsior PCIe SSD for Mac Pro. The new high-end SSD combines multiple M.2 drives to offer up to 8 TB of storage, with aggregate read/write well over 6000 MB/s.
According to the company, the Accelsior 4M2 is the fastest SSD ever built by OWC and is the perfect storage solution for large format video editing, VR/AR/MR environments, extreme gaming, compute-intensive applications, and other high bandwidth needs. In addition to the new Mac Pro 2019, the Accelsior 4M2 SSD is compatible with PCs and 2010 and 2012 Mac Pro machines, delivering the blazing performance, unstoppable reliability, and stunning versatility. It fits into a half-height or full-height PCI 3.0 or 3.0 8x or 16x slot but if no expansion slot is available, it also works with Thunderbolt 3-based external enclosures.
As is often the case for high-end OWC drives, the Accelsior 4M2 is meant to be used with OWC's SoftRAID software which supports various RAID modes (RAID 0, RAID 1, JBOD, etc.). Otherwise the drive can also be used in PCs. Despite the Mac-focus, it's presented as a generic PCIe card but PC users will need to supply their own RAID software.
On this link. The drive is entirely slot-powered which means it doesn't require any extra power connections to function, is plug-and-play without the need of additional drivers for installation, and can be used as the boot volume for fast start-up times.
Owc Format New Ssd Drive
When it comes to capacity, the Accelsior 4M2 storage solution will be available in 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, and 8 TB raw capacities. OWC will start shipments of the Accelsior 4M2 SSDs on the week of December 30th.
Owc Format New Ssd File
According to OWC, Accelsior 4M2 offers performance gains in so many diverse ways that it will literally change the paradigm for storage applications. But, unfortunately, the new Accelsior SSD drives have a limited number of write cycles and can fail just like any other SSDs. Then their owners will need to contact a reliable professional data recovery services provider like ACE Data Recovery to get their critical data back. ACEs can successfully recover data from High-capacity SSDs of all makes and models and are ready to help the Accelsior 4M2 owners restore their irreplaceable data.
