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Other World Computing (OWC), a leading producer of solid-state storage products for Mac computers, is announcing its new 1TB and 2TB Aura SSD upgrades for the 2013 Mac Pro. This makes OWC the first company to offer cost-effective and easy DIY storage capacity upgrade solutions for the 2013 Mac Pro. This new Aura SSD is custom engineered for the 2013 Mac Pro, and is fully tested for speed, reliability and compatibility. OWC’s new Aura SSD offers Mac Pro users the capacity and performance required for high-speed production tasks unique to graphics, film, photo and audio workloads.
OWC’s Aura SSD for the Mac Pro is built on a PCIe 2.0 X 2 custom blade form factor. and combines 4 X LSI-SandForce SF2281 NAND controllers with a Marvel 88SE9230 RAID controller to achieve sequential read speeds of (up to) 730 MB/S and sequential write speeds of (up to) 698MB/s. It is compatible with Mac OS 10.9 (and higher) and Windows Vista (and higher) operating systems, and ships unformatted. The Aura SSD for the Mac Pro 2013 is both AHCI and RoHS compliant, as well as offering S.M.A.R.T. attributes reporting capabilities and being AES 128-bit chip-based encryption capable.
According to Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO of OWC, “Upgrading with an Aura SSD provides Mac Pro users the option to get the additional capacity they need now, rather than waiting for the next upgrade cycle. The solid performance and increased capacity means an enhanced experience for professional workflows.”
The Aura SSD for Mac Pro includes all tools necessary to simplify your DIY upgrade, including a comprehensive step-by-step installation video and OWC’s 24/7 award-winning U.S.-based technical support. It is backed by a three-year limited warranty. As a bonus, purchasers of an Aura SSD for Mac Pro will also receive OWC’s sleek Envoy Pro external enclosure, allowing users to use their original SSD as a high-performance USB 3.0 drive.
OWC’s Aura SSD for Mac Pro is available for pre-order at its product page here, with the 1TB version selling for $899, and the 2TB version at $1479. Shipping is anticipated later in December. OWC continues to be a, if not the, leading provider of upgrades and enhancements for every Mac Pro model produced, as well as for other Apple computing products. You can view the Aura SSD for Mac Pro press release in its entirety here.
no one cares for a 5 year old sandforce controller
Hate to say it, but I tend to agree. OWC seems to be behind the times.
I will give it you points on performance but not on capacity. My guess as to why we have yet to see PCIe X4 is because of the success OWC has enjoyed with their business partners, however, this is the very first 2TB SSD replacement that I am aware of anywhere. Hopefully we will see the speed update with the SandForce 3700 controller some time this year…
I agree that size really does matter. Most SSD’s are fast enough for most people but their capacities are so small that an iTunes library and a handful of photos can still fill them right up. I’m desperately hoping i’ll be able to get a 2tb drive for my Lenovo T440s sometime soon!
Any more news? on SF 3700 controller availability for this 2TB SSD upgrade MacPro 2013? Although others above say Samsung 1TB is available, I can’t find it, and OWC says their 1 and 3 TB SSD upgrades are the ONLY ones available for MacPro 2013.
TIA for anything you’ve got…
Nothing new yet I am afraid.
People do care about a 2TB SSD at a great price though.
Why not PCIe 4x???
I would prefer buying an Apple Samsung SSD PCIe X4 1TB already available on various store online.
I would prefer buying an Apple Samsung SSD PCIe X4 1TB already available on various store online
I just put together a HighPoint RAID 2720 card with 6 250GB SAMSUNG EVO drives in RAID 0 and am getting 2.6GB/sec from it. Why is this exciting?
Are you going to be fitting that inside a new Mac Pro anytime soon? Nope…. Conversely, we are looking at a particular segment of media professionals that need that high capacity, coupled with performance that will perform reliably in that environment for the long term. The EVO was not created for that. Have you done any testing of your setup with incompressible data samples, such as we see in music, movies and pictures?