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OWC offers 480GB SSD upgrade for Retina MacBook Pro, requires screwdriver and careful math

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OWC offers 480GB SSD upgrade for Retina Macbook Pro, requires screwdriver and careful math

Order up a Retina MacBook Pro and you'll likely be confronted with a gravelly message about how the SSD is "built into the computer" and not user-upgradeable. As it turns out, that's not quite true -- so long as you're prepared to ignore a whole bunch of other warnings written inside the chassis itself, iFixit has shown how to remove the factory drive and now OWC has a new SSD to replace it with. The only downside is the cost: at $580, OWC's 480GB Mercury Aura Pro is actually more expensive than Apple's official 512GB upgrade. In an effort to sweeten the deal, OWC is offering those who buy before September 30th a compact USB 3.0 enclosure to make use of the freed-up drive. Alternatively, you may want to wait for prices to drop or for OWC to offer an even bigger capacity with better cost / benefits.

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OWC offers 480GB SSD upgrade for Retina MacBook Pro, requires screwdriver and careful math originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 06:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OWC Mercury Aura Bundles let you replace your MacBook Air’s SSD, use it as external storage

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DNP OWC

Got a Macbook Air from 2010 or 2011 and want to upgrade the storage without dropping its pre-existing SSD module all together? Well, you're in luck, thanks to OWC's new Mecury Aura Bundles. After upgrading your Air with one of the company's Mercury Aura Pro Express SSDs, the included Mercury Aura Envoy lets you re-purpose the factory SSD as a bus-powered, USB 3.0-compatible external drive. Better yet, the Envoy is made of aluminum, matches the Air's tapered design and weighs just 1.5 ounces. Owners of the 2010 Air can opt for a 180, 240 or 480GB 3Gb/s drive, while those with the 2011 model can bump up to 6Gb/s bus speeds with the same storage allotments and a 120GB option. Pricing for the bundle starts at $200 for the 120GB variant, maxing out at a hefty $780 and $800 if you want to move up to the spacious 480GB offerings. Thankfully, like the SSDs, the Mercury Aura Envoy is available as a stand-alone enclosure, and it'll cost you just under $50 bucks. Hit up the press release after the break for the full details if this dual-drive setup piques your interest

Continue reading OWC Mercury Aura Bundles let you replace your MacBook Air's SSD, use it as external storage

OWC Mercury Aura Bundles let you replace your MacBook Air's SSD, use it as external storage originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 01 Jul 2012 10:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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OWC Outs 960GB Mercury Electra MAX 3G SSD

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OWC hits back with their new SSD, the Mercury Electra MAX 3G. Coming in 960GB size, this high capacity 2.5-inch SSD is equipped with Asynchronous Tier 1/Grade A 2X-nm NAND Flash memory chips, a SATA 3.0 Gbps interface, a SandForce SF-2181 controller, DuraClass and DuraWrite technologies support, a built-in ECC function and promises to deliver read and write speeds of up to 254MB/s and 250MB/s, respectively. The 960GB Mercury Electra MAX 3G retails for $1,269.99. [Product Page]

OWC’s Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD is Mac bootable, strictly neutral

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OWC's Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD is Mac bootable, strictly neutral

If you've ever tried to jam a regular SSD into your Mac, then you'll know that many off-the-shelf drives feel like they're tailored and tested for, ahem, someone else. Not so with OWC's Mercury Accelsior, which claims to be the only Mac bootable and Mac supported PCIe SSD on the market. Regardless of which platform you use it with, however, the dual-SandForce card promises some neat tricks with its 24nm Toshiba Toggle NAND. Sequential read and write speeds are around 50 percent higher than what you'd get from a regular SATA III drive, with the cheapest 120GB model ($360) offering 758MB/s reads and 743MB/s writes. Random performance is notched up too, with around 100K IOPS in both directions. The 960GB version costs a coldly precise $2,096, but still -- a potential side order for when the Mac Pro line finally gets another refresh?

Continue reading OWC's Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD is Mac bootable, strictly neutral

OWC's Mercury Accelsior PCIe SSD is Mac bootable, strictly neutral originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Apr 2012 09:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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