OWC Aura 1TB SSD

A way to upgrade the storage on recent MacBook Pros

$649 Manufacturer OWC, owcdigital.com Compatibility MacBook Pro with Retina display, 13-inch/15-inch, Late 2013/2014/2015

Until OWC announced this SSD for Late 2013 and later MacBook Pro models (a version is also available for MacBook Airs from the same period), you were stuck with the amount of internal storage you chose when buying those models, so if you bought too little, you can breathe a sigh of relief. The Aura isn’t a cheap upgrade, admittedly, though if you buy this full upgrade kit rather than just the bare drive ($597), you also get an Envoy Pro USB 3.0 enclosure to reuse your original storage.

Fitting the Aura isn’t difficult, though it requires care that you don’t drop any of the tiny screws from your MacBook’s bottom plate. It’s sensible to set aside plenty of workspace so you can arrange the screws to reflect their original positions and ensure each goes back in the correct hole. After removing the screws, you pull the plate away from the body, undo one more screw that holds the PCIe storage in place, swap in the Aura, then apply the same steps in reverse. The upgrade kit includes the necessary Torx and Pentalobe screwdrivers, and installation took us about 20 minutes.

To transfer your existing installation, it’s best to first put a fresh installation of OS X on the Aura to add a Recovery system, then restore your existing installation from a complete Time Machine backup. If allocating more room to Boot Camp is a reason you’re interested in the Aura, make sure you grab OWC’s Dual Boot Enabler (released since the drive became available), which allows Boot Camp Assistant to recognize the drive.

Note that if you’ve previously “expanded” your MacBook’s storage via the SD card slot using something like the Nifty Mini-Drive, remove it (and disconnect any other external drives); there’s an issue, documented by Apple and not the Aura’s fault, that can halt installation, and which frustrated us because we’d largely forgotten about our SD card upgrade.

The Aura’s transfer rates didn’t match our MacBook’s original Samsung storage. However, Apple uses drives from various manufacturers even in the same range of Macs, some of which also don’t match up to our original drive’s performance. At 476.2MB/s on large sequential writes, the Aura is 259.1MB/sec slower, while large sequential read operations reached 722.5MB/s, which is down 64.9MB/s. We didn’t feel the effects of this in day-to-day use (and very few others would in practice), but you may if you perform large, lengthy transfers to Thunderbolt storage.

the bottom line. Though it’s expensive, the Aura is a good way to delay a full MacBook replacement. We recommend you get the upgrade kit for the extra value of reusing your old drive.