The OWC Aura Pro X2 SSD Review: An NVMe Upgrade For Older Macs
by Billy Tallis on June 5, 2019 10:15 AM ESTAnandTech Storage Bench - Light
Our Light storage test has relatively more sequential accesses and lower queue depths than The Destroyer or the Heavy test, and it's by far the shortest test overall. It's based largely on applications that aren't highly dependent on storage performance, so this is a test more of application launch times and file load times. This test can be seen as the sum of all the little delays in daily usage, but with the idle times trimmed to 25ms it takes less than half an hour to run. Details of the Light test can be found here. As with the ATSB Heavy test, this test is run with the drive both freshly erased and empty, and after filling the drive with sequential writes.
On the Light test, the OWC Aura Pro X2 again performs more like an entry-level NVMe SSD, but unlike the Heavy test there isn't a big gap between tiers of NVMe SSDs. The Aura Pro X2 clearly outperforms the older Apple SSD, even in the worst-case scenario of a full drive.
The average latency of the Aura Pro X2 during the Light test is a bit worse than most high-end NVMe SSDs, but isn't high enough to worry about. The 99th percentile latency is rather high for the worst-case test run on a full drive, but this 2ms is only marginally slower than the old Apple drive and is not even the worst we've seen from a SM2262EN drive.
The average read latencies for the Aura Pro X2 on the Light test are competitive with high-end M.2 NVMe drives, though the latency for the full-drive test run is a bit high. The average write latency is clearly higher than typical for high-end NVMe drives, whether the test is run on a full or empty drive.
The high-end NVMe drives almost all have extremely low 99th percentile write latencies on the Light test, and the Aura Pro X2 can't match that performance even when the test is run on an empty drive. For reads, the 99th percentile latency is competitive when the test is run on an empty drive, and is on par with the old Apple SSD when full.
The OWC Aura Pro X2 saves a lot of power relative to the old Apple SSD or the fastest current NVMe SSDs. It doesn't quite match the WD Black SN750's efficiency, but it's better than we expected from a drive with the SM2262EN controller.
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danielfranklin - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Exactly,What a load of crap marketing this in devices that do NOT support NVME properly in the firmware.
I expect more from OWC given the prices and that they are Mac specific.
Oxford Guy - Wednesday, June 5, 2019 - link
QLC is looking abominable here, particularly in the latency tests.nicolaim - Wednesday, June 5, 2019 - link
The sentence "The OWC Aura Pro X2 declares support all the usual power management features expected on a modern M.2 NVMe SSD, with two idle states that balance power savings against transition latency." is missing the word "for" and has an extra space.jabber - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Apple Legal Team ban hammer in 5...4...3...2...Samus - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Can they? I mean, OWC has been making these SSD's for YEARS without a threat from Apple. Clearly Apple doesn't believe they have a case.If anything this works in Apples favor because it is an easy way for them to void peoples warranties or refuse to service their PC's, much like they refuse to service iPhones with replacement 3rd party screens and batteries.
The_Assimilator - Friday, June 7, 2019 - link
Not to mention OWC is a large payer of the Apple Tax.playtech1 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
I recently upgraded the SSDs in a 13 inch MBP and a 15 inch MBP, both from 2015. I upgraded the 13 inch MBP with a 1TB Apple SSD from eBay and the 15 inch MBP with a 2TB Intel 760p plus a Sintech short NVMe adapter.Both new SSDs work at roughly the same speed as the 512GB SSDs they replaced. However, I am considering ditching the 2TB SSD from the 15 inch MBP as it has reduced the battery life by several hours and increased the drain on standby. The Apple SSD in the 13 inch has had no negative side effects. I might hope that an OS update will bring with it better driver support for NVMe low power states, but it seems optimistic given that these models were never designed with NVMe in mind and it's something of a miracle that Apple ever enabled their use.
danzeb - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
I been looking into swapping out the ssd on my 13 inch 2015 MBP for a larger capacity one. Going by what I've read on the forums it seems increased battery drain is an unavoidable issue with NVMe drives when installed in our Macs. Would a third party AHCI drive have less power issues than a NVMe?maxtech567 - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
This review disregarded many crucial issues with OWC's Pro X2.Pro X2's issues:
1. You only get less 1500MB/s in most models (33 out of 38 supported models). Exceptions are 2015 MacBook Pro 15 and 4 iMac models, which are the lucky ones with PCIe 3.0 x4. They can take advantage of the full speed. Most other users are stuck with PCIe 2.0 x4, which is 1500MB/s.
I have a MacBook Air 2013. With the newly bought Pro X2 256GB, I'm only getting 1000MB/s write and 1500MB/s read. This is worse than most third-party solutions like Feather SSD from Fledging.
2. This solution has all flaws in an NVMe SSD (cannot wake up from hibernation, older boot ROM recognition, etc)
3. SM2262EN is one of the hottest controllers out there and significantly decreases battery life compare to SM2263XT or Phison E12
4. Even the destroyer test shows worse performance across the board in real life use cases comparing this SSD to Phison E12
Besides, the fitting on the adapter is overstated. There are plenty of short or low high ones that work perfectly without poking through the back.
burgerkingjr - Thursday, June 6, 2019 - link
Any chance of a comparison with the Transcend JetDrive 850 or 820?https://www.transcend-info.com/Products/No-956