NewImageOther World Computing has released a 480GB aftermarket SSD upgrade for the Retina MacBook Pro. However, while OWC's upgrades for the MacBook Air are very price-competitive with the storage upgrades available at the Apple Online Store, the 480GB Aura Pro 6G is less clear-cut.

In its blog post announcing the release, OWC notes that "when introduced this past June, the MacBook Pro with Retina display base model offered a 256GB SSD configuration with no upgrade option." While this used to be true, at the beginning of this month, Apple expanded the custom configuration options for the Retina MacBook Pro. Now, users can upgrade the base model with either 512 or 768GB of storage.

The 512GB upgrade costs $500 from Apple, while OWC offers the 480GB SSD for $579.99. Though it appears to be more expensive, the OWC upgrade does allow users to keep the 256GB drive that comes in the notebook by default. For purchasers ordering the Mercury Aura Pro before September 30, OWC will include the $60 OWC Envoy Pro for free, an external USB 3.0 enclosure for the SSD drive from the Retina MacBook Pro. This gives users a very speedy (and very small) external drive.

Top Rated Comments

hyperipod Avatar
hyperipod
172 months ago
ha, and iFixit said the rMBP wasn't upgradeable at all!
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Codyak Avatar
Codyak
172 months ago
What kind of warranty does it have? I doubt it's as convenient to replace as going to the Genius Bar by any measure, and that means your machine is going down for days
3 Year warranty and it takes someone with average intelligence and the correct screwdriver about 5 minutes to replace the SSD in the rMBP. :rolleyes:

At that price? No thanks. I would rather buy a crucial m4 512gb SSD for $400 and connect it to a thunderbolt adapter.
Don't forget the $100 cost of that adapter.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
timd.mackey Avatar
timd.mackey
172 months ago
Why would anyone want to put super fast storage modules into a crappy USB 3 enclosure?

Thunderbolt or GTFO.

Is 500MB/s not fast enough for you?
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Anonymous Freak Avatar
Anonymous Freak
172 months ago
ha, and iFixit said the rMBP wasn't upgradeable at all!

At the time, it wasn't.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
longofest Avatar
longofest
172 months ago
Why would anyone want to put super fast storage modules into a crappy USB 3 enclosure?

Thunderbolt or GTFO.

Because Thunderbolt is incredibly expensive, and USB 3 is plenty fast for this purpose.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Codyak Avatar
Codyak
172 months ago
Why would anyone want to put super fast storage modules into a crappy USB 3 enclosure?

Thunderbolt or GTFO.
The Apple SSD can read/write ~450MB/s, USB 3.0 can theoretically do 600MB/s (although probably less in practice).
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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