Other World Computing announced expert upgrade recommendations for Mac users anticipating the new hardware and software Apple announced at this year’s WWDC in San Francisco. As Apple enthusiasts begin to take ownership of the latest MacBook Air models, and prepare for the forthcoming OS X Mavericks release and the much-anticipated 2013 Mac Pro refresh, OWC is formulating support solutions for current Mac owners and those planning to purchase a new Mac.
New MacBook Air offers much faster flash storage
Testing in the OWC Labs revealed that while the form factor has not changed, internal hardware has been given a major upgrade. Apple is the first to adopt and incorporate high-performance storage that has completely replaced the use of SATA storage in the new MacBook Air models. In addition, OWC testing is already showing performance of over 700MB/s. The OWC engineering team is already busy exploring both internal and external upgrades geared for the MacBook Air. Furthermore, OWC expects to see PCIe (PCI Express) storage to be implemented in all future Mac models, with the Retina MacBook Pro models to be next in line to receive this upgrade.
OWC upgrade recommendations:
- The Envoy Pro EX is the perfect complement for any of Apple’s current laptops and notebooks. Its sophisticated industrial design houses either a 240GB or 480GB SSD that delivers up to 500MB/s over USB 3.0.
Preparing for the 2013 Mac Pro
The upcoming Mac Pro, scheduled for release later this year, is a complete makeover of the current Mac Pro line-up. Meanwhile, OS X Mavericks, which will likely be released before the 2013 Mac Pro is available, provides support for up to 128GB of RAM — up from the 96GB limit of the current Mac operating system. OWC anticipates offering memory upgrade kits of up to 128GB for the new Mac Pro, consisting of memory modules of up to 32GB for each the 2013 Mac Pro’s four RAM slots.
OWC upgrade recommendations:
- OWC plans to make available a range of RAM upgrade options of up to 32GB per slot in time for the Mac Pro launch.
- For current Mac Pro users, or those who are considering buying a current Mac Pro model before the 2013 unit ships, OWC can provide RAM upgrades that maximize available memory for OSX versions 10.6 through 10.8.
- OWC offers a wide range of memory upgrades for the entire Mac Pro line, 2006 to current, providing up to double the amount of memory as was factory available / configurable.
- Also, after users have migrated to OS X Mavericks, those users who currently have 96GB installed in their Mac Pro 2009 and 2010 systems will be able to purchase and add an OWC 32GB upgrade kit to take their system up to 128GB, thereby deriving the maximum processing power from their machines for those memory-hungry applications that can use every Gigabyte and more.
“The announcements made by Apple at this year’s WWDC will encourage many Mac users to plan for new machines, and to consider how they might upgrade their current hardware to take advantage of what OSX Mavericks will offer,” said Larry O’Connor, founder and CEO of Other World Computing. “OWC has always been the first provider—outside of Apple—to offer the right configurations and upgrades of memory to the market since the first Mac Pro shipped in 2006. We look forward to providing a selection of proven, quality upgrades for all the Mac products that were previewed at the event.“
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Another 2013 MBA user wishing for a 256GB SSD upgrade from you guys!
Do you plan to offer PCI-E Ssd disk upgrade kits for the New Macbook Air 2013. I am interested in both 11″ and 13″.
I am about to buy either of these macbooks and if there will be upgrade kits for the internal ssd then I will now go for the 128gb standard config with the thougt of being able to upgrade the internal disk storage later on when needed.
I am sorry, but we can’t really speak as to the possibility, specifications, or timeframes of future products here on the OWC Blog.
What a pity. But I respect that and will follow the development. Please keep me updated if possible :-)
Regards,
Annette
Yeah, what the heck is taking so long to come out with great Thunderbolt products? It’s been two years since Apple implemented Thunderbolt 1.0 in their products. An expansion chassis is fine, but everyone’s doing that now – they’re up to 3 pci-e cards the last time I checked. You still only do just 1! Come on, be the first to offer a Thunderbolt enclosure for SATA III drives of choice. You said in that one blog post that you were taking more time to get it done right. And I appreciate that, but face it, if you couldn’t make these devices within 2 years, just forget it and be straight with your loyal customer base and admit defeat/no plans to release, rather than lingering us on to false hopes of you offering better alternatives for Thunderbolt. Not every company can do it all. And if you have created a new Thunderbolt product line but are holding back for a later release date perhaps when the New Mac Pro comes out, you might just missed the market and will loose many longtime customers and supporters of your great company, like myself. My patience has been exhausted and will move on to other solution providers. I never thought I would say “I’ve given up on OWC.” Man that really hurt to say that, but it’s true.
Thank you for your loyalty, support, and understanding. I apologize for the frustration and any let down we’ve caused with respect to not having a broader line up, right now, of OWC and NewerTech Thunderbolt native equipped products.
Thunderbolt is an exceptional technology. We will be offering exceptional OWC & NewerTech storage products that take advantage of it. Yes, it has been a longer road in general for Thunderbolt peripheral development. We have an exceptional pipeline of Thunderbolt products and it won’t be too long yet before we can finally start sharing that which is emerging.
In the meantime, we continue to add and support other brand Thunderbolt solutions as they become available too. This won’t change even as our own products come into position. Even with the broadest line, every need is unlikely to be met and mastered.
Current Thunderbolt items are showcased here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/
with everything presently available presented here:
http://eshop.macsales.com/Search/Search.cfm?Ntk=Primary&Ns=P_Popularity|1&Ne=5000&N=100103&Ntt=thunderbolt
A brand new and exceptional Thunderbolt enclosure is the Pegasus J4. It supports up to 4 x 2.5″ SATA drives of your choice and supports RAID-0, RAID-1, and JBOD (all 4 show individually) modes: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Promise%20Technology/PRJ4US/
I’d note that it is our intent to also provide RAID-5 mode support on solution we offer with 4 or more drive bays – but that doesn’t take away from what this Pegasus J4 provides in the here and now.
There are also options for connecting Thunderbolt to eSATA which present flexibility use of 3.5″ drives of choice in enclosures like this:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MESATATBEK/
But not as elegant as Thunderbolt native to SATA single and dual-bay solutions will be.
If a need is present and a product is currently available and fits the criteria of that need, it’s not realistic that I’d expect you to wait for us to be there too. We could have pre-announced all of our different products like many others do… but that’s not how we roll. It’s not fair to our customer and it’s ultimately self defeating. Usually we do announcements when availability is immediate or once the production is rolling where we have a high degree of confidence to when completed product will roll. In the case of Thunderbolt solutions, you can expect us to introduce/announce about 30 to 60 days ahead of that high-confidence availability.
We are excited about the future of Thunderbolt both near term and long term. Don’t give up, we are a part of this future. Thank you for the feedback and candid criticism.
Will the new series of processors fit in the old Mac Pros? I would just like to keep my current Mac Pro. I have already upgraded to a SATA III bus, and have added USB 3.0 and eSATA ports. I have a 3.33 6 core machine. I have checked your upgrades. A 3.46 upgrade does not seem like much of a speed bump.
The new processors are of a different architecture and require a different bus/bridge chipset as well. They are not pin for pin compatible with 2009/2010-2012 Mac Pro models which use 5000 series Xeon.
Old MacPro users upgrading to the new MacPro will need a new, small vertical dual or three bay thunderbolt enclosure for all of their old drives that looks like the new MacPro. I currently have an SSD and 1TB SATA 2 drive that will need transplanting. I hope you guys will design one. I know it can be done.
You mention that you will support memory upgrades, but there is no mention of internal storage options or GPU upgrades. Do you plan to offer PCI-E Flash Memory upgrade kits for the New Mac Pro?
Can’t really speculate further until the machine is released and we can start testing and engineering.
Hopefully OWC can get their Thunderbolt products out this year.
Looking forward to a Thunderbolt miniSTACK.