Some users have reported compatibility issues with third party SSDs when attempting to install or run macOS 10.13 High Sierra. In testing, we have identified a related issue with our Aura SSDs. Apple is aware of these issues and we are working with them to resolve this as quickly as possible. Thus far we believe the issue is limited to Aura SSDs for only these Mac models:
- MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2013)
- MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)
- MacBook Air (11-inch, Early 2014)
- MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2014)
- Mac Pro (Late 2013)
The number of OWC customers affected by this issue is limited, but we take every issue very seriously. We have sent communication to our customers that purchased these specific SSD models, and have been working directly with any customers affected. For those who have not attempted to upgrade yet, we recommend using macOS 10.12.x Sierra or earlier on your OWC Aura SSD.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns regarding the upgrade to macOS 10.13 High Sierra, feel free to contact our award-winning customer service team.
what external ssd is compatible with 27 2009 imac for cloning
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I have Mac Pro (Late 2013) with Aura SSD.
Which of your SSDs is compatible with MacOS Catalina & above for this Mac?
I have an OWC Aura Pro X running on a MacBook Pro Late 2013.
It has worked perfectly well for 2ish years, but now, occasionally the computer will not boot and/or just die and a folder with. a flashing question mark shows up!
It seems strange that this is an intermittent issue – usually if it dies I wait a while and turn the computer back on and works again.
Any ideas?
Is this still an issue with the X2 series of Aura drives for the Mac Pro?
Hello Eron, no, this is not an issue with the Aura Pro X2 drives at all.
Thank you Jamie!
I have a Mac Pro late-2013 with a 2T Aura SSD. Over time I’ve upgraded OS X’s from High Sierra through Catalina by replacing the Aura SSD with the original Apple SSD, update the SSD and put it into an external case, boot off the updated external and clone back to the re-installed Aura, and finally after rebooting off the updated Aura, use Migration Assistant to re-install data.
Q: is this routine also needed to upgrade from Catalina to Big Sur?
Yes the routine is still needed to upgrade to Big Sur. The only thing to watch for is which version of the software they recommend for cloning the upgraded stock SSD to the Aura. When I did mine I had to grab the beta version (download the free version they provide, go into preferences in the app and then select the option to install beta versions). Only other snag I ran into was manually setting the device/path for Migration Assistant to pull from my Time Machine backup on my home network.
Thanks Paul.
While chasing this issue, I text-chatted with OWC support who said my Aura 2T SSD wasn’t compatible above High Sierra because the SSD was RAID-based modules. He recommended I upgrade to 2.0TB Aura Pro X2 SSD for some $400+. No problems on my end up through Catalina; does this make sense?
That aside, is the upgrade to Big Sur worth the effort? On an upgraded Mac Mini, I only see user-interface modifications (and minor ones at that). Are there meaningful security or technological reasons for this update?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts.
I have the 4TB Aura Pro for my trash can Mac, so I can’t speak in regard to the difference between the Pro/non-Pro version.
Since I’ve been through this upgrade process so many times now (I’ve had the Aura Pro for quite a while) I can disassemble/reassemble my Mac in no time and rip through the steps quickly. It’s the migration from the Time Machine backup that takes the time.
For me, I’m enjoying the upgrade to Big Sur. New icons, updates to Messages to bring it more in line with the iOS version, etc. Obviously at some point Apple will drop supplying security updates to Catalina, but that won’t be for a while. Big Sur has been stable for me, and they (literally) just released another point release for it.
I encountered issues with an Aura 2TB SSD in my Mid-2014 MacBook Pro Retina, on High Sierra, with Apple 500GB SSD.
Many painful steps later I: 1. upgraded to Mojave on the old SSD; 2. Created a bootable USB with Mojave; 3. Moved the Aura 2TB to the Mac and the old Apple SSD to the Envoy enclosure; 4. booted (using Cmd-R) and then installed Mojave on the 2TB from the USB key; 5. replaced USB key with Envoy external drive, rebooted, and used Mac Migration to copy files from the Envoy (the old 500GB SSD).
Before this I had tried (after step 4) to recover from a Time Machine backup I made but after 24 hours of TM in “Preparing Backup”, I cancelled this and went to the step 5 above.
So far (fingers crossed!) I’ve been running 2 days on the Aura 2TB SSD with no problems.
I’ve successfully upgrade to High Sierra, then Mojave and now Catalina using the 4TB Aura Pro in my desktop Mac Pro (trash can Mac).
Make sure I have an updated TimeMachine backup.
Re-install the original SSD into the Mac Pro.
Upgrade the original SSD to the latest OS version.
Put the original SSD back into the external enclosure.
Re-install the Aura Pro back in the Mac Pro.
Boot up off of the external enclosure (original drive)
Use a utility to image the external drive (upgraded to the latest version) onto the Aura Pro (installed internally).
Reboot using the Aura Pro, then either restore from TimeMachine or use the Migration Assistant. (I think the last time the Migration Assistant was the way to go.)
I can’t remember offhand the utility recommended for imaging the Aura Pro from the original drive. While a pain for something that should be dead simple, the process works.
I’ve not experienced any heat issues or problems. However, I do recognize that my Mac Pro is getting up in age (although still an awesome system!) and with the release of the new Mac Pros don’t expect it will be supported for much longer.
I had a problem with upgrading to High Sierra on my 1TB Aura SSD. It took several weeks to get suggestions back from OWC customer service beyond the “We know we have a problem and are working with Apple to resolve it” message. It turns out the the Apple OS upgrades now update the machine’s firmware and you can’t do that due to shortcomings in the Aura SSD. After several tries with similar complex instructions to swap SSDs install the upgrade etc. I finally got it to work. When Mohave came out I the problem reoccured and when I asked Customer service if I was going to have to go though this process every time Apple upgrades it’s OS, I was told that it would seem so. Given that the process didn’t always work, I decided to just stay with High Sierra. If I eventually need something in a later OS upgrade, I’ll look for a different SSD that doesn’t have this issue. I am fairly certain that Apple is not working on any solution to correct Aura SSD issues.
I have a 2T Aura installed in a Mac Pro 2013 and have successfully upgraded operating systems through Mojave. A couple of months ago I was about to repeat the process of swapping out with the Apple SSD (for the firmware update ?) for Catalina when I got the OWC-support advice NOT to upgrade until they have tested for compatibility.
Not sure where to ask, has the compatibility with Catalina been tested, and if so, what’s the installation process starting from Mojave?
Thanks.
Hi Bob, I would recommend contacting Customer Support again. They are best equipped to advise you on the compatibility of your configuration.
Mark:
Thanks for the reply. I will call to discuss with support, but the last two times I called on this issue, I got completely conflicting answers: Initially “go ahead and repeat what’s worked for you in the past”, and then later when I wanted a refresher on the procedure … “we do not advise upgrading to Catalina until Mac Pro with an Aura SSD has been thoroughly tested for compatibility.”
How do I make sure I’m talking to someone well-informed on this arcane hardware issue?
/BF
Hey Bob, I apologize for this. I’m going to have someone reach out to you directly on this matter – hopefully we can get this resolved quickly for you!
Been dealing with his issue for 2-3 years now on an Aura 4TB Mac Pro SSD. Spent countless hours – no, days – troubleshooting and googling. Unbelievable something that cost that much has caused this many headaches with no actual solution or firmware update from OWC. A few days ago I had to jump through hoops – once again – because Mojave would refuse to install. Had to pull the Aura, swap in the Apple SSD, install Mojave, clone the install to a USB stick, swap in the Aura again, format it APFS, clone the USB stick to the Aura, and cross my fingers that it would boot. Thankfully it worked. This, after literally 10 years of buying different generations of SATA SSDs from OWC for different machines, most of which failed within a few years. I’m so absolutely fed up and done with OWC it’s not even funny.
Hi Steffan, I would suggest that you contact Customer Service at 1.800.275.4576 and see if they can help you figure out what is going on with your drive.
me too, mac pro etc. Not doing it again.
Same here.
What a nightmare I have had with 480GB OWC Aura Pro Xb SSD. Both in High Sierra and Mojave on a mid-2013 Macbook Air !!! Kernel panics constantly, eventually disk file corruption when it is actually able to boot up. And what is up with the huge chunk of thermal putty attached to it when the original Apple SSD doesn’t need that? What a disaster. I had to send it back. Now using the original Apple SSD and it runs much cooler and back to rock-solid reliability. very sad.
Craig, so sorry to hear about your experience. I hope that you were at least happy with OWC Customer Service as you were working through the issue. Either way, it’s good to hear that you are back up and running!
What customer service. All I have hear is crickets concerning this issue.
Me too, customer service was no help.
I replace my 2015 MacBook Pro hard drive with the OWC 1TB Drive. I get a File and ?. I tried numerous fixes and nothing worked. I reinstalled the old drive, upgraded to the latest software and Mojave. Reinstalled the drive, same thing. I’m so beyond frustrated. I have followed every possible way to fix this problem. I spent most of the day on it reading every possible solution. I’m ready to use it as a frisbee for my dog.
I have a 2013 Mac Pro cylinder 6,1 with the OWC 2TB SSD as the internal drive and am unable to upgrade to High Sierra. I have done a firmware update but still am unable to update the Mac Pro.
Hi.
I have a Mac Pro late 2013 running Mojave10.14.1, just purchased the 1TB Auro Pro X drive. System does not recognize the drive and to make matters worse as long as the drive is installed the system refuses to boot into recovery mode.
So far not heard much back from OWC.
I had followed the process to update the firmware when high sierra was released for my Mac Pro 2013 with the Aura 4 TB SSD. The firmware is installed through a Marvell software RAID manager. I was able to get the Mac Pro to update and run properly but maintained in in HFS+ as I was unable to format the drives as APFS and I was concerned about APFS being stable enough for my configuration. Yesterday I just updated to Mohave and voila…it updated without a hitch and now my boot drive is now APFS with an indicator that its “shared by 4 volumes” in Disk Utility. So far so good…fingers crossed it stays stable.
Any update on stability?
Where did you get the Marvell software Raid manager. I have an Aura 1tb that will not upgrade to High Sierra because of a firmware partition
Yes, but where to you get the Marvell software?
Aura SSD Firmware Update:
Jarrod Rice Thank you for your help.
followed your steps and it worked with no problem (Late 2013 Mac Pro Aura SSD 4TB).
I am now running 10.14 with APFS Volume on my Aura SSD 4TB.
Again Thanks. William
Hi William
Could you by any chance advise me what you ditto get this working? I can’t seem to get anywhere with thisissue. I have a Mac Pro late 2013 and Aura SSD 1Tb.
Appreciate your help.
thanks
Peter
I followed the process to update the firmware to high sierra by re-installing the apple SSD 1TB in my Mac Pro 2013 (Late), and update firmware. Re-install the Aura 4 TB SSD, and install High Sierra.
I followed the process to update the firmware to Mojave 10.14 https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/Knowledgebase/Article/10/730/Aura-SSDs-Firmware-Update)
After update, I was able to install Mojave 10.14.
Hope this helps.
William
William, the firmware updater specifically says “This specific firmware update process does not apply to Mac Pro customers.” Are you saying that, in fact, the firmware updater DID WORK on your Mac Pro’s Aura 4TB SSD?
Yes, it worked on my Mac Pro (late), you must be running high sierra.
William
I used the firmware updater on the link above on a Mac Pro with a 4TB Aura SSD, and was successfully able to install Mojave 10.14 without a problem. Thus far my system appears stable; crosses fingers.
How did you do it? Thanks
I tried to follow the directions, but in the menu where they say to select “update” there is no update option. So how do I update on a MacPro?
Hi – I was successful on my MAC PRO 2013 – not not do the Firmware update, just upgraded the APPLE SSD and then Carbon Copied over to the OWC AURA 1TB.
Question – HIGH SIERRA has a patch – can I update via APPLE ‘s way going forward?
Would love a fix for this too, as 10.14 (Mojave) is now the current OS.
I have this problem. Funny that OS X refuses to install, but didn’t refuse to upgrade to High Sierra. I ended up with an un-fixable file system error. Trying the approach of installing previous OS
Would love to be notified when this firmware update is finished with Beta.
OWC released a firmware update (still beta) for some Aura SSDs back in February.
Download and Instructions can be found in this KNB Article https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/Knowledgebase/Article/10/730/Aura-SSDs-Firmware-Update
After the Installation i was able to install latest Mojave beta on my 1 TB Aura SSD
Thanks Nicolas! This firmware update worked for my Macbook Pro
Thanks a lot Nicolas! Will give it a try when I get home. I really appreciate your help.
Unfortunately, the firmware update only applies to MacBooks, not Mac Pro.
Thanks it works with Mojave!
I’m a developer here as well. What can I do to fix this issue? It is especially annoying because I’m running high Sierra already and I’m trying to update to mojave. Does anyone have a solution?
+1
Any updates on this problem?
Trying to install the Mojave developer beta on my MacBook Pro with a 1Tb OWC Aura SSD.
Even though I am attempting the Mojave install, I am getting the message:
MacOD High Sierra cannot be installed because the third-party storage installed in your Mac is not compatible. Please contact the supplier directly for assistance.
Im getting the same problem with my 512gb ssd. Same message when trying to install the Mojave beta
Same issue here! What gives? Is Apple shaking us down for not buying “official” storage?
Take a Look at the Solution i Posted on june 29th
Thanks very match the prroblem is gone.
I am now having an issue with the Aura drive getting too hot and the machine will no longer boot.
I had to reinstall the original SSD and it boots fine.
Put the Aura back in and it boots and runs until it overheats.
Let cool overnight and it will boot. Gets hot and won’t boot.
I read a note somewhere about needing to remove a plastic strip on top of the Aura’s heat sink, but it wasn’t in the company’s instructions and I didn’t see it elsewhere. Comments?
Here is where you can find that information: https://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook_pro_retina_15_inch_2013_2014_2015_ssd/MacBookPro11-2/
Dear Mark,
you sent a reply to my question about the “thin plastic liner” on the Aura 2TB thermal pad. The video at the link you sent does not show or mention the liner, although the test underneath the video does. I had previously watched the video but didn’t catch the note in the text. You might consider inserting the same note in the video at the point when the Aura SSD becomes visible.
I actually noticed this as well and made the exact same suggestion to the folks who would be responsible for making the change. Thanks so much for alerting us!
My Aura did not have the heat sync at all.
Ed, it’s possible you have an Aura product that doesn’t require the thermal pad. I would encourage you to contact Customer Service – they can verify this as well as check to see if the drive is still under warranty.
mine had a 3 yr warranty that expired in April
I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro with the 1G Aura SSD installed. I tried to wipe it and put a fresh install of High Sierra 10.13.3. No Joy. Got a message that my SSD was incompatible. Fortunately I had a backup, but it took 18 hours to restore from a USB 3 drive.
I have a Macbook Pro 15 Retina and the only way the drive worked was to install a fresh copy of High Sierra from USB and then migrate the data from the apple drive or time machine.
I just installed OWC aura pro ssd to my MacBook Pro 2013, however it seems to reboot two times by itself everytime I turn it on. I don’t know if this cause by the ssd or if it just the way it is! Also the SSD has been causing my MacBook Pro to over heat which forces the fans to run 80 percent of the time.
Do you think you guy have any solution of that?
Hi, Lucas. I’m sorry to hear about this issue. Please reach out to our customer service team and they will be able to assist you. https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/
Once again issue related to the compability. In my case, the screen displayed the following quote: “macOS Sierra cannot be installed because the third-party storage installed in your Mac is not compatible. Please contact the supplier directly for assistance”… so I do.
By the way, I had already had some issues in the past which I had resolved by installing the original one into the MacPro (2013)…. however and very saddly, the problem seems to arise once again
I purchased a ssd for 13″ MacBook Pro Retina display (2013) back in Nov/Dec. It has been working fine until today. When I attempt to reinstall IOS over the web, I get an error message that says my hard drive is not compatible? I had just upgraded to the newest version of High Sierra.
Just a note for everyone here, I was having trouble with installing 10.13. When I re-installed the original SSD (including the screws), I got a black screen and the fans spun up. I was still under applecare, so I took it in and they replaced the logic board, I/O board, and I/O flex cable. These mac pros have a high failure rate, so if you are having problems, and have the original SSD and applecare, it might be worth it to have apple check it out.
Having problems getting High Sierra to load on a 1 tetrabyte mercury Electra 3G kit I installed in my late 2009 iMac.
Any thoughts?
$350 and dead in the water
HELP PLEASE!!!
I have a Macbook Air (13 Inch Early 2015) and I just bought 480 GB OWC Aura Pro Xb SSD. I’m running High Sierra and the drive can’t be found. So expand your list to include the 2015 models
Please notify me when this is resolved
Leaving a comment so I can get notified on updates relating to this issue.
I have a mid 2014 macbook pro with a 512 ssd. I want to install the 2TB ssd. Any issues, problems that you now know about after several months of sales?
Please advise when upgrade compatibility to HIGH SIERRA is available.
thanks
I have used a slightly less complicated—at least for me—way to upgrade OWC Aura SSD to High Sierra. The result is an OWC Aura SSD on a APFS volume, that I was able to upgrade yesterday to 10.13.3 without any problems. Here is the process I found on another forum that worked for me:
– Before starting, make sure you still have the original Apple SSD that your computer came with, as well as any screws that were removed during the OWC Aura SSD installation. If you don’t have them, then these instructions will not work.
– Use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to make a backup clone of your OWC Aura SSD (OS 10.12.6) startup disk to an external drive. Of course, there are other cloners out there, but CCC offers 30 day free trial, which was incentive enough for me to use it. This step is not necessary, but is certainly recommended in case something goes wrong.
– Put the original Apple SSD into the Envoy enclosure and connect it to your computer.
– Use Carbon Copy Cloner (CCC) to make a clone of your OWC Aura SSD startup disk (running OS 10.12.6) to the original Apple SSD. (In my case, I had to temporarily delete my documents, downloads and iTunes library folders, as I had too much data for my 256 GB factory Apple SSD. Once the entire process was completed, I copied these files back from the backup I made in step one.)
– Shut down.
– Remove your OWC Aura SSD from your computer and replace it with the original Apple factory SSD from the Envoy enclosure. Make sure to replace not only the SSD, but also any screws which may have been removed during the OWC Aura SSD installation.
– Restart your machine as you hold down the alt/option key to see the boot disk options. Chose the original factory disk.
– When the computer finishes booting from the original Apple factory SSD, go to App Store and upgrade to High Sierra. During this upgrade, that SSD will become an APFS volume.
– Shut down.
– Remove the original Apple factory SSD from your computer and replace it with the OWC Aura SSD.
– Put the original Apple SSD back into the Envoy enclosure and connect it to your computer.
– Restart your machine as you hold down the alt/option key to see the boot disk options. Chose the original factory disk, which is now in the Envoy enclosure.
– When the machine finishes booting, you can ignore iCloud passwords and Dropbox passwords if they are asked for at this stage.
– (Although not it was not a part of the original instructions, at this stage I chose to reformat my OWC Aura SSD to APFS Volume.)
– Open CCC and clone the external Envoy disk (at this point housing the original Apple SSD with OS High Sierra on it) to the internal OWC disk. If CCC asks you to create the Recovery Partition on the OWC drive, say yes and create the Recovery Partition on the new drive.
– Once the cloning is finished, restart normally. Your computer will boot from the internal OWC drive running OS High Sierra on a APFS Volume.
I hope this is not too complicated and that it helps someone. If not, it will not be the only useless information on the internet.
Thank you, this has been very helpful. Did you have any issues with your iTunes library, playlist artwork?
I had no problems with my iTunes library whatsoever. It just worked immediately after the update as it should.
As far as I can tell, I had no issues. Everything seems to work as it did before.
Thanks for the detailed post. It helps me understand the steps and doesn’t seem as complicated as I thought it would be. Was this for a 2013 Mac Pro? Which Aura SSD do you have?
Yes, the update described above was done on a 2013 Mac Pro. My Aura SSD is a 2TB one.
Hi, I have a Mid 2011 MBA 13″, installed OCW 480 Aura Pro 6G (rev 600 ABBFO) and running OS 10.12.6. When prompted to update to OS 10.13, the process starts but then aborts. I tried several times but no luck so far. Please advice
managed to update to 10.13.3 without swapping hard drives. –
1.) I updated to latest security update on 10.12.6
2.) made clone with C.C.C
3.) checked if my firmware on the Aurora needs updating, it did. FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY on OCW site.
4.) after updating firmware for hard drive I tried once more to install HighSierra. This time it worked and files changed to APFS. Had to do the resetting of iCloud account. A note the the hard drive is optimizing did come up. HURRAY it worked. Hope you can do the same by installing the firmware rev 603 ABBFO dated 2015
I don’t think this works with the MacPro. We are still waiting for a fix other than putting in the old SSD which many of us don’t have.
Will a 2015 Macbook Pro with a 1tb drive from Aura ( or another 3rd party manufacturer) be able to run Sierra?
I solved this issue with a 4TB Aura SSD on a 2013 Mac Pro but took some hacking to get it to work.
Backstory: I had it as my system book drive, formatted HFS+ with macOS Sierra in early 2017, and somehow successfully upgraded up to macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 with no issues. Now (early 2018) I decided to convert the drive to APFS by rebooting into the recovery partition and converting it in Disk Utility. It worked, but at the very end displayed an error related to not being able to “bless” the drive as a bootable volume. Upon reboot, the system would not boot into macOS – it just stayed on a black screen.
The way I ended up solving this was to boot back into recovery, launch Disk Util and unmount the system volume, launch Terminal, and run the “bless –device” command to make it bootable. (Google it to find out the proper syntax). The “bless -mount” command did not seem to be working, but the device command above did.
(It should be noted that beforehand, I did swap in the original Apple SSD and do a fresh High Sierra install on it to try and coerce whatever ‘firmware’ to install that people in the comments are talking about. I’m not sure if that helped, but I suspect it didn’t have anything to do with fixing my problem.)
Any way, I hope this helps someone. I spent several hours chasing this issue before I solved it.
I have High Sierra with the same setup as you with HFS+. It often fails to come out of sleep. Did you have that problem and if so was it fixed with APFS?
I don’t sleep this machine so I’ve never tried.
Dear Team,
I have a Mac Pro (Late 2013) with 1 TB Aura SSD installed. I am interested, therefore, in any news regarding a resolution of this firmware problem.
Should I be trying Anthony’s process??
Viz…MacPro Late 2013 Aura SSD. Now running 10.13.1
Achieved this by re-installing the original SSD, installing High Sierra, reinstalled Aura SSD and installed High Sierra.
Hi, please reach out to our customer service team for more assistance with this issue. https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/
I have a Mac Pro (Late 2013), have purchased an Aura SSD and have not received any notifications. At any rate, it is almost 2018 now and no solution yet?
Hi, Michael. Please reach out to our customer service team for more assistance on this: https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/
Thanks. I did contact customer service and a solution was offered. Not straightforward or elegant solution, but I do appreciate the help.
well…???
I COMPLETED SOME YEARS AGO A MERCURY ELEKTRA 120GB SSD FOR MY MACBOOK PRO EARLY 2011, BUT WITH THE ULTIMATE UPDATE OF HIGH SAW (10.13.2) MY macbook suddenly turns off when disconnecting the battery charger. Any advice about my problem ???
Same problem here. I’d really be happy if this problem will be fixed soon
I previously left wrong information. Actually, I have an OWC 960 GB SSD. Fortunately, I had time machine backups and could get back to Sierra after High Sierra made my high priced internal SSD unusable. When will this be fixed?
I have a new issue. If the Aura SSD can not solve the hardware compatibility, upgrading to macOS 10.13 High Sierra’s APFS can only replace a new SSD. The question is, how to replace the 2tb Aura SSD again, is there a HDD Enclosure compatible? Into a thunder and lightning 2 interface mobile hard disk. Please tell me if any, thank you
Dear Sir, on Dec 18th you posted, “Today, my Mac Pro (2013) Aura SSD 2TB is the perfect solution for installing macOS 10.13.2 High Sierra. No need to replace the original APPLE SSD, make the boot disk, right in the Aura 2TB SSD, direct disk formatted APFS format, and then a new installation, everything is going well. The problem seems perfect! At least on my Mac Pro this is the case.”
My question to you sir, is could you be more specific on making your boot disk, as well as possibly some detailed instructions? Thank you in advance
Is this OWC Aura SSD problem with macOS 10.13 High Sierra APFS due to these drives being RAID 0 inside?
If they are RAID 0, that should have been fully disclosed in the product specifications. Purchasers have the right to know what they are buying. Some manufacturers do not disclose it, and that only fires back to them when it is discovered later on by others. Examples include (undisclosed RAID 0 inside):
LaCie Bolt3
SanDisk 900 Extreme
RAID 0 may be great for some applications, but not for others. For instance, it increases more than twice the failure rate if one of the disks inside or the controller fails. Besides this issue with APFS.
I brought a OWC 480GB Mercury Extreme® Pro 6G SSD 2.5″ Serial-ATA 7mm Solid State Drive and when I update to High Sierra start to work really slow and then the computer stop recognize any drive (even if i connect ir via USB)
Hi, Luis. For assistance with this issue, please contact our customer support team. Thanks!
I have this same problem, with the same drive. Not the Aura. I was a beta tester, and all went well until the final release, and now the SSD (which has already been updated to APFS through the beta process) is no longer functional.
I brought a 1TB Aura SSD for my mothers MacBook Air 2012 model.
I believe it tried to automatically update her to High Sierra and then failed. I believe this problem extends further then just 2012 models.
Sorry typo, I meant to say extends beyond the 2013/2014 models listed.
High Sierra has released an update to 10.13.2。 Excuse me, Aura SSD has a new driver firmware？can be converted to apfs format file system, if not, or to stay at 10.12.6
Hello from Austria – I just came upon this place after failing to install HS on my Mac Pro 2013 with a 4TB Aura installed – as apparently everyone else with the same or similar setup. Looking forward to have this issue fixed in the same professional way OWC usually fixes issues…….
I used the procedure that Anthony described on my Mac Pro with a 4tb aura and it worked. There are still some intermittent boot and coming out of sleep problems. It did not convert to the new file system.
Here is Anthony’s process:
MacPro Late 2013 Aura SSD. Now running 10.13.1
Achieved this by re-installing the original SSD, installing High Sierra, reinstalled Aura SSD and installed High Sierra. That was it.
Yes many backups and great care all done very slowly with full erase and installs, but looking back it worked exactly as “documented” which supports the thesis that installing the original SSD allows a firmware update to complete, which then allows everything to run smoothly with the Aura SSD.
I observe that ANY Apple SSD may suffice, such as one borrowed if the original is no longer available because it is the firmware update that it facilitates that matters, not the rest of the associated OSX install.
Are you saying this resulted in APFS on the Aura SSD? That is not supposed to happen, and did not happen when I did the same thing.
The process worked for me and have APFS on Mercury Aura Pro 480GB in late 2012/Early 2013 Macbook Pro Retina 15″ (so I can go to Pro X even if I wanted).
First, cloned latest OS (El Capitan in my case) from MBP to original Apple 256GB Module. Attached via USB in Envoy case.
Second, installed original Apple 256 module back in MBP and upgraded to High Sierra (was converted to APFS)
Third, put OWC 480 Aura Pro back in MBP and installed High Sierra again. Worked without a hitch and came up as an APFS drive. I am able to CMD-R to bootable recovery if needed, or Option (boot to alternate drive)..
Sorry, meant can’t go to Pro X if I wanted.
Any word on an update yet? When will this be resolved? Thank you.
Same thing happened on my MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012). Two times I ended up with a corrupted hard drive since installing High Sierra. The first time I ended up with the MBA not being able to locate an internal drive (Disk Utility could see both the main drive and recovery partition but could not mount them). Last night, the MBA now gets halfway through the boot up process but then shuts off. Both occurred on the reboot following an OS update restart.
I have had two instances of the OWC upgraded SSD in my MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012) becoming corrupted. I had it installed in the last year or two. No problems until I moved to High Sierra. Both problems occurred on the second boot following an update (i.e. not the restart following an update install).
On the same boat in regards to this issue and only JUST found this announcement. Hoping for a speedy fix too. This has been a problem for so long now. Some updates and feedback would be nice.
Thanks OWC.
There is a new update (6 December 2017) !! Please, if someone is willing to check whether it works, let us know something!!
My device: MacPro (Late 2013)
Thanks!
Noper, my $2000 plus OWC again, died like a big dog when I attempted it. If you look at the details of what is fixed there is no mention of any update to SSD. For new people coming in, you get the impression the fix is imminent while in fact there has been nothing done in months and knew about it in beta.
I do not know your case…. but little by little I am getting more and more angry. Please, a solution!!
My MacPro 2010 Quad Xeon is having major issues with both of my OWC SSD drives – Mercury Pro Extreme 6G 250Gb – the problem happened immediately after upgrading to High Sierra – would be nice if you had emailed in advance – i have 2 of these? please help.
your computer suddenly turns off if you disconnect the battery charger ???
May you be so kind to tell me whether will or will not have got a solution for all of us in the following days or the next update, please? I have been waiting for a long time…
There is no problem to clean install HS on ANY OWC Aura drive in ANY possible MB Air / Retina config . Formated APFS , of course . Whole process take aprox. 30 minutes to be on clean HS with really simple hack. Tested especially on MB Air mid 2013 too.
Does this simple hack also work on a late-2013 MacPro with an OWC Aura SSD? If so, can you tell us more, or link us to a page that explains how to do this? I have managed to upgrade to HS, but not with APFS so far.
A friend is selling a Aura SSD 1TB from his Mac Pro 2013. I’m toying with the idea of getting it as I’m still running El Capitan and might upgrade to Sierra at some point, I can then pass on High Sierra for a bit on the off chance somebody has a simple upgrade path in the future.
BUT, assuming they don’t and this issue persists, can the Aura SSD 1TB For Mac Pro be mounted in an external housing that I can tag along with my Mac Book Pro 13 Retina as an external drive??
Steve,
Yes you can, but the edge slot of the drive is Apple proprietary not standard M.2. Googling external enclosure for Apple SSDs points at a few pages of OWC links. OWC may be the only one that sells compatible external enclosures due to the slot pinout.
MacSales,
It’s been over 2 months since the release of HS, are you any closer to finding the solution? My company IT will soon REQUIRE High Sierra for tool compatibility and security (despite the little root issue recently found).
I have not received any update since the initial email stating there was an issue. This is not really working directly with affected customers and being disingenuous is not a direction you should be going. I dropped $1600 on your product.
If the best answer turns out to be that the Aura, HS, and MacPro(6,1) are not 100% compatible (where not having APFS is a showstopper). Then so be it, just state the fact and move on. Of course, the “move on” depends on how well you want to handle the PR firestorm of dissatisfied customers.
thanks
I would add to your comment that the beta to HS was available even few months before the release and the problem was identified well before the release date. So actually it has been 4-5 months. The fact that people posted workaround (with first install on original ssd) indicates that it’s not compatibility issue. It should be just firmware upgrade step before the os installation.
I am happy to say that I found a solution for the High Sierra/OWC Aura Drive 480 GB conflict. I called the OWC Tech support after I spent numerous hours with Apple Tech support options, and there is an update fix that the OWC technician walked me through. The install took a considerable amount of time, with some hick-ups and false completion signals, but it eventually completed successfully. Let the technician walk you through it, since there are a couple of tricky instructions, until the install step, and be patient with the process.
Dear Manny, would you be so kind as to be more specific and perhaps detail step by step what you did in point form? Thank you in advance.
Did it involve swapping out the original SSD?
I don’t know a more vague reply could be written. What at least in general terms did you have to do? How is it different from the past “fixes” posted here?
Thanks
Please keep me posted on the progress with apple on The Aura Pro X firmware
I have an Aura 2 tb installed in late 2013 Mac Pro. I, too, am unable to update to 10.13. Please advise by email when fix is available.
Is there a solution yet?
Dear Madam or Sir,
“We have sent communication to our customers that purchased these specific SSD models, and have been working directly with any customers affected”.
Really ? Not for me !
Please let me know when I will be able to take advantage of High Sierra on my SSD Aura 1 Tb.
Thank you.
Alain Pilorget
I have the Mac Pro (late 2013) and have been unable to upgrade to macOs 10.13 High Sierra. What can be done? How long a wait? You have been responsive and great, don’t fail now.
Does anyone at OWC monitor or interact on this blog or do you just enable it as a place where customers can share their pain and disatisfaction as your ignore the issue? Having been an OWC customer for many years your lack of engagement with your customers here has really reduced my previously sterling opinion of you as a company. Buck up on this OWC and at least keep us current that you and Apple are working on this with some indication of when next we’ll see an update from you (preferably a solution)!
Hi, Todd.
We apologize for the frustration. We don’t have any updates as far as specific timeframes, but we are still hard at work with Apple on the issue with some third party SSDs. When we do have an update, we will certainly be sharing it here.
Hey! It’s been a month since this. Any update?
Hi, Brook. For more assistance with this issue, please reach out to our customer service team: https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/
I got no email notice of High Sierra problem. I got many sales promotion emails from OWC Larry. I am staring at a big [?] now, won’t boot.
In accordance with owc guidelines, I swapped the OWC Aura SSD from the Mac Pro and replaced the original Apple 512GB SSD, and then successfully installed macOS 10.13 High Sierra, and confirm that the file system has been converted to APFS. I did a backup and then re-installed OWC Aura SSD, the recovery is smooth, but the file system is still HFS +, the file system can not be converted to APFS regardless of the cloning or recovery, and macOS 10.13 High Sierra can only be run under HFS +. I think it is OWC Aura SSD firmware is not compatible, waiting for the new firmware may be very far, I am frustrated, looking forward to improving support as soon as possible
Please let me know when there is an official solution for the “High Sierra installation on an Aura SSD” problem. I put a 1 Tb Aura SSD on a mid-2013 MacBook Air about a year ago, and High Sierra installations always fail with a “firmware problem” error message.
The aurora SSD I had installed in my 2015 MBP 15 seems to have caused a similar issue. I have gotten “Couldn’t Complete Copy” errors whether trying to upgrade by the app, or installed from USB. Now my system is useless and wont install or power on.
Hi Steve, that’s not good, my sympathy. Have you tried “internet recovery”? (alt-cmd-r during startup) I used this alone while doing these (clean install) updates because everything else failed one way or another (MacPro not Macbook) I also first re-installed the original SSD, clean installed HS on that, removed it re-installed Aura and then clean installed HS to that. The theory being that this process updates the firmware somewhere which then allows the Aura update to proceed. Humble apologies if this doesn’t help. Anthony
p.s. any working original SSD will do, borrow one?
How come there is no solution. I think I will return to you the SSD and buy another one at the Apple Store. My MacBook Air Mid 2012 is not working since I upgraded to High Sierra. I dont have the old SSD. :-(
Not sure where my earlier post went to but I did the workaround and it worked BUT now the 10.13.1 update is not installing which I’m sure is related to this. Be sure to do a back up before updating to High Sierra!
MacPro Late 2013 Aura SSD. Now running 10.13.1
Achieved this by re-installing the original SSD, installing High Sierra, reinstalled Aura SSD and installed High Sierra. That was it.
Yes many backups and great care all done very slowly with full erase and installs, but looking back it worked exactly as “documented” which supports the thesis that installing the original SSD allows a firmware update to complete, which then allows everything to run smoothly with the Aura SSD.
I observe that ANY Apple SSD may suffice, such as one borrowed if the original is no longer available because it is the firmware update that it facilitates that matters, not the rest of the associated OSX install.
Using the procedure you described, I was able to update to High Sierra on my Mac Pro late 13 with the 4 TB Aura.
interesting. MIne also is the 4tb. I wonder if we differed in any way. First thing I did was re-install and erase the original SSD (using disk utility within internet recovery) and then do an internet recovery install. Then same again with the Aura SSD. I was surprised how the internet recovery was not too slow.
After that it was plain sailing.
sorry, I misread and thought you had not succeeded.
Although I don’t appreciate the time it has taken to not get an update to this issue I did do the workaround listed by other users and it worked flawlessly. Took 2 hours from start to finish but shouldn’t have to come to this.
Same problem here. OWC Aura SSD 500GB
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013) running 10.12.6 cannot get past the firmware error when trying to upgrade to High Sierra.
Any news on a fix?
I don’t have time to deal with workarounds that might or might not work. I’ll stick with Sierra until there is a resolution. My problem is the lack of transparency. C’mon OWC, give us a real update. Whose problem is this to fix, yours or Apple’s? Where are you in the process of fixing it? What is an estimated date you will have this resolved? Is there any possibility it can’t be fixed? Please be responsible and give us some real information. Thanks!
I gave up waiting for a fix. Even contacted support, and have not heard back.
Using original SDD method worked for me.
I have Air, 11″, model 6,1 (late 13 or early 14). I put the original SSD in, did an internet recovery, and installed high sierra. Took original SSD out and put OWC Aura 500GB in, and updated to high sierra and it worked without any trouble. Did a backup before just to be careful.
The Work Around Process, worked great for me.
OWC Aura 4TB installled. re-install apple 1TB,
cmd+R, ran Disk utility (Erase), installed High Sierra.
Shutdown, re-install OWC Aura 4TB, cmd+R, ran Disk utility Re-install OS High Sierra, when it restarted, it was still running Sierra, went to app store open/loaded High Sierra and ran install again, that was it. Did not need to rebuild from Time Machine, everything was there and working great, just like it was, running High sierra (10.13.1). Man that is a load -off me.
It’s working now. If you try to install it will launch a firmware update. Once you do that… it allowed me to finally install High Sierra on my tower Aura SSD drive.
Aura SSD drive can install High Sierra, but the file system is still HFS + and can not be converted to APFS, which is the true value of Sierra’s move to High Sierra
I have a 2013 Late Mac Pro (6 Core) with OWC Aura 4TB installled.
I got tired of waiting for an official fix. So I just went with the confirmed workaround: swapping OWC Aura SSD with the origial Apple SSD back and forth.
I can also confirm the workaround REALLY works. I had misgivings since so many complained about their Mac Pro getting bricked and all.
Yeah, the nightmare became reality when my Mac Pro seemd to have gone nuts with its fan shrieking.
But I realized that I forgot to put back those power screws (not sure what they call them, those screws that connect Aura’s power cables to Mac Pro’s board.) Those are easily forgotten if you hurry. When I put them back on, everything went ok. It was logical: it should just work since it’s like not having installed the OWC SSD in the first place. No boot with shrieking fan? Check your screws.
Well, if you have sold your original Apple SSD, you might be out of luck.
But if you do have the Apple SSD, at least you have a choice: wait for an offical fix that might never come or just invest a couple of hourse of elbow grease.
One thing you should also consider is if you have any bootable external drives or RAIDs, if you have them with any OSX version other than High Sierra on those drives, those external drives will not be able to read files on your High Sierra drives. For this reason, I opted to keep El Capitan for now. Has anyone experience with installing High Sierra on HDD drives?
I have a MacBook Pro 17″ (Late 2011) – MacBookPro8,3. I installed an OWC Mercury Electra 3G MAX SSD 1TB hard drive back in 2014. I tried the macOS High Sierra update several times by myself and with the assistance of several Apple Specialists over chat and on the phone. Eventually that had to do call me back so that they can have some of their engineers look into my particular issue. One issue was the EFI firmware not updating, or something like that. When I would boot into CMD+R or CMD+OPT+R, it would want to install OS X Lion. Eventually I was able to update this portion of the EFI and now when I boot to Recovery I can install macOS Sierra, however, I attempted an upgrade again to macOS High Sierra and it gave me the same firmware verification error. The latest Apple Specialist has set up an appointment to a local Apple Store so they can try something out. Total number of hours spent trying to get macOS High Sierra… 10 hours. Good luck to the rest of you trying to figure this out.
hi
any further update.
when do you think this problem will be resolved
2012 have different SSD, those are not affected by this issue
Today, my Mac Pro (2013) Aura SSD 2TB is the perfect solution for installing macOS 10.13.2 High Sierra. No need to replace the original APPLE SSD, make the boot disk, right in the Aura 2TB SSD, direct disk formatted APFS format, and then a new installation, everything is going well. The problem seems perfect! At least on my Mac Pro this is the case.
I have a MacBook Air 13 inch mid 2012 with a 1 TB Aura 6G SSD installed. Reading the comments below, I was very reluctant to try the High Sierra upgrade.
Long story short, it went smoothly for me.
I used the 10.13.1 (17b48) build (about the 3rd version of High Sierra).
My original disk was in the Envoy, and I first did a clean install to that as a trial. That worked OK, as did installing on top of the existing Sierra that was on my Aura.
For those who are new here: OWC emailed me a few days ago with a workaround…
Put original SSD in system, install HS. Put Aura SSD in and reinstall. complicated but they say it will work to upgrade the system Firmware.
**I HAVE NOT TRIED THIS** I bought a new computer instead (due to other issues).
They also said they would update this post. I see that hasn’t happened.
This solution, although a pain to do, I can confirm worked in my case. Luckily I had the original Apple SSD in an OWC housing.
Since replacing the primary drive would entail for most people having to do a full Time Machine restore, how do you do this if Time Machine has the old OS on it?
I had a SuperDuper bootable backup on my original Apple drive in the OWC housing. Removed that drive from housing, reinstalled in to my MacBook Air, and did High Sierra update. Removed that drive, re-installed OWC in Air, then did High Sierra Update again. Took a few hours, but does work.
This solution also worked for me as well
I have a 2013 Mac Pro and purchased the 4TB SSD from OWC as well as 128GB Memory. I contacted them today and was given a fix that worked for me. I was told to put my original SSD back in the mac pro, upgrade to High Sierra and put the OWC back and upgrade to high sierra. It worked. I am happy that the OWC SSD now shows as internal and i am also happy to be on High Sierra. What i don’t understand is why the Drive was not automatically upgraded to the new File System. I did an in place upgrade and not a clean install. I might try it this weekend .-
Unfortunately for various reasons many of us do not have the original SSD.
it appears that Macsales offers the option to rent a 256GB SSD from them to do it. I am not sure how that goes and how they would take money from a client to fix something they should be fixing. Maybe whatever money you pay is in case you don’t return the drive. It’s worth checking with them to verify.
I have the Envoy SSD but with no instructions. Tried installing Mojave on this external SSD OWC sent me and get the same errors and doesn’t install.
This worked for me. It was pretty straightforward, just a little time consuming swapping old drive in and out. The Aura SSD does retain the old file structure.
Joel, will you try to reformat so you can use the new file structure or will you remain with the old file structure. I think i am about to try .. i will let you know if that worked.
Update on High Sierra Clean install on Mac pro after install on 11/15. The install on 11/15 retained the old File System. I did a clean install on 11/18 , reformatted the Drive to APFS and it worked …
I am one of the affected customers, and I never received any communication from you about the problem. I only found out about it after spending several fruitless hours trying to determine why I could not install High Sierra. Please try to beef up you communications to affected customers!
I was looking to upgrade my Mac Pro 2013 running El Capitan with one of these, although I’m seriously not considering it now, I’m not sure how long Apple will continue to support EC with security updates.
This is a significant worry.
Seems somebody has been looking at this since Sept and no updates forthcoming in the last couple of months. This is a big chunk of cash to part with for a very limited lifespan.
I contacted you folks back when High Sierra came out back in September and your response was to watch this blog. No change here. MacBookAir6,2 (13-inch, Mid 2013) with installed 1TB Aura SSD. Really do need a solution path quickly to install/upgrade to High Sierra.
I Bought a OWC 240GB SSD for my MacBook Air Mid 2012, Every time I try to Install the High Sierra with the Apple installer Kit, I received this message: com.apple.osinstallersetup.LinkFileDownload erreur 3
What can I do about this.
me too Model Identifier: MacPro6,1 Aura 4tb fails High Sierra update. Mostly just doesn’t install, one time spotted the “firmware error” message. No email received here. SO9711366
OWC. I have the OWC Aura SSD 4TB and you didn’t send me any emails. I get the blinking folder with a question mark and then it says there is a firmware problem. When are you going to fix this?
I believe I am one of those affected by the aura SSD upgrade kit (order P4890513) as I have not been able to upgrade to high Sierra, it will give me a unbeatable disk logo followed when rebooted a message about the firmware not being able to be verified and to restart, then it restarts back into Sierra. Is there recovery date as of yet? So far this has not caused any problems but I am worried that I use fairly high end software that may require High Sierra in the near future. Thanks for any help you can provide.
I have an OWC Aura ITB Ram upgrade for Mac Pro (Late 2013) and am unable to upgrade to High Sierra – Midway through installation, I get the flashing folder with a question-mark. I’ve tried the installation several times and the same problem arises. I guess this is related to the new AFS file system. Please help
I have the 2013 Mac Pro with aura update
I was going to use it for an esx server but the esx install couldn’t find the disk, now apple high Sierra can’t find the disk either resulting in the same firmware update error as others have seen.
whilst it is certainly not an acceptable get out for OWC has anyone tried attaching the old apple ssd with the external hard case that comes with the kit and updating the aura as a secondary drive?
I definitely think that some kind of reduction is in order if it needs a new own product to get round the error
external drive of old apple ssd does not work- has to be original, internal apple ssd
Does a failed High Sierra installation attempt make it impossible to boot from the prior Sierra installation or damage anything?
My 2015 MacBook Pro retina is not on the list of affected machines. I have a 1TB Aura in this machine.
I’m willing to try installing High Sierra so long as it’s not going to brick the Aura or my MacBook Pro. I have a bootable external clone and two Time Machine backups I can restore from if needed. Any recommendations?
Yes at least in my case. The Aura SSD could no longer be recognized by OSX and I had to get OWC replace the Aura
Ouch! Thanks for your reply, that experiment is off my to-do list.
This is a real problem for many Aura customers. I wish OWC would provide regular updates on the issue.
Getting so sick of Apple’s annual update of Mac OS X and iOS. Every single year, users have to worry about whether their machines will “just work” or not after the upgrade. It’s even worse for those of us who dare to use third party hardware.
Sure, one can hold off on upgrading annually, but after just three years, more and more applications and programs (like Chrome, Dropbox, Python, etc) no longer work with older systems. At the same time, iTunes no longer connect with the latest iDevices. So one is forced to upgrade sooner or later.
Apple, the master of planned obsolescence. I never understood why so many fanboys have become brainwashed into being excited by each and every new release of Mac OS which add functionality that most of us (middle aged adults) don’t care about and probably would never even use.
… On here, we are not talking about stages of life, we are talking about how our purchases do not work. I bought a OWC product because they are well known in relation to Apple Software. If because a new update of Apple, the products do not work, it is okay: it is reasonable. However, the “reasonable” is to refund the money to your clients or otherwise, provide them an original producto with which they are able to work with. Need I explain myself better or clearly? Please, we look forward to reading about that solution NOW!
Hey OWC, so you sent me an email on 9/25/17 alerting me to this problem with no updates since. And you’re not participating in this discussion and providing any info here, although the comments are moderated and you are obviously reading all of them. Your reputation will take a hit if you don’t provide more communication and transparency in dealing with this issue. Where are you at in the process of resolving this issue? What will you do if it can’t be resolved? Aura owners want to know. Thanks!
Hi, Rob. We apologize for any frustration this has caused. We’re still working hard with Apple on the resolution, and we will update as soon as we have news to share.
Does the effort include OWC Mercury Accelsior E2?
Thanks
Jarrod, are you going to give some sort of response to my query? Thanks
?
Hi, Larry. We have not seen any issues upgrading to High Sierra with the OWC Mercury Accelsior SSD. If you are experiencing a specific problem, please feel free to reach out to our technical support team: https://eshop.macsales.com/Service/
My SSD will not format to APFS. It is my boot volume
We have 6 machines (late 2013 MacPro) all running Aura 4TB SSD upgrades. They fail the upgrade with a “firmware” error. Is there an estimated timeline for a fix?
I have a 2013 Mac Pro and purchased the 4TB SSD from OWC as well as 128GB Memory. I contacted them today and was given a fix that worked for me. I was told to put my original SSD back in the mac pro, upgrade to High Sierra and put the OWC back and upgrade to high sierra. It worked. I am happy that the OWC SSD now shows as internal and i am also happy to be on High Sierra. What i don’t understand is why the Drive was not automatically upgraded to the new File System.
Tried that same set of instructions. It does not work.
I have a late 2013 MacPro with a 2TB OWC Aura SSD. Please let me know what to expect with High Sierra and when it will be safe to upgrade.
Hi everbody! Could somebody help me, please? Like for the moment we have no solution, in my case, I am a MacPro Late 2013 user who sold the original SSD. Do you know some web page which sells original SSD by Apple? …This way… at least, I am able to install macOS High sierra
Thanks in advance
To wait….2 months…. it is too much OWC…too much! Definitely, I shall consider to buy again…..
I just tried the 10.31.1 HS as a clean USB install on my Mac Pro 2013 with Aura SSD and get the firmware error part way through installation. Reformatted as OSX-Journaled and it failed (is this the same as HFS+? I don’t get that option in the disk utility drop down when re-partitioning), reformatted as MSDOS and it won’t allow an install on that file system. SSD was £1000 and change and it’s brand new, wish I’d read this first… Rolling back to the installation OS from 2013 and hoping that at least works…
I have a 2013 Mac Pro and purchased the 4TB SSD from OWC as well as 128GB Memory. I contacted them today and was given a fix that worked for me. I was told to put my original SSD back in the mac pro, upgrade to High Sierra and put the OWC back and upgrade to high sierra. It worked. I am happy that the OWC SSD now shows as internal and i am also happy to be on High Sierra. What i don’t understand is why the Drive was not automatically upgraded to the new File System. I
When is a update so I can run the latest macOs?
I tried 10.13.1 on my 2013 MacPro with Aura SSD. I still got the firmware error.
One of the big frustrations about this whole thing is that the introduced a new product line offering rebates to upgrade but many of us, like myself, are not eligible. I purchased my drive in June of 2015. It’s still under warranty yet not eligible to upgrade because they will not accept drives older than 2016. They are still advertising that the Aura works with High Sierra on their website when it doesn’t and offer no updates when it will be available. The lack of support for current and loyal customers is disheartening.
I agree. The lack of transparency is frustrating. If there were weekly updates of where things stood with this process, I would have more confidence that it was actually being worked on.
I support about 25 Macs as part of my job and make recommendations to many other users. If this is not resolved in a satisfactory way for current customers, I am done recommending OWC products for anything.
Just for the record: if I try to install the last version (10.13.1) in my MacPro Late2013 with HFS+ format and AURA SSD 2TB…will it work? Please, note that I have sold my original SSD by Apple.
Could somebody help me? Thanks in advance
Yes. It will. Not APFS in my experience.
I just tried to update my MacPro 2013 with an Aura SSD and I still got the firmware error. So no.
I would like to point out that I never saw a firmware error. It installed. and ran. Now it doesn’t.
And under the original Apple SSD it’s randomly crashing. No panics but just dying.
https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/7b1dxx/random_powerdown_since_installing_high_sierra/
What was it Donald Perreault? An opinion or an OWC advertisement? I spent more than €1300 to get a AURA 2TB, so, where is my money?
I spent $2000 on my 4TB Aura for my Mac Pro, almost as much as I spent on the Mac Pro itself. I want an update on the process to fix this and when to expect a resolution. If it can’t be resolved, I want to be able to upgrade for a minimal fee. C’mon OWC, be more responsive to your existing customers please.
Absolutely agree with you.
I concur. I also have the Aura 4 TB drive. It’s only a year old. I feel like OWC should send me a replacement 4 TB drive that works with the latest version of the OS they claim to support.
Here is my chat transcript from customer support:
Chas B (10/13/2017, 2:50:13 PM): Byron, thank you for contacting OWC Support. I am happy to help! One moment please while I review the information you’ve provided.
Chas B (10/13/2017, 2:55:06 PM): Hello Byron, I am happy to help.
Chas B (10/13/2017, 2:55:22 PM): I am sorry if you have had any issue with that install of the OS and the machines that are affected.
Me (10/13/2017, 2:55:32 PM): Thank you.
Chas B (10/13/2017, 2:55:33 PM): https://blog.macsales.com/42466-a-note-on-high-sierra-compatibility-with-third-party-ssds
Chas B (10/13/2017, 2:55:44 PM): That blog is the best spot to watch for an update.
Chas B (10/13/2017, 2:55:48 PM): we are working with apple on the issue.
Me (10/13/2017, 2:56:51 PM): So, there is no estimated date for a fix, yet?
Chas B (10/13/2017, 2:59:47 PM): I am sorry, I do not have a time frame on that.
Me (10/13/2017, 3:00:02 PM): Ok. Thanks for answering my question.
Correction. I checked my purchase date. I purchased the drive on June 19, 2016, so it is 18 months old.
I admit I am very anal and when things aren’t working properly or the way I want them to on my Mac Pro (2013), I do whatever is possible to resolve the problem. My solution turned out to be, purchase the new Aura Pro X 480. I then traded in my Aura 1TB for a rebate of $320. I lose half a terabyte storage and the Aura Pro X ends up costing me about $120 with the return.
This works for me because I wasn’t using but 30% of my Aura 1TB anyway. I off load most of my data onto a 16TB OWC 4 Disk Raid 0. Therefore, the loss in internal storage is not a problem for me.This may not be a practical solution for most but it worked for me.
I am extremely happy with the new Aura Pro X. It is much snappier than the old Aura on my Mac Pro (2013). Not sure if the speed difference is the HS, APFS or the new Aura Pro X, most likely a combination of all.
Needless to say I am not pleased with how OWC handled the whole High Sierra Aura situation. I’ve been a long time customer and have spent thousands at Macsales and this is the first problem I ever had. I have had two SSD drive failures that they replaced in warranty immediately. So I certainly can’t complain about their customer support. As a matter of fact they have top notch customer support and tech support. The representatives are always polite and helpful. OWC is the premier engineering company of Apple Hardware and for that reason I will continue purchasing from them in the future.
Here upgraded to HS 10.13.1, but still on HFS+ :-(
How much longer we will have to wait?
It has been a month already, we need some updates instead of coming soon.
I’m not sure if my first post went through or not but here goes.
Hi Ryan could you be more specific and say if you were able to install High Sierra 10.13.1 on your OWC Aura SSD media?
Thanks.
I was. But NOT as APFS.
I had to format as HFS+.
Hi Ryan,
Many thanks for your quick follow up. Before I take the plunge, did you have to do anything specific? For example my 1TB OWC drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled) which is HFS+ with journaling. Did High Sierra 10.3.1 ask to reformat your drive to HFS+, etc? You didn’t swap out drives or anything of the sort? I apologise for the many questions in advance, but it appears that Apple are the ones who allowed the “Rotational Drives” to be used in their 10.3.1 update and not OWC.Thank you.
Here you go a new version of macOS High Sierra by Apple 31 October: https://itunes.apple.com/es/app/macos-high-sierra/id1246284741?l=en&mt=12
Did anyone even try it?
I can’t – I need my computer working yesterday, not next year.
Correction: That’s what I installed last night. It was available on the 30th. No APFS support for our SSDs.
Hi Ryan could you be more specific please. Were you able to install High Sierra 10.13.1 on your OWC Aura SSD Media?
Thanks.
I thought I had replied to this… No on APFS. Yes on HFS+.
Yes! Installed it last night on a MacBook Pro (13″ late 2011) with a boot HD Samsung EVO SSD. No problem at all. Only concern was when the fan was speeding and it eat about 7 Gb of SSD storage (after the upgrade). But now it’s quiet and working as expected.
There is no mention of dealing with 3rd part SSD. Seems like the big change: “Adds support for 70 new emoji including food types, animals, mythical creatures, clothing options, more expressive smiley faces, gender-neutral characters and more:
I tried the latest version and still can’t get past the firmware error. I’ve tried to get help numerous times on this and I’ve also asked about the availability of a trade-up to the one that actually WILL work with 10.13.x I was told that a solution would be coming soon. That was a few weeks ago
Still waiting for fix
Aura ssd Mac Pro 2013
Can’t upgrade to high sierra
Now can’t boot from old drive
Hello
I recently did everything I could to update my Mac Pro (Late 2013) to MacOS High Sierra. After wasting nearly a whole day, I gave up.
Having just come across this post after clicking a link in an email you sent me, it sounds as if I have found the reason!
The is what I see in System Information:
Device Name: OWC Aura SSD
Media Name: OWC Aura SSD Media
Medium Type: Rotational
Protocol: PCI
Internal: No
Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)
Please let me know when you have a fix. Thank you!
15″? I have the mid-2014 15″ and it’s doing it to me, too.
No solution for more than a month. However, I am afraid that you can get your “own” solution: buy the Aura SSD X PRO :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :) :)
Same situation than you. My device: MacPro Late 2013 Aura SSD 2TB
The MacSales.com web site (as of 10/30/17) lists the original Aura SSD for the 2013 Mac Pro as being compatible with MacOS High Sierra. Does that mean that they now have a “fix” for this problem?
From the MacSales’ site:
Innovative, Dependable, and Made for Mac… custom engineered for your Mac Pro
… industry leading suite of controller technologies to deliver longevity and dependable performance …
Back by OWC’s 3-Year Warranty.
Engineered for Mac first.
Quality & Performance You Can Trust
… reliable performance long into the future
… exceptional warranty
O RLY?
model and an Aura 4 TB SSD. I’m having the same issue upgrading to High Sierra.
I reported a High Sierra glitch with my OWC Excelsior SSD wherein it no longer reports free & used space accurately. To date OWC is ignoring it.
This impacts the MacBook Air (late 2010) with Aura SSD installed as well. Any update on a fix? I have the Aura SSD installed on the Air and a MacPro. Ended up buying a new MacBook Pro because I thought the Air installation had trashed the machine.
Mercury Accelsior E2 PCI SSD drives also appear to be affected by this issue. These also show as Medium Type “Rotational” in the System Report as opposed to SSD. The High Sierra install would crash at the beginning and send me back to my current OS. I have a Mac Pro 5,1.
It is a pretty tedious workaround but by inserting an old SSD into my Mac, taking a full Time Machine backup and restoring it to this SSD, booting into it, upgrading to High Sierra, doing another Time Machine backup and finally restoring the new High Sierra backup to my OWC SSD I was able to complete the upgrade.
…coming any day soon?? Keep up the good work.
Hopefully able to resolve this quickly?
“Quickly” has left the building.
True, I was trying to stay positive. :)
I think my bigger concern is at what point did OWC realize this was an issue, and was there any attempt to notify customers of the issue? I spent multiple hours trying to upgrade, and only happened upon this page in looking for answers. I would hope that prior to the official release, they had already identified this issue and communicated this to Apple.
Hi , what about question mark on reboot error – have solution soon – too ? When the OWC Aura SSD is installed in a mid-2013 MacBook Air 13″ (MacBookAir6,2), the computer may intermittently boot to a flashing question mark. Restarting the computer or resetting the SMC will allow the computer to boot normally. We are working to resolve this issue.
I really hope the implication made on the announcement page for the new Aura X line isn’t the “resolution”:
https://blog.macsales.com/42598-owc-releases-aura-pro-x-line-of-ssd-flash-storage-for-most-2013-and-later-macs-its-fastest-ever
“For users who do not want to upgrade to macOS 10.13 High Sierra, the original Aura line of SSDs is still available for purchase.”
Hi, we’re still working with Apple on a fix for the issue affecting third-party drives. We do expect a resolution to come soon for the Aura models mentioned in this article.
Can you define what “soon” is?
The APFS High Sierra answer has arrived. Announced today, OWC has been working on an updated Aura drive called Aura Pro. This drive requires High Sierra, which makes me believe there is no fix coming for us Auto owners. I am very disappointed.
Possibly OWC will offer a trade up for a nominal fee.
https://blog.macsales.com/42598-owc-releases-aura-pro-x-line-of-ssd-flash-storage-for-most-2013-and-later-macs-its-fastest-ever
Hi, Donald. We are still working with Apple on a fix for the issue affecting third-party drives. We do expect a resolution to come soon for the Aura models mentioned in this article.
Well that is good to hear. Thanks for the response.
Hi there! I am Rubén from Spain. I am very disappointed too. I have gotten the same problem: Mac Pro Late 2013 + Upgrated with OWC Aura SSD Mac Pro 2.0TB Internal Solid State Drive.
MacOS Sierra was deleted by Apple frome the AppleStore, therefore, should I / we suppose that the only option available righ now for me/us, is to update to OSX El Capitán 10.11? Right?
Hi, Ruben. We’re sorry for the inconvenience. Please contact our Technical Support Team and we will be happy to further assist you.
Go to the Mac App Store app, click on Purchased, sign in to the Store and older versions of macOS will be listed for download and install.
macOS Sierra (am I mean: macOS “Sierra”) is not available anymore. Please, check it out. It is just possible with “High Sierra”
If you’re still looking for a Sierra download on the Mac App Store this might help:
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202
Hi. I have purchased an upgrade from you for my 11″. I haven’t received any kind of communication concerning the high sierra install issues. Your assistance is appreciated
Hi, Fawzi. We still expect a resolution for this issue relatively quickly. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our customer support team.
Hi Jarrod,
I know many of us would like it soon since we have Aura drives and have been waiting. Also, I wonder when I go to Aura drives why there isn’t any mention that currently it is not compatible with HS? I would think potential customers would like that bit of information.
My 1TB Aura is working on my Late 2013 MBP running High Sierra, but if I don’t keep waking it from sleep after a few minutes, it requires me to do a hard reset to boot back up.
Is there a driver update or something coming soon?
We are very sorry for the troubles that you have been seeing. We are working with Apple closely and expect a resolution soon!
Add me to the list of Aura 1TB MacPro (Late 2013) users who cannot upgrade to High Sierra – blinking empty folder.
I have a 500GB Apple internal SSD drive in my iMac and 4 400GB Micron_P400 external SSD drives in an OWC Thunderbay 4/mini enclosure. Can I convert all of these drives to the new file format, if and when I move up to OSX 10.13? (I am now on OSX 10.12.6.)
Thank you for your question! We would love to assist you further and answer your question.
Please contact our Technical Support Team by phone or chat and we will be happy to assist further!
Having dealt with hard drive crashes, file corruption, magically dismounting RAID arrays and hardware RAID controllers endlessly rebooting servers (I am looking at you PERC), I have learned to hang back on most new OS releases as default…APFS is too new and so undocumented that upgrading upon it’s initial release should scare everyone, doubly so if you rely on your Mac for production. A co-worker of mine faced endless macOS corruption issues after he updated to 10.12.5, only to be told that his mid-2010 27″ iMac was too old and not to bring it into the Apple Store. Once he updated to 10.12.6, everything has been golden. Frankly, Apple’s software QC does not inspire confidence. While I am not impressed with OWC’s communication regarding this issue (bunker mode never works, guys), I suspect this issue is complex and may take longer than anyone wants. File systems and storage controller firmware are non-trivial affairs and should not be treated as such. Anecdotally, it seems as though Apple “assumed” that users would be running all Apple hardware when designing APFS and as of today, you can’t convert a Fusion drive to APFS…it should make everyone think twice before upgrading.
Travis,
while I don’t disagree with your comments I think there is another lesson learned. If you want to get the latest Apple release don’t get 3rd party hardware like Aura. I have two Mac Pro desktops, one with Aura and the one with a 1TB Apple SSD. The latter I’ve had no problems. It just isn’t worth it to me to go OWC again after this experience.
I Agree, if they do not get this resolved soon, i am done with OWC, it’s been over a month.
I purchased the 1TB within a year and I didn’t get any email contact from OWC, and I have to google why I can’t install the new Mac OS then I found because of the OWC 1TB SSD…
I am not so sure what awards OWC is winning for their support, but so far I am not impressed.
I brought this issue up to the Support team the day the Beta became available to developers and they were completely unaware.
You would think that a manufacturer of hardware would have not only had advanced information on this, but would also have been proactive enough to publish the incompatibility between the OS and their hardware.
Not to mention the fact that they clearly do not address what the issues are or regularly update this blog.
What is more funny… they are still selling it -.-;
Windows 10 phones are still being sold too… even after MS has officially killed it.
A note about High Sierra compatibility would be a really good idea PR-wise, but if I need a new drive and I’m still running El Capitan or Sierra, why shouldn’t OWC continue to sell their Aura drives?
Got an Aura SSD from OWC for my Mac Pro and can’t install high sierra please advice.
We are very sorry to hear about this. Please contact our Technical Support Team and we will be happy to further assist you.
Probably OWC has no idea how to fix this bug.
My problem iż 2TB Aura on Mac Pro, i do not know how but i installed HS first edition, but no one next update is visible at Apple Store , trying full install not work, not trying yet with mixing oryginal ssd
I mentioned this issue some time ago to OWC tech support and have not heard any news at all yet. I read two weeks ago on an online forum that a fix was in the works. Is it?
Waiting…
” We have sent communication to our customers that purchased these specific SSD models, and have been working directly with any customers affected”
Not true. Purchaser of 1TB Aura SSD. I have heard nothing from MacSales or OWC.
I have a MacPro (mid 2012) with the 500gb Accelsior as my boot up. I see 2013 Macs have issues.. does this model as well?
Apple states their engineers hope for a fix on the next update.
Apple states that the issue is with the firmware, and should be addressed by the SSD manufacturer. Their engineers hope for a fix on the next update.
OWC Aura tip with #MacPro and #HighSierra: High fan / no boot w/ original SSD means you forgot to reinstall the two screws for the power tap
Not true in my case. Both leads were reattached. Still, high fan and no boot.
Ok. That fixed booting from original SSD for me.
Having the same issues with OWC Mercury Electra 3G SSD
I was also with a Mercury Electra, but finally got it to work. Reformatted the disk using the High Sierra disk utility on an external drive, and did a clean install.
Having the same problem with the High Sierra upversioning. I have tried to reinstall the original Apple SSD and upgrade the SSD to High Sierra. That portion of the process works, but when I went to reinstall the Aura SSD, the system will not boot. When I use command-R to get to the boot menu that contains disk utility, disk utility cannot “see” the SSD. I suspect it is possible the SSD is damaged in some way. Fortunately I have an exact copy of all my data prior to this debacle of an up versioning. Is there a way to erase the SSD, install El Capitan, and then clone my data back on to the SSD?
I have exactly the same issue. I was finally able to use the original SSD to install High Sierra, but the 4TB OWC Aura is completely unrecognized when I reinstall it, just as it was before the swap of the original SSD. This means I’m completely unable to use this machine, as I deliberately purchased the smallest possible stock SSD while simultaneously purchasing the Aura.
I had to have OWC replace my 2Tb Aura. I reinstalled the original Apple SSD updated the system to High Sierra, installed the new Aura, used command R on boot, then selected my time machine backup to restore my original volume that has El Capitan. This seems to work now, though I have not updated the Aura OS to High Sierra as I am not confident about compatibility
I think the issue is that the install of High Sierra without the updated EFI firmware may damage the Aura SSD making the volume unreadable. This is the problem I had. Hence necessitating a replacement Aura since there was no way to restore or repair the original Aura
Please keep in the loop when we have a fix for the aura drive
I think it’s time for OWC to step up and offer refunds to AURA SSD customers for a product that doesn’t work. This is BS that they cannot support customers that want to upgrade their OS.
This should be a warranty claim since I purchased my drive in March of this year. Let’s see how the award winning service stands up to true customer satisfaction –
I bought it back in Jan 2017, I am going to open a case to my Amex card.
This was posted by “Abton” over at Crucial and I was wondering if it may be applicable to us OWC users? Has anyone tried this?
***********************************
Re: Upgrade to macOS 10.13 High Sierra fails when using a Crucial BX100 SSD
Finally got macOS 10.13 to install, but it’s not easy.
Clone the existing 10.12 install to a external USB HDD (using Carbon Copy Cloner).
Boot from the USB drive.
Install 10.13 onto the USB drive (very slow, but it works).
Boot into 10.13 from the USB drive to check it is working.
Erase the internal SSD and set it to be an APFS volume.
Clone the 10.13 install from the USB drive back onto the internal SSD.
Boot from the internal drive and ensure it’s all working.
Total time to install – approx 6 hours due to all the cloning to an external USB 2.0 drive.
Doing this meant the High Sierra installer doesn’t do the firmware check on the internal SSD drive and fail. But I can format the SSD as APFS from within 10.13 and then clone back to it which seems to be working perfectly.
Not exactly happy that I have to do this on what was sold as a ‘100% compatible’ drive, but at least I have it working.
*************************************
forums.crucial.com/t5/Crucial-SSDs/Upgrade-to-macOS-10-13-High-Sierra-fails-when-using-a-Crucial/td-p/180894
I’ve been trying to get APFS to work on my OWC AURA since HS beta 1. After many attempts with beta one, the only way for me to get HS to run on my Mac Pro 2013 was to install it on an older Mac Pro and then clone it to the original 256gb SSD that came in the Mac Pro 2013. I then connected the cloned drive to my Mac Pro 2013, booted off of the 256 and cloned it to the HFS+ formatted Aura in the Mac Pro 2013. This has worked fine to get High Sierra working on my Mac Pro 2013 but would not startup on an APFS volume. I’ve tried everything imaginable to get HS to run off of an APFS volume on my Mac Pro 2013. I was able to Partition my Aura into two 480gb drives, one HFS+ and the other APFS, clone my install disk to both volumes and the APFS startup volume appears as an option in my Startup Disk preference, letted me select the APFS volume but when I reboot, it always reverts over to the HFS+ volume.
I believe this APFS problem has more to do with the way OWC designed these drives. I read they are created similar to a Raid 0 drive using multiple SSD’s that trick the Mac Pro into thinking it is one SSD.
Unfortunately, I think the only way to get around this is for OWC to develop a firmware fix or a startup driver that loads before the System. I am not an engineer, just my opinion.
High Sierra bricked my Mac Pro 2013 with a 4TB OWC Aura drive. The “solution” to reinstall the original SSD doesn’t work, as I also get the high speed fan and black screen. I’m extremely unhappy, as this is one of two identical machines that I rely on for critical work. (the other one wasn’t upgraded, but is 90 miles away). I’m really not interested in excuses or further workarounds–this has to be fixed immediately.
Also have a Mac Pro (2013) and OWC 4TB Aura (not cheap) and got bricked as well. I notice they are still selling this drive and not one mention of the problems with HS.
I have not been contacted and I own a 2013 Mac Pro with aura SSD I bought from you. Where is the fix?
The solution suggested by OWC for my Mac Pro (2013) and 1TB Aura SSD, while a bit of extra work, worked for me. I reinstalled the original Apple 256GB SSD which I was using in an external Aura case and installed macOS High Sierra. Then I reinstalled the OWC 1TB Aura SSD. Then macOS High Sierra installed and works perfectly. However, the macOS High Sierra Supplemental (17a405) failed to install correctly. A Restore (start up with Option Command R) did the trick.
In addition, I had no problem upgrading to macOS High Sierra on my 2011 11″ MacBook Air with an OWC 480GB Aura SSD upgrade.
I tried the same process but reinstalling the original Apple SSD (which works fine as an external drive) led only to a black screen and high fan.
I tried the same as well. No problem with the install of High Sierra on the Apple SSD, but when the Aura was re-installed and the system rebooted, all I got was the progress bar (which eventually stalled out and the system powered off).
I do not have the original Apple SSD so I am SOL. I tried with a flash drive and that didn’t work. I have a 4TB Aura SSD on a fairly new MacPro trash can.
I just upgrade my 2012 MacPro tower to High Sierra, now it won’t boot up. It tries, gets halfway through then chirps, and reboots, and goes through this same cycle over and over again. This is my primary post production workstation, and I can’t afford to have it not up and running.
My OS is on a 240GB OWC Mercury Accelsior E2 PCI Express SSD.
We are sorry to hear about this Tor. It sounds like your computer is trying to use a different drive to boot up. We would recommend using the Apple Startup Manager to select the OWC Mercury Accelsior E2.
If that does not work, please contact our Technical Support Team and we will be happy to assist you further!
I have the same SSD and thinking of upgrading to High Sierra. Has this been resolved? Thanks!
Guess I am on the list of people in limbo as well. Hope they solve the problem..
I too have not received any communication from OWC about this issue and consider that attempt at spin to be a blatant lie. And IF I get a reply to this post I’m sure it will be that they’re in touch with Apple daily (another lie???) and a fix is due shortly.
Without a due date “shortly” has no meaning or relevance. I’m so disappointed with OWC about their handling of this. OWC really needs to appreciate the severity of the damage to their reputation by a) the issue, b) the lack of a timely solution, and c) lying about their handling of it (communication with customers directly? NOPE!)
Add me to the list of lost customers.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting, I didn’t get an email but I just received a response as I submitted an email to OWS. Here is one quote that is disturbing:
“We have not completed testing with High Sierra/ APFS yet so I could not confirm if it will be supported by all of our products. When we have more information available about compatibility and what will and will not work with 10.13 we will list it in our blog: https://blog.macsales.com/”
So contrary to what OWC always brags about, it sounds like they may tell me that my expensive Aura drive for my relatively new Mac Pro will have me stuck at Sierra. I hope this is not the case and just tell those who trusted OWS, too bad so sad.
I have worked with OWC (Macsales) for some time and have always held them in high regard. Some of us identified this problem while running the beta program of High Sierra. What’s troubling to me is that other than the communications I’ve sent to macsales I have not received any from macsales. The underlying problem is the raid construction that allowed macsales to use multiple smaller SSD modules to create these Aura drives. Macsales needs a basic lesson in public relations and needs to own up to having this serious problem, provide more information on what is actually going on to solve it and not obfuscate when it comes to postings on the blog, or suggesting they’ve sent out communications that never happened. To say that automatically formatting to Apple File System is a bug, surprises me, since Apple clearly stated that was part of High Sierra and was a feature.
Bernie , I couldn’t have said it better. I have spent multiple thousands of dollars at MacSales over the years. They have completely lost my loyalty for sure. I am actually astonished at the way they are handling this. I never would have expected this from a company I held in such high regard for so many years.
I bought a new SSD from OWC for my 2010 Mac Pro about a week ago. Have attempted every possible way to install High Sierra on it, and it freezes after the first three files are installed. Its not an Aura disk, its a Mercury Electra according the the packing slip. Does anyone know if this disk is known to have problems with High Sierra also, and what I can do about it? I’d be happy to install Sierra and be done with it, but unfortunately Apple has made that unavailable.
Happy to report I finally got everything to work with this SSD. Wish those of you with Aura disks luck too.
Like everyone else who has commented, I just confirmed that you have my correct email address, and i was not contacted about this problem. Please let your customers on this site know when you estimate you will have a fix for this problem, and also please let us know how many customers you did, in fact, notify about this problem. It would seem from the comments that the statement above about notifying your customers may be incorrect and perhaps even fraudulent. You can correct this issue by being forthcoming with the required information.
Bear in mind that Apple has released a brand new filesystem that has virtually NO developer documentation as to it’s inner workings versus the copious amounts of documentation and years of experience that other developers have contributed to the community on HFS(+) and have a little empathy. I suspect Crucial, SanDisk, Samsung and other players in this market are all going to have to issue firmware updates for their SSDs at some point or wait for Apple to fix issues in a point release of HS. The release of APFS is not trivial in any way, shape or form and blindly updating is the surest way to misery. Check out macintouch.com or simply Google about APFS…anyone running a non-stock configuration is almost certain to have issues. High Sierra can be installed without converting to APFS as well, although that is not necessarily a solution for this particular problem. Also, login to your OWC account and make sure you have a valid e-mail address on file for them. E-mail can’t get to you if it’s incorrect. Lastly, check your SPAM quarantine/Junk Mail settings to see if the e-mail is in there. I find that mass mailings get caught no matter how the Subject is worded or how innocuous the sender.
My Crucial SSD updated to High Sierra without any problems. It has to do with the Aurora being non-standard and appearing to be a raid to the hardware, from what I have read.
When should we expect external SSD from OWC better and larger (4, 8 & 16 TB) than Samsung Portable SSD T5?
I have a MacBook Air 6.2 mod 2013 with a 480 GB OWC Aura SSD, and I have not received Andy informations about the problem with updating from 10.12.6 ti 10.13.
Please information me what to do.
Hi, Soren. We apologize for any inconvenience. We are working with Apple on a daily basis to resolve the issue. We expect a resolution relatively quickly. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our customer support team.
I have read OWC blog comment with interest and cannot believe that an organisation can make such a statement as ‘we have sent communications to customers that purchased specific SSD models and have been working directly with any customers affected’. Well I have been a customer of OWC for a number of years and bought the Aura SSD, as yet I have not received any communication with OWC. It doesn’t take much to spin a story but this ‘plate has dropped of the stick’ and reputation always damage has begun. I would really appreciate an update on the issue.
Hi, Tom. Sorry for the inconvenience. We are working with directly with Apple to resolve the issue. We expect a resolution relatively quickly. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our customer support team.
I’m another one affected by this Aura/10.13 compatibility issue. I was able to back down to 10.12.6 but lost months of work due to some unknown glitch in Time Machine.
I have the same problem with early 2014 mba 6.2. Not received any comm whatsoever. I’m a veteran gadgeterian. I like to be early adapter and know that it comes with the price. When aura sad disk 512gb came I bought one for $400. Enjoyed overcoming the problems in installing and specially with bootcamp.
Now it is not compatible with the new high Sierra. I am sure that OWC will overcome with a bios upgrade for the “fake raid” issue. But it is not reliable enough for me anymore. So now I have not so reliable external ssd drive for $400. I can give a long list of drawer gadgets that cost money even more that this one. HTC 8x windows cost $600. Complete trash now. That’s life guys. Some are better than others. But I never will buy anything from HTC. This disk failed on me before. So bye bye OWC altogether.
Now it died completely. Cant format it to use even as an external drive with Envoy. I opened a ticket. Lets see what I can do with support.
No communication from OWC about the issue has been received. Own 4TB Aura for Mac Pro late 2013. Please advise through email when/how this is resolved.
Hi, Richard. We apologize for any inconvenience. We are working with directly with Apple daily to resolve the issue. We expect a resolution relatively quickly. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our customer support team.
I have a Mac Pro Late 2013 with an Aura 1T SSD installed. Like everyone else here I can’t install High Sierra. I too have not been contacted unfortunately. Please post a fix soon.
I have a 480GB OWC Aura in a MacBookAir6,2 (early 2014.) I also have not received any communication from OWC regarding this.
Hi, Erik. We are working with directly with Apple to resolve the issue. We expect a resolution relatively quickly. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to contact our customer support team. We apologize for the inconvenience this has caused.
I have OWC Aura SSD and contrary to what you said, received no correspondence from OWC. In fact, I have emailed OWC with no response.
Hi, Tony. Please feel free to contact our customer support team directly via phone or Live Chat. We are working daily with Apple, and expect the issue to resolved relatively quickly.
It appears that those of us that bought the Aura SSD are stuck with Sierra. I have a 4tb in my Mac Pro. I also did not get anything from OWC concerning the problem.
I too can not install High Sierra and have not received this communication.
I have contacted you on several occasions about my 2013 MacBook pro with aura ssd and the impossibility of installing apfs and high sierra. I certainly HAVE NOT received any communications from you nor have you been ‘working directly’ with me aside from a snotty chat that told me that ‘we don’t work with betas’. last week we were told to use an install procedure requiring my original SSD which I can’t do because the external enclosure YOU SUPPLIED originally has failed and can’t be recognized. Other suggested methods to install high sierra on this machine have left me with a non functional machine, that I have to boot from an external drive!
my favorite part of all this is, until today, owc has not acknowledged this problem, and gleefully told us in this blog that there are NO problems with high sierra and aura ssds.
I own a 1 TB aura SSD on an MacPro. Please send me informations about a fix, that can enable the use of high sierra. Thank you…
i have a MacBook Air (11-inch, Mid 2012) and it does not run installation either
I have purchased internal SSD’s for both my Mac Pro’s a 1TB for late 2013 model and an Accelsior for my older Mac Pro. I haven’t received any correspondence from OWC attempting to notify me about the HS installation problem. OWC certainly had plenty of time to warn their customers about the problem, considering the beta has been out for a couple month. Obviously they don’t care about their customers. I spent the better part of two days trying to get macOS HS installed, so I am a little pissed that they knew of the problem and neglected to tell us.
I too have a late 2013 Mac Pro with a 1GB Aura SSD installed. Could you please ensure I’m placed on the email list so that you may inform me of any ‘fix’ that is devised. Thank you.
Please send me the Communications you referenced, and any future ones, so I have something to read while I sit and wait for Apple to help you rectify this situation.
Just exactly how are you “working directly with any customers affected”? I’ve called multiple times and sent an email support request. I’m not sure that sending the automated email response counts as “working directly with any customer affected”.
I have a Mac Pro Late 2013 with an Aura SSD installed. Tech support indicated to wait until High Sierra Ver. 11.01 before upgrading. How would I know the 11.01 update is available without 11.0 being installed?
Sorry High Sierra version 10.13 and waiting for 10.13.01
I asked tech service at OWC to send email when problem is resolved. They said no problem.
Steve, you could check in regularly at MacUpdate.com. They post most software updates, including hose from Apple, usually as soon as they are available. That’s how I keep track of my stuff. Of course you won’t know for sure if the 10.13.1 update solves this particular problem unless you follow this blog as well.
High Sierra installs successfully on an external 240 GB Mercury Extreme 6G SSD, however APFS is not enabled, installing as HFS+. (iMac i5 27″ Retina, late 2015). An Apple or OWC problem?
Like Mark Cutler, I too have a 2013 with an Aura SSD installed. I also purchased my my Aura disk directly from OWC. I never received any notification from OWC concerning the problems which have been identified with these drives. Request you send me any and all emails concerning this problem.
Resubmitting as I first submitted before seeing the checkboxes below: I have a MacPro (Late 2013) with a 2 TB Aura SSD purchased directly from OWC. I have not received any email communication about the High Sierra installation issue. I did waste an entire afternoon trying to update, without success. Please send me the email I should have received, and please be sure I receive any updated information.
Agree with Mark: same SSD purchased, and have yet to hear anything.
I have a MacPro (Late 2013) with a 2 TB Aura SSD purchased directly from OWC. I have not received any email communication about the High Sierra installation issue. I did waste an entire afternoon trying to update, without success. Please send me the email I should have received, and please be sure I receive any updated information.
i purchased a OWCSSDACL6G.S
OWC Accelsior S: PCIe to 2.5″ 6Gb/s SATA SSD Host Adapter. And installed a SanDisk 1TB SSD on it to use as my boot drive. Have had no problems until trying to install 10.13 on it. I also have a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4095 MB graphics card. The install goes without any errors, then boots back into 10.12.6 I have done this a few times without any errors but still no 10.13 Please help me. Cheers
This problem also affects the OWC Envoy Pro EX USB 3.0 Portable SSD which is an external Aura drive. Disc Utility incorrectly identifies this drive as a spinning HD not a SSD. I was able to install 10.13 on the drive as HFS+ but it will not convert to APFS.