This last chart shows transfer rates according to the total amount of data that had been written at that stage of the tests. In this and the chart below, the curve shown is fitted using LOESS. Suddenly, after 11.6 seconds had elapsed, rates fell to around 670 MB/s, following which only five writes reached more than 1 GB/s. During the first 11.6 seconds of writing, transfer rates remained fairly steady at about 2 GB/s, with the lowest at 1.2 GB/s. This chart shows transfer rates achieved during each individual write test (total 96) according to the total elapsed write time when that test started. Throttling occurred late during the test sequence.
The latter results are those obtained when the SSD had throttled writes because it had become too hot to continue at full speed. Looking first at the time taken to write each of the 96 individual tests plotted against file size, there are two quite distinct linear relationships: most of the results are on the lower of the two linear trends, which shows an overall transfer rate of around 2 GB/s, with a smaller set on the upper line, with a transfer rate of slightly less than 700 MB/s. The overall range in transfer rates was extremely wide, from 100 MB/s to 2.4 GB/s, which is typical of a fast SSD when it undergoes throttling. Average transfer rate was 1.6 GB/s, but the more representative 20% trimmed mean (which excludes most outliers) was higher at 1.8 GB/s. The test completed in a total write time of 24.4 seconds.
In this example, I used my free utility Stibium to write a series of 96 files ranging in size from 2 MB to 2 GB, fixed sizes but in a randomised order. Thermal throttling should only ever be likely when writing to the SSD.
This article shows this happening during benchmarking a Samsung X5 SSD, connected to an Apple M1 Mac mini via Thunderbolt 3. As a result, their firmware should slow transfer rates in order to prevent them from getting too hot – what’s known as thermal throttling.
In addition, the new lineup notably features lower price points for the various storage options starting at $120 and including a $299 1TB upgrade and a 2TB upgrade starting at $699.Fast compact external SSDs have one major drawback: because they rely on passive cooling, they tend to get warm in use. The SSDs support the latest macOS versions along with support for Apple’s APFS. It’s available for the 2013 Mac Pro, the 2014 Mac mini, and MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models ranging from Mid 2013 right up to 2017 models for the Air. The Aura Pro X2 is available either as the drive by itself or as part of an upgrade kit with included installation tools and an enclosure to transfer data from your old internal drive to the new Aura SSD. The pricing of course depends on your Mac’s model and the capacity of the option you pick, but for many Mac users it can make a lot more sense to extend the life of an aging Mac versus purchasing a new model.
Advanced SLC caching with instant full-speed write acceleration means Mac users can see a noticeable step up in performance compared to their current SSD.
It’s not just about increasing your storage capacity. OWC also notes that its new SSDs consume less power and run cooler than previous models while offering up to 2TB to give you as much as 16x greater capacity versus your Mac’s current configuration depending on the model.
The new Aura Pro X2 SSD upgrades offer performance around twice as fast as your Mac’s original drive with read speeds up to 3200MB/s and write speeds up to 2400MB/s.