OWC ships larger, faster SSD upgrades for 2010 MacBook Air
updated 09:50 pm EDT, Thu May 5, 2011
Disks deliver 68 percent faster sustained speeds
Other World Computing has launched a set of upgrades for the 2010 MacBook Air series, debuting its OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express Solid State Drive today. It offers up to four times the capacity of the factory storage space, and features seven percent over-provisioning and SandForce DuraClass data protection. The SSDs deliver nearly 70 percent more speed over the 2010 MacBook Air's factory drives, and up to 3.5x speed boosts in critical 4K random read/writes over the stock drive.
The Mercury Aura Pro Express comes in 180, 240, 360 and 480GB configurations, and boasts sustained read speeds up to 285MB per second and writes up to 275MB/second -- about 40 percent better than the original MacBook Air solid-state drive in real-world use. The devices uses chip-based 128-bit AES data encryption and intelligent "recycling" for advanced free-space management.
The SSD upgrades for both the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air 2010 models cost $480 for the 180GB SSD, $580 for the 240GB SSD, $1180 for the 360GB model and $1580 for the largest, 480GB upgrade. All are shipping now and arrive with all necessary tools for installation.
