OWC 6G Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD

Speedier solid-state storage for your MacBook Air

Speed up

The OWC drive saw sequential reads ranging from 38.21MB/s for 4KB files to 336.85MB/s for 1MB files, with an average of 204.62MB/s. The original MacBook Air SSD ranged from 29.59MB/s to 253.04MB/s for the same sizes, with an average of 151.55 MB/s.

Quickbench
Sequential Read Speed

Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better

Sequential Write Speed

Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better

Sequential writes were 35.36MB/s to 446.55MB/s, averaging 252.68 for the OWC, and 25.28MB/s to 232.12MB/s, averaging 140.33MB/s for the standard SSD.

Random reads were 23.21MB/s to 428.99MB/s, averaging 209.79MB/s for the OWC and 12.55MB/s to 226.83MB/s, averaging 102.42MB/s for the standard SSD.

Quickbench
Random Read Speed

Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better

Random Write Speed

Throughput in Megabytes per Second (MB/s)
Longer bars are better

Finally, random writes were 34.86MB/s to 445.86MB/s, averaging 236.48MB/s for the OWC and 24.33MB/s to 232.79MB/s, averaging 123.57MB/s for the standard SSD.

The bad news is that my machine also ran hotter with the OWC drive inside, and the fan began to kick in even for simple operations like using Chrome with five or six tabs open.

Verdict

There's no arguing the OWC drive is way faster than a stock SSD, but the question to ask yourself is really whether that increase in speed is of any real benefit to you. You'll also trade off fan noise, which is going to hit battery life too. It's not a cheap upgrade either, so it's really only worth doing if every ounce of speed is essential to you. ®

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