Upgrading the SSD for New Mac Pro

For many months after the New Mac Pro was released there was some delay in the availability of the larger SSD BTO option. I ended up purchasing one with the 256GB internal SSD rather than wait.

Time went by and eventually OWC came out with an option that was an SSD sitting on a card. It was slower than the original SSD, the OS saw it as an External Drive and it could not be Bootcamped for Windows as a result (although they more recently found a workaround for Bootcamp). Not of this was acceptable to me.

Eventually I found a much more viable solution.
MCE sells a PCIe SSD that the OS sees as native in both 512GB and 1TB sizes. I bought the 1TB size.
The price is competitive with the Apple's BTO equivalent had one been able to go that route at the time.
store.mcetech.com/mm/merchant.mvc?Store_...ry_Code=PCIESSD-MP13

It was easy to install. Apple provides instructions in their KB so it's an "approved" upgrade. I put the old SSD in MCE's optional external case and cloned back the system. It's Kingston branded but Blackmagic Speed Test shows it to be about as fast as the original as MCE claims.

Good info, thanks for sharing. Now, if there was a 2TB "reliable" upgrade SSD...

Excellent. Only took 3+ years! Thanks for posting!

I think it's been out since the summer but they've done no promotion. Stumbled across them in a Google search. They seem to be a very small person. The person I spoke to seems to be field installer/consultant type.

EDIT: They announced it at the end of March.
prmac.com/release-id-79068.htm

Kind of surprising that sites like 9to5Mac or AppleInsider didn't pick this up. Heck even Macworld could have covered it given the upgrading the SSD is an Apple approved upgrade.

Strange. Maybe those Mac sites don't care about the Mac Pro. But will likely publish anything on the MacBook Pro. My Mac Pro is way more professional than the MacBook Pro.

More than 1 or 2 years ago

eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-pro/2013

Be aware those third party upgrades to have issues.

Triumph wrote: More than 1 or 2 years ago

eshop.macsales.com/shop/ssd/owc/mac-pro/2013

As far as I'm concerned that was a hack and it has issues. The Mac sees it as an External Driver so it couldn't be bootcamped and then they had a hack for that as well recently. THIS system was the only one available and the problems and problems and compromises it entailed were why I avoided it. It is not really an INTERNAL drive updates as far as how the OS saw it.

Now if only we could update the CPU and graphics cards like the old Mac Pro. Technically it can be done but nobody offers anything new in that department. It'd be a great way to modernize the ol' forgotten trash can. I wish they at the very least sold theD700 cards as a stand-alone.

The crazy thing (IMHO) if Apple isn't going to update the Mac Pro annually even with speed bumps in the CPU and GPU they have very little to lose if they allow users to upgrade both. Of course a third party has to have the incentive particularly with the custom GPU board.

As it is I'm sure Apple doesn't make much gross on the Mac Pro but I imagine sales has to get really low after two and especially three years.

With some irony I was thinking of getting a 9.7" iPad Pro w/LTE on sale for $549 (normally $719), came out in March '16 but hearing there's going to be an update March '17 so I'll wait. iOS devices updated frequently with either new features or sometimes lower cost models... Mac Pro, not even a speed bump and the price is about the same as it was three years ago. There's no logic (to me) on the Mac Pro pricing.