Apple seems to have conceded that professional users buying a new iMac Pro might be more demanding about upgrades than their consumer counterparts. Since the iMac was saw its most dramatic unibody adoption in 2009, embedding all of the components behind the display, its potential for user-upgrades has decreased. The new iMac Pro, however, takes a more forgiving approach along with its premium price tag.
Like it or not, we’re still in the thick of a USB-C hate-storm. Most recently, a notable iOS developer slammed the most current iteration of the MacBook Pro in part for eliminating all but a few of the same kind of port. It’s a bold move by Apple and others, but one that hasn’t been widely lauded. But, for a few hundred bucks, you can fix all of your connectivity woes. Sort of.
For the past several months I've been using a piece of OWC technology called the OWC Drive Dock. This gadget surprised me, genuinely - and has proven to change my life in a significant way. Because of this drive dock, I was able to clear out a significant portion of my junk closet. This OWC Drive Dock device is certifiably radical for an old data hoarder like myself.
Among the things the latest MacBook Pros have been criticized for, aside from the debatable battery life, is Apple’s abandonment of traditional ports and connectors in favor of going all out with Type C Thunderbolt 3, which are, in shape and compatibility, USB-C holes. Sure, there are dozens of hubs and extensions out there to remedy that, but those just mean yo have another thing to carry and potentially get lost. OWC, famous for their Mac upgrades and accessories, might have come up with a prettier solution: the OWC DEC. It is practically a storage and port expansion dock that looks like it’s actually part of the MacBook Pro itself.
Hard drive and accessories maker OWC has announced an updated version of its Drive Dock, a docking station that allows users to connect up to two bare drives to their Mac or Windows PC. The new model takes advantage of USB 3.1 Gen 1 connectivity, allowing read speeds up to 434 MB/s and write speeds up to 406 MB/s.
OWC has unveiled a new and small form factor storage drive that is highly portable and crams a lot of storage space inside. The device is the Envoy Pro mini and inside its normal thumb drive form factor is a tiny SSD that has 480GB of storage space. This new version doubles the previous highest capacity in the Envoy mini line of 240GB.
These days, there's almost an external data storage solution for everyone and every need under the sun, from microSD cards for mobile, to USB flash drives, to bulkier NAS drives. That said, there's always room for more somewhere in between those spaces. If you need something more than what a flash drive can offer but don't want to be tied down to a hulking NAS, then Other World Computing's new dual drive bay Drive Dock might be more up your alley, promising the best of both worlds at a fraction of the price.
This week the folks at Other World Computing have let it be known that they’re not going to rest with the current Apple-given options for the Mac Pro from 2013. They’re releasing their own OWC 128GB RAM, as it were, made specifically for the Apple Mac Pro 2013. This project will be entirely MaxRAM Certified and includes a number of RAM upgrades between 32GB and 128GB.
SSDs are getting ever more popular as the price comes down and the storage capacity goes up. OWC has announced a new SSD that it says is one of the cheapest around at $129.99 for a 60GB device. That isn't enough storage for most of us, but it would make a very nice boot drive if you have more storage to put in. I can tell you from experience that even loading most software to a bulk storage drive, 60GB will fill up very quickly.
One of the things that has been tossed back and forth between fans of PCs and Macs for years is that the PC platform as a whole is much more open and upgradable than the Mac world. You can upgrade minor things on most Mac notebooks and computers like the hard drive and RAM generally. In fact, it's fairly common for many buyers of new Mac computers on a budget to buy the machines with the base amount of RAM and storage and then upgrade it aftermarket parts. Those aftermarket parts are often cheaper than buying the computer from Apple with the upgrades installed out of the box.
Apple's switch to SSD-only storage in the MacBook Air made for a whippet-fast boot/resume time, but the expense of solid-state memory meant capacity was limited. Officially up to 256GB is on offer, but entry-level users are stuck with a measly 64GB. Now OWC is teasing us with up to 480GB in the shape of the new Mercury Aura Pro Express upgrade.
If you have a new MacBook Pro and you are in need of a memory upgrade OWC has your back. The company has a full range of RAM upgrades that will slip right into the slots inside the new MacBook Pro notebooks. If you need a crap-ton of RAM inside your rig, OWC can help you there too.