MacBook – Aura Pro X SSD Macbook Pro Retina 2015 issues

batterymacbook prossd

A few weeks ago I upgraded my Macbook Pro Retina 13" Early 2015's SSD to a larger one from OWC: the Aura Pro X. I was pretty happy with the purchase as I was getting 40% higher writing speeds and slightly higher read speeds with the Aura Pro X vs the Apple stock one (might be due to it being almost full when tested).

However, I have noticed several issues recently. Firstly, I noticed that the mouse movement was lagging notably when connected to a certain power outlet in my university, making it unusable. More recently I noticed it overheats a lot (in 3 years I had never heard fan noises), even when it is asleep with the lid down it is notably hot.

Also while asleep, there's a red light on, that can be seen through the air vents. I'm pretty certain this red light was not visible before the upgrade, I even checked with a friend's same model Macbook Pro and we could not see any lights coming through the air vents.

I did a clean install on the new SSD (No Time Machine backup), and I have tried doing an SMC and NVRAM/PRAM reset without any luck.

I was aware of the decrease in battery life that some Aura Pro SSD customers reported , but I was not expecting this. (I have not heard back from OWC after contacting them a couple weeks ago.)

Best Answer

I also recently purchased an Aura Pro X and it has the red LED on as well. Got in touch with their tech support and they informed me that the LED is expected and normal per their engineers. To clarify, this LED is part of the OWC SSD itself (right next to the screw).

Kind of annoying that it's on all the time, but at least it's not a bad thing.

I haven't experienced any of your other issues, but I have yet to use my MacBook Pro extensively since installing it.