How to Upgrade the SSD in a Late 2013 Mac Pro with the OWC Aura Pro X2 (MacPro6,1)

Video Jump Points:
00:00 – Title, notes, difficulty level, and tools required
00:08 – Introduction / Overview
00:33 – Part 1 – Removing the Solid State Drive
01:13 – Part 2 – Installing the OWC Aura PRO X2 PCIe SSD
02:39 – Drive Formatting Instructions
02:46 – Closing, Legal Stuff, and Copyright

Works with 2013 Mac Pro models with Model ID:
- MacPro6,1 (Late 2013)

[ajaramillo]

I follow the instructions from OWC from this video in one of the comments and it worked on a 2013 Mac Pro “the trash can 🗑 looking tower. I have an Apple magic keyboard with numeric pad. And since it is a Bluetooth connection keyboard it was not working when I did the “Command+Option+R” keys on my computer so I connected a wired keyboard and it worked. All you need is to format the drive and then installed a fresh copy of Your iOS. When you press only “Command+R” it won’t show the drive in your utility disk or in the diskutil in command you need to press “Command+Option+R” for the computer to be able to recognized the newly installed Aurora X2 SSD… hope it works for you it definitely worked for me.

[stevehaynes]

Ok, Aura Pro x2 arrived yesterday. Having read everything I could find about this upgrade and having watched any youtube video regarding it, my machine was upgraded to Monterey and firmware was latest available. I popped in the Aura Pro and installed Monterey via the internet. All went well, I migrated my data and apps using migration assistant and all was fine. I rebooted a few times and everything was good. I powered down overnight. Thus morning the machine booted ok. I checked some emails and the machine was left to go into sleep mode. This afternoon it would not wake from sleep. I rebooted and was greeted with flashing folder and question mark. I have replaced the original apple ssd and all is good. I have replaced the OWC Aura pro x2 and nothing, just the flashing folder. No combination of key presses allow me to try to re-install os. I have used this ssd for less than 24hrs and it appears to have died.

[harrysk]

Just installed a 1TB OWC Aura SSD properly in my Mac Pro 2013 and I received a blinking folder with a question mark. Rebooted with an external drive in with command R and went into Disc Utilities. The new SSD was not there at all. Also tried booting OSX from an external drive but still not recognizing it.

[DjTumbao]

hi guys, I want to buy that model from you guys but I need at list 4tb of internal SSD is that posible ?

[firstpresence]

Just be aware that OWC have basically screwed people like me who bought a 1TB upgrade SSD some years ago. My version cannot upgrade to the latest OS as it needs a firmware upgrade that OWC can't be arsed to create. They blame Apple, which is just a useless excuse. If you search the net here is a convoluted workaround involving carbon copying the drive, replacing the old Apple SSD and going through a risky set of steps to get it sorted but it's daunting and time-consuming. If you are doing this to your primary work computer you risk some serious downtime. It's zero out of ten from me.

Buty this drive but be aware their support of it may not be what you would expect.

If @OWC has a good soloution or s on story excuse let's hear it.

[chriszayachkowski]

Seems simple enough. It is really that simple?

[dimitri]

yeah well... will work at the speed of 1000 mb/s