MacBook Pro over heating after upgrading to OWC Aura 480 GB SSD?

Not sure where you got the idea the connector interface was a heat sink.

There is no validity to your statement. True, the connector interface needs to be fully seated. If the mount screw is in place then the Apple blade SSD is seated correctly.

Hey Dan,

You are correct, the heatsink is a separate issue. The heatsink model is:

AURAPROXHS

https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/AURA...

This is required for the Mac Pro and not the MacBook Air.

However, the SSD will screw in properly with the T5 screw even if it is not properly seated.

The difference in just one millimeter will expose the connector and allow the heat from the connector to dissipate into the MacBook Pro.

To clarify, there shouldn't be any exposed gold connector when screwing in the T5 screw to secure the SSD.

You need to carefully push the SSD in all of the way, otherwise you risk overheating.

Again the gold contacts are electrical not thermal. As long as you have proper electrical connection the depth of the insertion is not an issue.

FYI: The mounting screw sets the depth. I've put in 50 or so in and never had any issues with the blades connection. There is a bit of play by design.

As far as the heat sink that is only needed in the 2013 Mac Pro trash can systems. It is not needed in either the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro systems. The Mac Pro pushes the SSD hard hence it gets warm. The Air & Pro's are not able to push the SSD to the same levels and as such don't need the heat sink. Besides, you will damage the drive from compression from the bottom lid pressing on the drive via the heat sink.

Hey Dan,

Thank you for the clarification on the Mac Pro and Heat Sink. I updated the answer to replace the error.

The electrical contact is exactly what I am describing.

It's possible to fasten the T5 screw on the edge of the hole, somewhat exposing the electrical contact. The heat generated will warm up the metal next to the contact, and that portion of metal is exposed to the air.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but on my first attempt to insert the blade I did not push it in all the way and observed my MacBook Air using the following terminal command:

sysctl machdep.xcpm.cpu_thermal_level

machdep.xcpm.cpu_thermal_level: 128

It was running hot even though I wasn't doing anything processor intensive.

I then pushed the SSD blade further into the slot and it solved the issue for me.

No heat created or dissipated from the gold contacts of the connector. The design of the connector is designed to touch the mid-point of the blades contact pad. As long as the contact is properly touching with no resistiveness in the electrical pathway there is no possibility of heat creation.

If you look at the edge you'll see some pads are different lengths this is by design as you want ground to make contact first and power last. So if you fail to insert the connector to the point the contacts make contact then you can encounter odd problems. Just like you encountered the system won't have the needed connections. But thats not a heat issue thats a basic failed connection issue.

Review the comment in Thomas's post below on why your SSD is running warmer that you think it should.

Depending on how full your drive is you can encounter over heating. This has nothing to do with who's SSD you are using. The issue is the garbage collection and wear leveling the SSD needs to do. So if the drive is overly full the drive needs to work a lot harder to move things about.

As a rule of thumb you want to leave 1/3 of the drive unused if the drive is 256 GB or smaller. For 500/512 GB drives I try to do better than 1/4 and for 1 TB drives or larger 1/4 to 1/8 left unused. This allows the OS to have the needed elbow room for Virtual RAM, Caching and Paging.

As far as the OWC drives they do run a bit warmer than the Samsung drives. The reason they do is they are using dual channels across the flash chips to offer better performance. The newer Aura Pro X SSD runs cooler.

Here's a bit more of Virtual RAM

The bottomline is free up space! The SSD will run cooler!

I used those drives to replace the original, smaller drives. The new drives are half full.

I would recommend if you have such a bad issue you talk with OWC to see whats happening.

After the "fiasco" with the 480 /500 GB Aura SSDs in our MBAs

(Macbooks died over time due to overheat)

…. again problems with OWC products … so sad to hear about…

Only one of the SSD Blades failed, but every single Macbook Air* equipped with Aura SSD (instead of stock) died within 1.5 years. The ones with stock SSD are still working (!)

The Problem with the dead MBAs is that the RAM- chips lost particularly their connectivity to the PCB due to overheat / extreme temperature changes (All drives where correctly plugged into the connector).

11” models with Core i7 /1.8GHz

OWC did never confirm this behavior - i think they are much better in marketig than in technical expertise.

Many systems overheat! Over time dust and debris buildup in the fan blades and heatsink fins.

Just like your car you need to clean and replace the air filter as it too loads up with junk! If you don't the car won't run very well either!

I spend better than 3/4 of the repair time cleaning! Better than 70% of the problems I see is do to heat and due to lack of yearly (bi-yearly if not heavy used) maintenance.

I always recommend installing a good thermal monitoring app like TG Pro so you can keep an eye on your system and if running a heavy process bump up the fans cooling.

In any case you can track your systems cooling over time when its running hotter you need to get your system serviced or address things your self.

Your problem is not the SSD it's lack of maintenance!