Transcend JetDrive 820 PCI-E SSD line announced for 2013 and newer MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Pro

Flash and memory company Transcend has announced the JetDrive 820 PCI Express PCIe Generation 3.0 solid-state drive for certain Mac models — but in some cases it will be slower than the stock drive in the machine.

Transcend's JetDrive 820, announced on Tuesday, utilizes the PCIe Gen 3.0 x2 interface to deliver read and write speeds of up to 950MB/s according to the manufacturer. The drive will come, with 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB capacities shipping soon.

Compatibility is limited to the the mid 2013 through mid 2015 MacBook Pro, the 2014 Mac mini, the mid 2013 and later MacBook Air, and the 2013 Mac Pro.

The JetDrive 820 will be faster than the 2014 Mac mini's drive, if one is installed at all. Additionally, the 2014 MacBook Air, or 2013 MacBook Pro will see a small speed boost with the third-party drive.

The 2015 13-inch MacBook Air has write speeds of 630MB/sec, with read speeds of 1.3GB/sec. Transcend's drive hits 700MB/sec read and write according to the company's own benchmarks.

The 2013 Mac Pro also has 1.3GB/sec read speeds, but write speeds in excess of 900MB/sec with the factory drive. The Transcend 820 said to be around 650MB/sec.

The 2015 MacBook Pro has write speeds of 1.2GB/sec, with over 2GB/sec read speed. The 2014 model has write speeds of 900MB/s, with read speeds of around 1.2GB/s.

Pricing and availability are not yet known. All of the tools necessary for installation will be included.

12 Comments

wizard69 13358 comments · 21 Years

About 7 years ago

They should call when they have 4TB SSD's. One of the big negatives with respect to SSD's is that they set the industry back at least a decade as far as internal storage capacities in laptops go. Sadly part of that is due to chasing smallness and thinnest at the expense of capacity.

linkman 1040 comments · 11 Years

I'm glad that this is ending the single third-party source of SSDs for these models. OWC needs a little competition.

linkman said:

I'm glad that this is ending the single third-party source of SSDs for these models. OWC needs a little competition.

It probably would help if Apple documented the port and focused on engineering standards for hardware such as SSD's. I'm really hoping Apple has learned its lesson with respect to proprietary hardware when there is no advantage to going with such hardware.

appex 670 comments · 11 Years

How does it compare to Samsung, which is the gold standard, in sequential and random (IOPS) read and write speeds?

StrangeDays 12959 comments · 8 Years

wizard69 said:

linkman said:

I'm glad that this is ending the single third-party source of SSDs for these models. OWC needs a little competition.

It probably would help if Apple documented the port and focused on engineering standards for hardware such as SSD's. I'm really hoping Apple has learned its lesson with respect to proprietary hardware when there is no advantage to going with such hardware.

Fairly certain Apple has never pursued proprietary hardware when there was no advantage in doing so. I'm also fairly certain what you consider an advantage and what Apple considers an advantage are different things.

Case in point, I love how light my mobile computers have gotten in recent years. I don't need a shit-ton of local storage on my notebook, because that's what my desktop is for. My notebook is for computing on the go, and I'm thankful it's lighter and easier to carry in my satchel.