In spite of these limitations, the Aura Pro X2 is consistently able to deliver better performance than the Apple original SSDs, especially for random IO. Our macOS-based testing showed that the performance differences between modern NVMe drives are largely erased by bottlenecks elsewhere: filesystem overhead and the general inefficiency of performing asynchronous IO using kernel thread pools on low-power mobile CPUs with low core counts.
The older Macs that the Aura Pro X2 is designed for impose some performance limitations that modern machines don't experience, so in most real-world use cases the Aura Pro X2 isn't able to show off the full capabilities of its newer hardware. In principle, this allows for not only higher capacities at lower prices, but also better performance and power efficiency.
The OWC Aura Pro X2 is based on much newer technology than the Apple original SSDs it is intended to replace.
