Other World Computing (OWC) has released an SSD upgrade for the newly released MacBook Pro with Retina display on Aug. 14.

Named Mercury Aura Pro, the SSD is the first non-factory-installed upgrade for the 2012 MacBook Pro with Retina Display and targets users of the 256GB SSD model who are looking to upgrade the device for more storage capacity options.

The update is available immediately on a pre-order basis for $579.99 MSRP. Shipping will begin on/about Aug. 21, announced the company. Interested buyers can place a direct order on OWC by Sept. 30, 2012 and they will receive the OWC Envoy Pro USB 3.0 bus-powered portable enclosure (a $59.95 value) for re-tasking the rMBP's factory flash module as an external drive. The external Envoy Pro enclosure will be shipped separately to all qualifying customers by the end of 2012.

"We've received significant user feedback that 256GB just doesn't provide adequate capacity for this machine and in fact, some users have maxed out the factory drive space," said Larry O'Connor, CEO, Other World Computing. "Offering nearly double the capacity along with the ability to reuse the factory drive as a high speed external drive is an unbeatable combination upgrade value."

While Apple's 512GB model costs almost same as OWC's 480GB upgrade, OWC says that it's drive will reach 500MB per second compared to Apple's 461MB per second read speeds.

Moreover, OWC claims that its "Mercury brand SSDs are able to provide up to 100x higher data protection than ordinary SSDs, as well as leading enterprise-class hard disk drives. By combining the highest level of Error Correction Code (ECC) and SandForce RAISE^TM (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) technology along with 7% over provisioning, OWC Mercury SSDs provide RAID-like data protection and reliability without loss of transfer speed due to parity."

Prominent tech reviewers have said that the OWC SSD offered "excellent performance" over 500MB/s and that these SSDs "excel in highly compressible data testing which is the bread and butter of typical consumer use."