Sort by:
Title (
)
Date (
)
Rating (
)
Popularity (
)
Sites currently sorted by: Title (Z to A)
)
Date (
)
Rating (
)
Popularity (
) Sites currently sorted by: Title (Z to A)
Perhaps one of 2011's most memorable technology accolades will be the introduction of SATA 6Gbps to the computing environment and the flurry of activity as companies jump in feet first to stay abreast of the change. In the SSD world, early entries were seen by Crucial and Intel with their Marvell 9174 controllers while the SandForce SF-2200 series was seen in products of OCZ and OWC who were first out of the gate.
After our recent review of the 120GB Mercury Extreme Pro 6G, I think you are familiar with Other World Computing. The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G didn't put the company on the map, but it did verify that OWC belongs in the same legend as OCZ, G.Skill, Patriot and the rest of the Team SandForce landmarks.
Other World Computing or OWC as most people call them is a company you may or may not have heard of. They have been around since 1988 and are one of the premier brands of upgrade and enhancement products for Apple devices. They started out with memory and like most memory companies they have started producing solid state drives. Today we are going to be checking out their Mercury Extreme Pro 6G Solid State drive. By the name you can guess this is a solid state drive and it boasts speeds of 559MB/s read and 527MB/s write. Let’s see how it stands up to the other big names in the SSD market.
It wasn't that long ago we had a look at the beta OCZ Vertex 3 drives with the next generation SandForce controller on board and few competitors. Other World Computing (OWC) has stepped up with the Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G line of solid state drives featuring the SF-2200 controller and a 6Gbps interface. This will heat up the competition and we'll see if their 16 channels per die put them over the top in terms of performance.
In 2010 we were introduced to Other World Computing (http://www.macsales.com), a reseller specializing in Macintosh products. At the time OWC was moving beyond that of a simple retail / e-tail outlet and venturing into manufacturing their own solid state product line. Over the last few years we've seen many companies manufacture their own SSDs; some have been established in the SSD market and others have been a one product wonder. You would think those with history in the SSD marketplace would be the first to market when a new controller becomes available, but OWC proved that theory wrong when they released the SandForce SF-1200 based Mercury Extreme right at the beginning of the product cycle. To show that OWC was serious about their solid state product line, they also priced the Mercury Extreme at a competitive point and even held the crown on and off in 2010 as the lowest priced SandForce SSD on the market.
Earlier this year, The SSD Review was offered the opportunity take the newly released OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 40GB SSD for a spin as it was about to hit the streets as the lowest priced SandForce driven SSD on the market at $99. In speaking to the OWC Marketing team, we also learned that word had just been received of an exciting new firmware release which we might want to wait for. The wait was just a bit longer than expected so lets start this review off with an apology and an assurance that the reasoning for such is very good news. As tested, this little SSD is still one of the most value conscious SandForce Driven models available and is presently the top performing SSD we have put through our Test Bench to date. Read on!
OWC has a great range of external storage solutions for both Mac and PC users. With the Elite Pro offerings addressing the desktop solutions, in quad, dual and single Bay formats, there is a need for that “portable” offering that can come in so handy for users on-the-go. This is the slot that the Mercury Elite Pro Mini looks to fill and, with room for 2 HDDs or SSDs, it certainly makes for an interesting enclosure.
Since Day One in the SSD arena, there has been a constant struggle where a seemingly three way tug of war is seen between performance, capacity and value. Enter TLC memory and we just may hit both value and capacity at some point, however, manufacturers still believe the feasibility of marketing a 1TB SSD just isn’t there yet. This a mainstream vision, and one held strictly on predicted sales figures alone, so what is available for those that require that 1TB SSD for their needs today?
OWC just may have answered that question with their marketing of the OWC Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD and we think that the specific composition of this SSD just might interest you. Take a look at the picture below and observe, not one but, two PCBs within. Is this really the first time anyone has considered this idea for additional capacity in an SSD?
Today’s OWC Mercury Electra 6G SSD review will mark our third such report as we watch asynchronous NAND flash memory make its appearance in the world of SSD storage. Manufacturers realize the consumer demand for value priced SSDs and believe they may have found the balance necessary to tip consumer storage sales in their favor. For those sitting on the fence, our report of the OWC Electra SSD may tip the scales in favor of your buying an SSD sooner than expected!
This SSD report will be a detailed analysis of the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G SSD, the first and only third party SSD compatible with the new 2012 MacBook Air. This report will also carry things a step further by detailing our migration of the Aura Pro into our 2012 MBA, a system that we had successfully set up with Boot Camp as a dual Boot OS X Lion/Win 7 system. To speak of how things went, we are writing this report up on our new ‘OWC Charged’ MBA.
execution time : 0.077 sec