Other World Computing announced today the OWC Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD as the highest capacity 2.5″ Solid State Drive ever offered by OWC. This high-performance 3.0Gb/s SATA Solid State Drive offers Mac and PC users maximum storage capacity along with the test-proven, award-winning performance of Mercury brand SSDs to meet real-world software applications demands.
Maximizes Drive Bay Limited Machines
The majority of notebooks no longer contain an optical drive, so fading fast are the days where computer users could add a second internal drive with a product like the OWC Data Doubler for a Plug and Play capacity increase. For these single drive bay machines, as well as desktop machines with limited open bays, a computer user’s only solution is to add the biggest capacity drive available. The Mercury Electra MAX 3G SSD offers the highest capacity available—960GB— in a 2.5″ Solid State Drive.
Rapid Access of Mass Storage
Designed specifically for mass storage uses such as A/V files, image libraries, and databases, the Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD offers near instantaneous access of large volumes of data. With data transfer rates over 250MB/s, it offers the best combination of speed and capacity offered in the industry standard 2.5″ SSD size.
Test-Proven for Real-World Uses
Synthetic performance benchmarking tests are great for showing a drive’s capabilities under controlled, repetitive laboratory tests. What matters to most users, however, is how a drive performs under real-world use scenarios they experience day-to-day. This is where the Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD shines according to leading performance expert Lloyd Chambers of macperformanceguide.com. “The performance is pretty spectacular for a 3G drive,” said Chambers. “It’s actually the best 3G SSD drive I’ve tested to date in some application scenarios.”
Up to 100X Greater Data Protection
Utilizing SandForce DuraClass technology, the Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD provides an increase of up to 100X in data protection, compared to ordinary SSDs and leading enterprise-class hard disk drives. By combining the highest level of Error Correction Code (ECC) and SandForce RAISE (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) technology, along with 7% over provisioning, the Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD provides RAID-like data protection and reliability without loss of transfer speed due to parity.
Availability and Pricing
Compatible with Macs, PCs and external enclosures that utilize 2.5″ drives, the Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD is available now from Other World Computing as well as through select retailers. The $1,299.99 MSRP drive features 7% over provisioning, Tier 1/Grade A NAND, and a three-year warranty.
“The Mercury Electra MAX 3G SSD was built for real-world, heavy-duty use,” said Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. “It offers performance where it matters most for today’s demanding applications as well as the maximum capacity available in a 2.5″ sized drive.”
Adapters From $3 Offer Easy Install In 3.5″ Drive Bays
Desktop users wanting to experience the performance benefits of the Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD can choose from one of five adapters OWC offers starting at $3 for utilizing 2.5″ drives in 3.5″ bays.
New Model Complements Industry’s Most Comprehensive SSD Line
The new Mercury Electra MAX 3G 960GB SSD enhances OWC’s existing line of performance-leading, world record-breaking 3G (3Gb/s) and 6G (6Gb/s) Mercury SSDs. OWC offers SSDs for nearly every Mac and PC produced over the past decade in capacities from 30GB to 1TB with prices starting from $49.99.
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I’ve received mine a few days back and it has been a blast with this drive. However, when I checked System Information it is being reported as a rotational drive rather than SSD on a late 2011 MBP on 10.7.4. Also having problems in resuming from an overnight sleep.
Are these being reported on all 960GB drives (rotational media type, sleep issues)? My concern is that I may have gotten a lemon.
The 960GB should show as rotational drive, it is a function of the RAID controller used – not a problem with the card itself.
However, these were fully sleep tested and should not be experiencing any issues. Try resetting your PRAM and repairing permissions on the drive. If that doesn’t solve the sleep issue you’re experiencing, please contact our Technical Support Team for troubleshooting assistance via email, live chat, or phone at 1(800)275-4576.
Thanks, Michael. Apparently I’ve received a defective unit since it no longer is getting detected on boot-up, even after several attempts of booting through the Lion USB stick and getting Disk Utility to recognize it. I swapped back my stock drive and everything worked well again. Sent back the SSD for an RMA.
This brings up a good question about apple’s 768gb ssd they are offering in the retina mbp… Is it 3G or 6g? Who makes it? Has anyone done performance tests on it?
The machine we’ve received so far has the 250GB SSD installed and it does indeed negotiate at 6G speeds.
Too bad you can’t take this technology and put it into a 3.5″ form factor, thus increasing capacity. It would also then just slide into a Mac Pro Caddy instead of using an adapter.
Food for thought…
I think the 2013 MacPros will be only using 2.5″ SSDs and no optical drives. This would allow the MacPros to be a lot smaller, perhaps to be able to fit into a rack mount too in a 1 to 2 U slot.
If anything, the future is in Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 HUBS allowing us to attach to external drives. Storage – in general – is going to be outside the computer itself.
We all have to prepare for skate where Apple is going, not where it is now.
And to make the Mac Pros even smaller, Apple could simply use the daughter-card SSDs like it uses on the MacBook Pro Retinal Display and the MacBook Air. These can be made just as fast as the current 2.5″ SSDs. Of course, there would need to be a standard connector for these daughter-card SSDs.
I assuming there will be no issues running this as a RAID 0 in a macbook pro + data doubler?
i’ve got the boss set up with 2x 480 OWC SSD now, and it has been running beautifully for almost a year, but storage space is becoming a bit tight. 2x 960’s will address this perfectly.
thanks for all the work!
Why not 6G??
While there are some limitations in architecture at this time that need to be overcome before a “6G” option could be made available, this 3G drive is really a powerhouse able to handle much of the heavy lifting – with speeds that actually are better than our current 6G offering in some applications. See Mac Performance Guide’s full review for details and real-world benchmarks.