It’s been about a year or so since we introduced the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro and Pro RE Solid State drives and, what a year it’s been! We’ve seen them win award after award,extensive praise from media review sites all over the map and a reputation on tech forums that is second to none.
I’ve been deeply involved with development of our SSD product line since day one and decided that my MacBook Pro would be one of many machines around the office receiving a Mercury Extreme Pro RE 200GB drive for long-term testing. My MacBook Pro is without a doubt the single most important tool I have at my disposal here at OWC, so I knew the Mercury Extreme would get a solid workout.
Since I haven’t had much opportunity to chime in here on the OWC Blog, I felt this one-year anniversary would be a great time to share a quick look at performance of my drive from new to now.
This is how my OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD performed on its first day (April 28, 2010):
Here’s how it performed when I tested it yesterday (Feb 16, 2011):
Yes, you read those right; the drive is performing better now than it did when it was installed!
While that’s impressive in and of itself, what really makes it amazing is the extent to which the drive is used:
- 8-12 hours a day (or more)
- running the following apps simultaneously:
- AutoCAD
- Adobe Illustrator
- Photoshop
- InDesign
- Excel
- Outlook
- iTunes
- iPhoto
- iChat
- Safari
- Firefox
- Remote Desktop
- Time Machine
- and — not to forget our PC brethren — Windows XP and 7 (via Parallels).
So, how is this possible?
Our Mercury Extreme Pro SSD series utilizes the SandForce 1200 Series Processor with exclusive DuraClass Technology. DuraClass combines DuraWrite (which extends the life of your SSD by utilizing intelligent block management and wear leveling), RAISE (which gives you RAID-like data protection and redundancy, but without the overhead) and over-provisioning (placing flash memory in reserve for replacement of retired or worn out blocks) of either 7% (for Pro models) or 28% (for the Pro RE). This gives you the one of highest-performing, longest-lasting SSD on the market today.
Not All SSDs Are Created Equal
While this may seem like little bit of chest thumping here, we do feel we’ve earned the right to do so….and why you might appreciate knowing about this long term performance. There’s been quite a rumbling in the SSD industry lately and the questionable actions of others could create doubt and confusion among consumers. We wanted to set the record straight so there’s no doubt about OWC SSDs. Ours can actually get faster over time…while delivering the full stated capacity.
One of our marketing slogans for our SSDs is “Everything Else Is Just Slow.”
After recent articles by leading SSD technology sites like The Storage Review, we may be inclined to create a new slogan…”Get The SSD That Exceeds Your Expectations.”
Faster over time, proven reliability, 30 day money back guarantee (first to be offered in industry), free videos that show you how to install, free lifetime support….every way you add it up, OWC SSDs have no equal.
I love my two OWC SSD drives, with the one exception. They still both suffer from the sandforce deep sleep bug, and not being able to sleep my machines is costing me energy/money. I was told by support last year that a firmware update would be available early this year (January implied). It’s now March.
I love my SSDs, but wish I could use my computer normally (how I was before).
I just purchased a 240GB SSD for my MacBook Pro (6,2) & have been having a panic attack reducing my on-board storage from 500 GB to 240 GB. Well today I had an epiphany realizing that the MBP’s will likely have a “small” SSD, a hard drive and NO optical drive! So now I’m thinking I should get the optical bay kit and an external DVD/CD drive. So since I’ll have to rebuild my entire system, I’m looking for any write-up or recommendation for the process. Many thanks & comments & support appreciated! — HS
Hi Howie and glad you had that epiphany! That is the way to go with a MBP….take out the rarely used optical drive, put in another SSD or higher than factory capacity HD in that bay with the data doubler:
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/DDAMBS0GB/
on that link is a free how to install video.
For write ups or recommendations…you can check these out to see if our claims of an easy install are true:
http://www.mactrast.com/review-owc-mercury-extreme-pro-ssd-with-data-double-kit/
http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,979102,981380
http://www.macnn.com/reviews/owc-ssd-solutions.html
Hi Guys, thanks for the replies!
BJ: Sorry to hear about the troubles, have you contacted our Tech Support Department? If not give them a ring @ (800) 275-4576 and they’ll get you taken care of!
Jerry: It is quite amazing….the PCIe card is still under development, keep checking back for updates.
Jazz: Thanks chiming in, glad you’re enjoying your drive!!
Sorry to hear about your troubles BJ. However, the one I picked up really outperforms the early Intel one I picked up for a lot more money and I’ve been using the OWC one for several months. Maybe you got a lemon?
The present is fast, but the future amazing. Last October, an interesting promise was made [1]. It’s now ‘early 2011′, any updates?
[1] http://eshop.macsales.com/NewsRoom/Framework.cfm?page=PR/ssdent_100710.html
Unfortunately, I wish I could, but the fact that the one I got out & out died (I got independent third-party confirmation of that fact recently) kinda gives me pause for picking up another one any time soon.
BJ