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Apple’s Latest 2011 MacBook Pro Refresh & Using SATA Revision 3.0 6Gb/s Drives

Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 | Author: OWC Larry

As we mentioned last Monday, Apple has released new “speed bumped” MacBook Pro 13″, 15″, and 17″ model laptops. These units all show 6Gb/s link capability for both the main drive bay and the optical bay. Right out of the gate all of these models are proving 100% reliable for use of a SATA Revision 3.0 hard drive or OWC 6G SSD installed into the main drive bay.

Just like the Early 2011 models, while we continue to see reliability with 6Gb/s in the optical bay of the 13″ model - the optical bays of the 15″ and 17″ models remain too unstable for 6Gb/s drive use. Although still unstable in the 15″ and 17″, the optical bay SATA signal has improved considerably and we are looking into possibilities that might make 6Gb/s in this bay reliable. Article Continues…

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Fresh from Apple
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Mac’s Future Review of the OWC Turnkey Upgrade Program for iMac.

Friday, October 7th, 2011 | Author: Guest Blogger
This review initially appeared on the Mac’s Future weblog, and has been reposted with permission. Information and opinions contained within the post are those of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Other World Computing.

Macs Future, A Review: The OWC Upgrade For The 2010 iMac

So I mentioned a while back that I had decided to upgrade my 2010 iMac which has a 27 inch screen and a Quad-Core 2.97 GHz i7 Intel processor. Soon after I purchased this from Apple in November 2010, I upgraded the RAM from 4GB of 12GB by purchasing 8GB of additional RAM from OWC. OWC stands for Other Word Computing (also known as macsales.com) and it has long been a great place to purchase Macintosh upgrade parts and other Macintosh and Apple related devices, like external hard drives and additional memory RAM. My 27 inch 2010 iMac was top of the line. But because I purchased it as a refurbished product, I didn’t have the option of customizing it through the Apple Store. Had I purchased it as a regular non-refurbished iMac, I could have opted to install a 256GB SSD drive from Apple for around $500. This would have supplemented the 1 Terabyte hard drive that came with the iMac.

When I first puchased my iMac, I was really thrilled with its speed, particularly as I had been using a 2006 iMac. My 2010 iMac was getting a GeekBench score something like 4 times greater than the 2006 iMac. But my happiness with the 2010 iMac started to fade this past summer when I purchased an 11 inch 2011 MacBook Air. This Macbook Air, like all 2010 and 2011 Macbook Airs, comes with a solid state drive (SSD) only. SSDs are the same kind of storage you have in you flash storage. Unlike traditional hard drives, they have no spinning mechanisms. Article Continues…

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Product Spotlight

Thunderbolt Display – Data Transfer Speed Testing

Tuesday, September 27th, 2011 | Author: OWC Michael

We were pretty exited to receive our first few Thunderbolt Displays yesterday. If you want a closer look – we released some unboxing photos before we started our testing. We set off to see just how good essentially the world’s first Thunderbolt hub performs – not to mention the only way so far to add FireWire compatibility to your MacBook Air.

We’re pleased to announce that for read speeds across the board, whether plugging in via USB or FireWire 800, there is no speed degradation whatsoever.

With FireWire 800 write speeds though, we found an interesting anomaly.

When running a FireWire 800 external drive hooked up to the Thunderbolt display, there was roughly a 3-5MB/s slowdown in write speeds versus the same drive plugged in directly to the FireWire 800 port on the host machine. Admittedly, that 3-5MB/s is quantitatively not that large of a difference, but when the interface itself maxes out at roughly 80MB/s transfer speeds – that 3-5MB equates to a 4-7% total difference, which can seem significant. USB speeds remained constant and did not show any slowdown.

Here’s an example: Article Continues…

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Product Spotlight
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Want to win an OWC Electra SSD?

Wednesday, August 17th, 2011 | Author: OWC Michael

Our friends over at The SSD Review are currently holding a contest to win the fastest and most reliable Solid State Drive on the market today: the OWC 240GB Mercury Electra 6G SSD.

To be eligible, one must be (or become) an active and contributing member in the SSD Review forums between August 15th and August 29th, 2011. To claim the prize you must be 16 years of age or over and be able to answer a skill testing question. Full details can be found at The SSD Review.

Good luck!

 

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Product Spotlight
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By The Numbers: What Can An OWC 6G SSD Do For Your 2011 Mac mini?

Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 | Author: OWC Michael

Our benchmarking has been completed on the latest round of Mac mini machines from Apple. We teased a bit with our post from last Friday exclaiming that the OWC 6G SSDs work with the new 2011 Mac mini.

In our excitement on discovering the functionality of the drives, we posted screenshots of a few of our test results, but we wanted to put what that means for you into perspective.

The chart above shows the average read/write speeds as reported by QuickBench in four increasingly beneficial drive configurations in our 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 Mac mini (RAID 0 configuration results obtained from a 2.0GHz Intel Core i7 Mac mini Server as that is the only machine that comes factory stock with two available drive ports.) Article Continues…

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance
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2011 Mac mini works with OWC 6G SSDs

Friday, July 22nd, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

After extensive testing, we’re glad to announce that both the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G line and our Mercury Electra 6G line of SSDs are fully compatible with the 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 ports on both the 2011 Mac mini and the 2011 Mac mini Server.

Both drive models work great, without the dropouts and other inconsistencies that we have seen in the 17” 2011 MacBook Pros.

Like its predecessor, the 2011 Mac mini Server has two drive bays, which can see the drives individually or in a software RAID 0 or 1. We tested a pair of Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSDs set up in a RAID 0 inside the mini Server and achieved read/write speeds over 1000MB/s!

The “regular” Mac mini only comes with a single drive installed. It appears, though, that a dual drive setup is certainly doable (though we can’t really comment on it until we look into it more, so please don’t even ask - just keep checking back; we’ll post it when we know for sure).

However, since the “regular” Mac mini comes as a single-drive unit, that’s how we tested it. It didn’t disappoint, either, getting speeds of over 500MB/s Read and over 420MB/s Write using one of the EXTREME Pro 6G’s.

You can see the results of both series tests below.

As you can see by these scores putting a 6Gb/s-capable SSD (or SSDs) in your 2011 Mac mini or Mac mini Server, really helps it achieve fullest the data transfer speeds possible.

 

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Fresh from Apple
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Follow-Up: New MacBook Air CAN Use OWC Aura SSD

Thursday, July 21st, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

As Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane might say, “Good News! Good News!”

We’ve confirmed that the flash storage on the 2011 MacBook Air is the same removable module type design as found on the 2010 models. But don’t take our word for it – here’s a couple quick shots of the module right after we bought the machine.

As you can see, the data interface on the 2011 model’s flash module is the same as the one on the 2010 model. In fact, it’s the same unit entirely, like we mentioned earlier. That means you can put in a faster, higher-capacity OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express SSD for higher performance and up to four times the storage compared to the factory 128GB capacity version. Article Continues…

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Fresh from Apple
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Target Display Mode And Thunderbolt

Friday, July 1st, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Target Display Mode on the Late 2009 and 2010 iMacs was a pretty neat trick; you connected the iMac to another Mac via the Mini Display Port connector and the iMac’s display became a second monitor for the first mac while the system ran “headless” underneath it. When you unplugged the cable, the iMac’s display reverted back to the iMac itself.

The Thunderbolt port in the 2011 iMacs adds a couple of twists to this setup. First, when using Thunderbolt-equipped iMac as a display, you need to hit Command-F2 to switch the display between the iMac and the other Mac. This, however, is a relatively minor inconvenience or even a benefit, depending on how you generally use your iMac.

Another wrinkle comes in the form of what computer can connect to which iMac with which cable. To determine this we Article Continues…

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Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Fresh from Apple, Tech Tips
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