Newer Technology, Inc. announced today its miniStack external storage solution is now available with an OWC Mercury Solid State Drive in four capacities from 120GB to 960GB priced starting from $199.99. Specifically designed to match the appearance and size of Mac mini models from 2010 to the new 2012 machine introduced this week by Apple, the miniStack ‘stacks’ on top of the mini to conserve precious desktop workspace. With the new SSD-based models, the miniStack can be used as a boot drive for faster OS loads as well as for dramatically faster processing with intensive graphics and A/V applications. Article Continues…
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Newer Technology Introduces miniStack Storage Solutions Featuring OWC Mercury Solid State Drive As The Perfect Complement To Apple Mac mini
Thursday, October 25th, 2012 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
Category: Press Releases
EFI Update 2.9 Resolves 6Gb/s Drive Performance Issues in 13-inch 2012 MacBook Pro
Thursday, September 20th, 2012 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
When the 2012 MacBook Pros were released, we found that SATA 3.0 SSDs—such as the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G and the Mercury Electra 6G—exhibited poor performance and reliability in the 13-inch model when installed in the optical bay via an OWC Data Doubler, while the same SSDs in the 15-inch model worked just fine.
This was similar to what happened in 2011, where (ironically enough) the 13-inch models were the only ones able to handle our Mercury 6G SSDs in the optical bay at first. Eventually, though, an Apple firmware update resolved the problems in the 15-inch and 17-inch models in the main drive bay.
As it turns out, the same thing happened to the 2012 models. Yesterday’s EFI Update 2.9 for MacBook Pro appears to have fixed the problem. Article Continues…
Category: Tech Tips
Firmware Update Part II – The Results
Friday, February 24th, 2012 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
In case you missed it, we released a new firmware update for our SSD line yesterday. At the same time, we’ve been running tests to determine if there was any impact on performance.
Well, there is a bit of an effect in that this latest revision seems to smooth out the performance of the drive, lessening the variance in write performance considerably.
It’s probably just easier to show you.
We tested a 240GB OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD using the DiskTester diglloyd Tools both before and after the firmware update, and got these results.
As you can see, read rates stay right around the same speed and variance, but take a look at how much less varied the write rates have become after the update. You’ll also notice that while the variance has narrowed, it has narrowed toward the faster range. Now the minimum speed is right around the level that used to be considered the middle-0f-the road for this drive; it’s now slightly faster.
Granted, this increase in speed isn’t likely to be perceptible to most users – you’d have to be writing files in the multi-gigabyte range just to see a couple of seconds shaved off. However, the stabilization of and increase of write speeds may be an additional benefit if you choose to upgrade your firmware.
OWC Announces Firmware Update For Industry-Leading Mercury Solid State Drive (SSD) Line
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 | Author: OWC NewsFeed
Other World Computing announced today it has released a new firmware version—MP5.0.1—to deliver optimum performance and stability from its industry-leading, SandForce Driven Mercury Solid State Drive line when installed in the latest Macs and PCs. The GUI driven, Mac experience friendly and bootable updater for Solid State Drives is freely available from OWC for use exclusively with OWC Mercury Extreme Pro, Mercury Electra, and Mercury Aura Pro SSD models.
The Only Mac Friendly Update Experience
OWC’s proprietary firmware updater, now available with support for all of Apple’s latest Mac models, as well as nearly all prior machines, eliminates the need for a PC, ownership of Windows or other operating system, or the creation of a specially designated drive partition that many SSD updaters have required. Mac users only need to download the updater from OWC’s site, obtain and burn a DVD, and then boot from that DVD to launch an easy to use, point and click GUI for installing the latest firmware revision to their OWC Mercury SSD. OWC’s Mac-friendly firmware updater continues OWC’s unmatched firmware update support for Mac users of SandForce-based SSDs. OWC also provides update support for PCs running the Windows or Linux OS.
“We recognized SSDs would be an ever-evolving product, so we made it our priority to ensure users of OWC Mercury brand SSDs would immediately be able to utilize the benefit from any hardware and/or firmware updates,” said Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. “As such, this latest firmware update is quick, easy and performed with no guesswork or doubt via the only point and click Mac-friendly updater; as well as standard upgrade packages for Windows and Linux Operating System users.”
Category: Press Releases
Review – Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD in MacBook Pro
Monday, February 6th, 2012 | Author: Guest Blogger
by Gerd N., OWC Customer
There are very compelling reasons to upgrade your current MacBook Pro. While my MacBook Pro is still a 2011 model with 8GB of RAM, I always felt that it could be a bit faster. Even with the 7200RPM Toshiba drive fitted, IO operations felt sluggish (even more so after installing the OWC) and I wanted to see if a SSD would make a big difference.
The 30-day return promise from OWC made the choice of the Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD 480 GB drive an easy choice. When it comes to SSD options, not many companies provide reasonable pricing like OWC, let alone a 5 year warranty on their products – pricing is steep at USD 1,000.00 but the results are overwhelming and worth it.
My MacBook Pro supports 6Gb/s SATA out of the box, and although the System Profiler does not show TRIM support, this is not an issue, as the OWC SSDs have TRIM support built-in.
Installation of the drive is as simple as Article Continues…
Category: Product Spotlight