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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.

 

This post has 75 comments.
Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Fresh from Apple
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What Can An OWC SSD Do For You?

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011 | Author: OWC Ryan

Hey guys and gals out there… I work at OWC, but I’m just a warehouse guy. I’m certainly no “power user”, but luckily for me, the powers that be decided to let me test drive an OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD in a 2.0GHz 2011 MacBook Pro for them anyway…and all I can say is WOW!

My work consists of very frequent use of browsers, database applications, PDFs, spreadsheets, and the like. I usually have 5-12 apps running at any given time, and am always switching frequently between them.

Folks told me I “wouldn’t really” benefit from the additional speed the OWC Pro 6G SSD offered. All I can say is… well… “Wrong!” Article Continues…

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Category: Product Spotlight, Random Thoughts & Topics
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Which OWC SSD Is Right For You?

Friday, May 6th, 2011 | Author: OWC Grant

With the recent announcement of the new OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD, you may be wondering whether you should go with this latest addition to our SSD line or whether to stick with the original Mercury EXTREME Pro SSD. They both sound great, have won various awards, and are built with the highest quality components and processes available.

The question is: which should you to choose?

OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro:
Extraordinary Speed For All Types Of Users

Whether you’re a ‘regular’ or ‘power’ user, the original Mercury EXTREME Pro handles multiple needs extremely well. From opening and working with multiple apps in a blink of an eye to saving large Photoshop files, the speed and productivity gains will simply amaze you. This drive is based on the SATA 2.0 Revision (3Gb/s) bus interface, so it offers the highest level of performance attainable with most Macs and PCs. We even offer a Legacy model line based on the IDE/ATA data bus so you can ‘tune up’ that tried and true desktop or notebook and have it running better than when it was new! Article Continues…

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Category: Product Spotlight
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Testing: RAID 0 in a MacBook Pro using the Data Doubler.

Friday, April 29th, 2011 | Author: OWC Duane

Among the different configuration options available when using the OWC Data Doubler in your MacBook or MacBook Pro is setting both drives to function as a RAID 0 (striped) array. This combines both drives (the one in the Data Doubler equipped optical bay and the one in the original hard drive bay) into a single volume, which provides an increase in data access speed.

Since we’ve had several questions about this, we decided to put this configuration to the test by using different combinations of hard drives and SSDs to determine which offered the best balance of price, capacity and performance.

Our test machine was a 2011 13″ MacBook Pro (MacBookPro8,1) with a 2.3GHz Intel Core 5 processor and 4GB of RAM. Inside, we replaced the optical drive with an OWC Data Doubler to allow us to utilize a second drive.

Article Continues…

This post has 26 comments.
Category: Benchmarking/Performance, Product Spotlight, Tech Tips
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2011 MBP Optical Bay Only 3Gb/s? No Problem.

Monday, April 18th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

Since their release, people have been asking whether the 2011 MacBook Pros can use a 6Gb/s SATA drive at full speed in the optical bay, via an adapter such as the OWC Data Doubler. The short answer is: No, you can’t.

Unfortunately, the optical drive bay only runs at SATA 2.0 speeds (3Gb/s). There doesn’t seem to be any firmware setting to enable the faster SATA 3.0 protocol. This is a factory limitation, and we don’t expect any updates from Apple, since they don’t even seem to be officially supporting 6Gb/s right now, anyway.

To reiterate, this is a hardware limitation of the MacBook Pro, not the fault of the 6Gb/s-capable drives themselves. However, it does change the way you may want to look at upgrading your machine.

For best performance, you’ll want to put a 6Gb/s SSD (such as the OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro 6G SSD) in the original drive bay, and use a Data Doubler to install your factory hard drive into the optical drive bay. You’ll get the SATA 3.0 speed boost from the SSD, but still have the high-capacity storage your standard hard drive provides.

If, however, you’d rather not put your hard drive in the optical bay but would still like the speed boost an SSD provides, then we suggest getting one of our original Mercury EXTREME Pro SSDs and pairing it with a Data Doubler, instead.

Either way, you’ll have performance ranging from ludicrous speed to levels you previously could only dream of.

This post has 14 comments.
Category: Tech Tips
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First reviews of the Extreme Pro 6G are in!

Friday, April 15th, 2011 | Author: OWC Chris S.

We are so excited about the new OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD that we did a pre-shipping test to four highly-respected independent review labs—BareFeats, Mac Performance Guide, The SSD Review, and TweakTown—so they could put our new SSD to the test and see how it stacked up. Our hopes were high, especially after all the accolades the 6G’s older brother, the original OWC Mercury Extreme Pro, managed to accrue over the last two years.

We weren’t disappointed. All four reviewers have reported back and it looks like we’ve got another hit on our hands.

In his review of the 6G, Rob-ART of BareFeats said the “OWC 6G SSD is the fastest SSD we have tested to date.” In the SpeedTools Test Suite he used to compare the 6G to the competition, the OWC offering soundly defeated the competition, and in something just as interesting, the Mercury Extreme Pro, a 3Gb/s drive, actually kept pace with (and in one test, beat) a competing 6Gb/s drive! With a showing like that, you can be sure our Mercury Pro 6G SSD is going to be the drive to beat.

Lloyd Chambers of Mac Performance Guide has a tendency to beat the stuffing out of a drive. He subjects these drives to levels of abuse that would take “real world” users years to dish out. You can pretty much see that it takes quite a bit to impress him, so when he declared the performance he got out of his OWC 120GB Mercury Extreme Pro 6G as “never-before-seen single-drive speeds— awesome!” we took that with a great deal of pride, especially when he claimed that “Just yesterday, to get these speeds, I’d have to install two SSDs and use them as a RAID-0 stripe.” Article Continues…

This post has 9 comments.
Category: New @ OWC, Product Spotlight
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Mercury Extreme SSD makes fast new MBP even faster!

Monday, March 28th, 2011 | Author: Guest Blogger

by Peter Schmalfeldt – Satisfied OWC Customer

I got my new 17” MacBook Pro the other day, but before it even hit my doorstep, I already had plans for some surgery. I wanted to swap out the Solid State Drive (SSD) that came with the MacBook Pro (a Toshiba drive provided by Apple) with a better performing & more stable OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD.

Before I swapped anything out, I performed some benchmarking tests and also timed how long it took to boot up the computer and get to a desktop. The second test took 33.7 seconds from the time I pressed the power button until the desktop finished loading.

That’s pretty fast, but I think we can do better…

So, I took it apart to put in the new OWC SSD. I installed it using an OWC Data Doubler, which lets me put a second drive in the optical drive bay. Then, after formatting both drives and re-installing the OS onto my new OWC drive, I turned it on. With the laptop off, pressing the power button and getting to a finished desktop took 21.8 seconds. That shaved about 12 seconds—or about 35%—off the old boot time!

Also, for the sake of science, I ran the Geekbench testing suite before and after the install, and posted the results. The first listing with 10537 is the most recent test with new drive; 10516 was the score with the original drive.

To me, it’s pretty clear that this OWC Mercury SSD smokes the Apple Toshiba SSD that ships with the MacBook Pros that have them installed.

This post has 26 comments.
Category: Product Spotlight, Random Thoughts & Topics
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