OWC's $129.99 60GB SSD Does 556MB/s Reads
Other World Computing is focused on both price and speed with its new line of Mercury Electra 6G SSD series.
Last week Other World Computing (OWC) revealed the 2.5-inch 60 GB Mercury Electra 6G SSD retailing for $129.99. Using Asynchronous Tier 1/Grade A 2X-nm NAND, a SATA 6 Gb/s interface and a SandForce 2281 Series controller, the drive reportedly delivers up to 556 MB/s sustained read speeds and up to 523 MB/s sustained write speeds.
"Whether a consumer has a Mac or PC with the SATA Revision 2.0 (3 Gb/s) data bus or the latest SATA Revision 3.0 (6 Gb/s) interface, the OWC Mercury 6G SSD line is able to deliver near bus saturating speed when installed in either interface," the company said. "OWC benchmark testing confirms OWC Mercury 6G SSDs delivers sustained data rates over 275 MB/s in the “3G’s” 300 MB/s max speed bus. Taking advantage of “6G’s” interface’s maximum bandwidth of 600 MB/s, Mercury 6G SSDs provide up to 559 MB/s sustained reads and 527 MB/s writes."
In addition to the 60 GB drive, OWC also offers 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB capacities. There's also the EXTREME Pro 6G SSD line for graphic production professionals, photographers and other pros that provides over 500 MB/s sustained data rates and up to 479 MB/s incompressible data rates. They can be used as a single drive, or incorporated into a RAID 0, 1, 10 or SPAN configuration. This "Pro" line comes in 120 GB, 240 GB, and 480 GB capacities.
As for the 60 GB Mercury Electra 6G SSD, the drive provides random 4K reads up to 60,000 IOPS, random 4K writes up to 60,000 IOPS, read and write latencies of less than 0.1 ms, support for DuraWrite, intelligent "recycling," intelligent block management and wear leveling, intelligent read disturb management and more.
To learn more about the entire Mercury Electra 6G SSD line, head here. Prices range from $129.99 to $894.99 USD.
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Why RAID 0 if you're already near interface saturation? OTOH, wow.
Why RAID 0 if you're already near interface saturation? OTOH, wow.
In certain configurations, such as using a dedicated hardware server-grade RAID card, you may get more bandwidth than going over the included motherboard SATA III hardware...
Maybe...
Why RAID 0 if you're already near interface saturation? OTOH, wow.
Just because you reach per-port saturation, doesn't mean you reach controller saturation.
Why RAID 0 if you're already near interface saturation? OTOH, wow.
SATA ports do not share bandwidth with each other. Each port has the full badwidth available to it. So in theory, a 4 drive RAID 0 array on SATA 6Gb/s has 24Gb/s available to it. The controller will play a part in how well it manages this available bandwidth, and dedicated RAID cards will probably handle it better, but even motherboard integrated controllers should be able to utilize this bandwidth to achieve higher speeds than a single channel.
iwoott!
but it'll take months by the time they get over here (Israel), and they'll most likely cost double
This is over $2 per GB. Yes it's a fast drive, but at those sizes you need at least two to support your OS and just a few apps/games (comfortably, as you don't want to reach capacity on an SSD). You have entered the land of diminishing returns.
You would be better off with two or three cheaper Intel, or OCZ drives in a RAID configuration.
Plz correct me if I'm wrong - previous reviews on sandforce 2 controller SSDs mentioned that some of the features, such as garbage collection, may not work correctly when the drive is RAID'd on windows. Is this true of this particular drive also?
What I really want is a good cache drive. It should be 64gb, slc, and make good use of sata 3. I'd pay near $300 for that. With smart response it's got to be slc or you're going to see drives wearing out.
$2.16 a GB!! We want prices to go down, not up.
People want the prices to go down but they dont want that. So they've done the other marketing ploy and making them faster like we need them faster becuase if your not transferring huge files the speed really is not returned in the real world.
I still have my rock solid intel 80g x25m that I refuse to "upgrade" until they get it together.
Same (well, mine's a Corsair Force 80g, but same idea). The real-world performance difference between these "high-performance" SSDs and previous SATA2 models is negligible for the majority of users. What the SSD markets needs is lower prices (and fewer glitches) to encourage adoption, not faster-and-faster drives that cost even more.
Indeed!
Stop whining about high prices of these, you got to pay to play I say. Get another job if you cant swing it. Or hey Obama is in charge, it should be free then...
Stop whining about high prices of these, you got to pay to play I say. Get another job if you cant swing it. Or hey Obama is in charge, it should be free then...
Leave it to you and you only to say something stupid. Seems to be the trend from you these days. If you dont have nothing to add, then why waste your time and post. Step down from your box.
iwoott!but it'll take months by the time they get over here (Israel), and they'll most likely cost double
I'm in New Zealand.. we get it way worse...
It's good to see technology still moving ahead!
Also these new stuff will always be higher in price than previous stuff,so we gotta expect it. These companies put a lot of money into these projects,so they have to seek some returns someway or another.
I'm willing to bet the real world performance is still, on average, in the 400s for reads, and 120-180 for the writes... Please allow some benchmarks to prove me wrong.
Same (well, mine's a Corsair Force 80g, but same idea). The real-world performance difference between these "high-performance" SSDs and previous SATA2 models is negligible for the majority of users. What the SSD markets needs is lower prices (and fewer glitches) to encourage adoption, not faster-and-faster drives that cost even more.
i have said it before, and i will say it again. these drives are fast enough, they need to stop focusing on speed and focus on price.
i would pay for an ssd, i would, but i need a 240gb drive minimum, and im not paying more than 50 cents a gb.
i have said it before, and i will say it again. these drives are fast enough, they need to stop focusing on speed and focus on price. i would pay for an ssd, i would, but i need a 240gb drive minimum, and im not paying more than 50 cents a gb.
i completely agree, i cant understand who is using only a 60gb drive as their main drive?? are you people nuts? even 128mb is too small. need at least 200gb minimum.
i completely agree, i cant understand who is using only a 60gb drive as their main drive?? are you people nuts? even 128mb is too small. need at least 200gb minimum.
60gb main drive. i can think of a few uses.
main pc boot drive for someone who shuts down often
main pc boot drive for heavy on loading programs
laptop main drive, very useful here
laptop boot drive with a hdd for storage second
but i get what you mean, 60gb is nothing compared to todays games, oses, and programs.
most people want a ssd just for booting programs, which i admit, is fast. but i have a folder, that has 80gb of files, all rar and zip, that constantly takes minutes to load the folder, and as of yet, i have no real method to sort it.
what i want an ssd for isn't boot, but as a storage device with no seek time. i would take a 50mb read and write, just for that no seek time as it would make the drive seams almost godly in speed. granted that folder with the rar and zip needs a minimum of 1tb space, its the same for many of my files, the folders take a long time to load.
I am curious if import fees apply for EU member countries. I tried to buy an $500 3D TV from Amazon and have been asked for $200 more import tax.
They shouldn't charge extra for EU, this way we won't buy US made goods for now.
i completely agree, i cant understand who is using only a 60gb drive as their main drive?? are you people nuts? even 128mb is too small. need at least 200gb minimum.
Windows 7, every program I need, and the game or 2 I play the most fits perfectly on a 64gb drive with about 20gb free.. Ive got plenty of storage for everything else in 2x750gb in raid0 and 2x2tb in raid0.. I cant understand someone who couldnt properly manage a 64/60gb drive..
This is over $2 per GB. Yes it's a fast drive, but at those sizes you need at least two to support your OS and just a few apps/games (comfortably, as you don't want to reach capacity on an SSD). You have entered the land of diminishing returns. You would be better off with two or three cheaper Intel, or OCZ drives in a RAID configuration.
Well I use my laptop for development at work (as most codemonkeys here are) and a single 2.5" is what fits in my computer.