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.
