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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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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jacobdrj puzzledRAIDWhy 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...Reply
Maybe... -
mavroxur puzzledRAIDWhy RAID 0 if you're already near interface saturation? OTOH, wow.Reply
Just because you reach per-port saturation, doesn't mean you reach controller saturation.
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jcaulley_74 puzzledRAIDWhy 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.Reply -
amlman iwoott!Reply
but it'll take months by the time they get over here (Israel), and they'll most likely cost double :( -
JasonAkkerman 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.Reply
You would be better off with two or three cheaper Intel, or OCZ drives in a RAID configuration. -
festerovic 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?Reply -
MagicPants 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.Reply -
silky salamandr 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.Reply
I still have my rock solid intel 80g x25m that I refuse to "upgrade" until they get it together.