OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD starts shipping

Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading zero emissions Mac® and PC technology company, today announced its new OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD, the next generation of OWC’s SandForce® Driven™ SATA Revision 3.0 6Gb/s Solid State Drives. By utilizing the highest quality components and design available, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD delivers new heights of drive performance with sustained data rates of up to over 550MB/s - up to 267% faster performance than other leading brands’ 6G SSDs.

Three Capacities Offered Starting At $319.99
The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G, designed and built in the USA, is currently available in a 120GB capacity with limited availability for same day order shipping. Volume availability and fulfillment of all 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB model orders is expected within the next 30 days. Consumers can order with confidence…if the MSRP is lowered before an order ships, OWC will automatically adjust the invoice to the new lower price. Conversely, because the supply of performance flash components is currently impacted due to both growing demand as well as the tragedy in Japan, the drives’ MSRP may be raised, based on cost changes – although existing backorders will be price protected at the level placed. Over the longer term, OWC expects a more normal downward trend in Flash component cost.

120GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G with 7% Over Provisioning, Synchronous Tier 1/Grade A NAND, and Full 16 Channel Utilization $319.99 initial MSRP
Limited availability for immediate same day order shipping

240GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G with 7% Over Provisioning, Synchronous Tier 1/Grade A NAND, and Full 16 Channel Utilization $579.99 initial MSRP
Volume fulfillment by/before 5/20/11

480GB OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G with 7% Over Provisioning, Synchronous Tier 1/Grade A NAND, and Full 16 Channel Utilization $1799.99 initial MSRP
Volume fulfillment by/before 5/31/11

For more information on the OWC Mercury Pro 6G SSDs, visit: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC/Mercury_Extreme_Pro_6G

Leading Benchmarking Sites Confirm Industry Leading Performance
To deliver maximum consumer confidence that the new Pro 6G SSD offers the pinnacle of SSD performance, OWC sent its 120GB capacity model to several leading Mac and PC performance benchmarking sites. The SSD Review awarded the OWC Pro 6G “Editor’s Choice without a second thought”; Barefeats called it “the fastest drive we’ve tested to date.”; MacPerformanceGuide said the Pro 6G offers “never before seen drives speeds….awesome!”; and TweakTown awarded it a ‘Must Have Editor’s Choice’ because it offers “performance higher than you can dream about.” To learn more about these reviews and the complete test results, visit OWC’s blog post at: http://blog.macsales.com/9745-first-reviews-of-the-extreme-pro-6g-are-in

Maximizes Any Computer’s 3G And 6G Data Bus
Whether a consumer has a Mac or PC with the SATA 2.0 (3Gb/s) data bus or machine with the latest SATA 3.0 (6Gb/s) interface, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD is able to deliver near bus saturating speed when installed in either interface. OWC benchmark testing confirms the Pro 6G SSD delivers up to 284MB/s sustained reads and 266MB/s writes in the SATA 2.0 300MB/s max speed bus. Taking advantage of the SATA 3.0 interface’s maximum bandwidth of 600MB/s, the Pro 6G SSD provides up to 559MB/s sustained reads and 515MB/s writes.

Highest Quality Components & Design Combine For Up To 267% Faster Performance To achieve the higher bandwidth potential of the SATA 6Gb/s bus standard, OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSDs utilize synchronous NAND instead of commonly utilized asynchronous NAND. Synchronous NAND enables reads and writes to be "synced" with the SSD processor's clock signal for maximum data throughput. Additionally, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSDs is the first SandForce processor based SSD to utilize a full 16 data channel design instead of lower cost four and eight channel implementations. By combining these best in class processes, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD is able to deliver up to 267% faster performance than other leading brands’ 6G SSDs.

Doesn’t Slow Down With Use Like Ordinary SSDs
Ordinary SSDs offer fast read/write performance during first initial uses, but can then experience significant write speed degradation over repeated, long term usage. Independent simulation tests by leading drive performance experts confirm the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD’s ultra-efficient Block Management & Wear Leveling technologies are able to eliminate virtually any reduction in data transfer speeds over heavy long term usage of the drive and without dependency on less than effective OS TRIM management.

Up To 100X Greater Data Protection
Utilizing SandForce DuraClass™ technology, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G is able to provide up to 100X higher data protection than provided by ordinary SSDs as well as leading enterprise class hard disk drives. By combining the highest level of Error Correction Code (ECC) and SandForce RAISE™ (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) technology along with 7% over provisioning, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G provides RAID like data protection and reliability.

“We’re absolutely thrilled with the expert proclaimed industry fastest performance of these newest Mercury Extreme Pro drives,” said Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. “Those results are a testament to our philosophy of building products with the highest quality components and design architecture to obtain the highest level data transfer speed and reliability.”

Expands Most Comprehensive SSD Line For Macs And PCs

The new Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD joins OWC’s existing line of performance leading, record breaking SATA 2.0 interface Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs available in capacities from 40GB to 480GB starting from $99.97 that recorded industry firsts as well:

• OWC Mercury Aura™ Pro line with the first and only high performance SandForce processor based SSDs for 2008-2010 Apple MacBook® Air models; and netbook/subnotebook computers that use an internal 1.8" sized SATA drive.

• OWC Mercury Legacy™ line with the first and only SandForce processor based IDE/ATA SSDs available for pre-Intel PowerPC based Mac and PC notebook/laptop and desktop/tower computers.