Other World Computing (OWC), one of the many Mac and PC technology companies, has just announced the introduction of the OWC Mercury Extreme Enterprise SSD, and claimed it as the fastest, most reliable and longest endurance 2.5" SATA Solid State Drive (SSD) that is currenlty available for both PCs and Macs in single or multiple drive use including all RAID configurations.

Unlike most of the other manufacturers, this one at least has its products available for purchase immediately, in capacities of 50, 100 and 200GB. But that's just a small detail, my friends, as these are supposedly the Speedy Gonzales of SSD units, at least for the time being. Sustained read is rated at 271.5MB/sec, as compared to Intel with 263.1MB/sec and Crucial with 264.2MB/sec, and if that's not a considerable difference (which is not, actually), then read on about the sustained write speed, namely 263.6MB/sec for the OWC SSD, compared to 102.8MB/sec on the Intel and 222.1MB/sec on the Crucial unit.

Using SansForce DuraClass technology, the OCW SSD offers one of the highest levels of endurance, performance and power efficiency, along with the Ultra-efficient Block Management and Wear Leveling. More to it, the SandForce Processor boosts up read and write performance to ensure a greater endurance and constant reliability of the drive. Speaking of reliability, the OCW drive packs probably the best in class error correction code (ECC), as well as SandForce RAISE technology for providing RAID-like data protection.

Also, and this is probably good for the ones like me, that are a mess with media, they feature embedded intelligent "recycling" for advanced free space management. Last showing off for now, the manufacturer claims an 8.5x longer use hours than any other name brand SSD. Pricing for these are $229.99 for 50GB, $399.99 for 100GB, and $779.99 for 200GB.


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