OWC 3.5-Inch ATA SSD Bays Based on Sanforce Controller

Other World Computing (OWC) announced its new Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition Solid State Drive (SSD) line, a SandForce processor-based SSD available for pre-Intel PowerPC-based Macs, PCs, and other desktop/tower computers that utilize an internal IDE/ATA drive.

OWC was demonstrating the new Mercury Legacy Pro and other first-to-market OWC Mercury Pro SSDs at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Fast IDE/ATA Drive
Available For Legacy Desktops/Towers
With performance up to 41X faster than today’s traditional hard drives, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition offers desktop, tower, and users of other computers that utilize internal IDE/ATA drives the fastest internal drive performance available today. It eliminates tedious drive spin up wait time and delayed system responsiveness by providing near instant data access, system boots, and app loads.

Solution For Easy Install in 3.5" Drive Bays
For Plug and Play install into standard 3.5" IDE/ATA drive bays, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition comes with a mounting sled and a SATA to IDE/ATA connector cable. Utilizing the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition as a future upgrade in a SATA bus equipped computer and experiencing the drives performance potential of up to 285MB/s is a simple matter of removing the connector cable.

Five Models Starting At $129.99 MSRP
The new OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition is available immediately in five capacities compatible with pre-Intel PowerPC based Macs, PCs, and other desktop/tower computers that utilize an internal IDE/ATA drive:

• 40GB Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition with 7% over provisioning & three year warranty – $129.99
• 60GB Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition with 7% over provisioning & three year warranty – $179.99
• 120GB Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition with 7% over provisioning & three year warranty – $279.99
• 240GB Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition with 7% over provisioning & three year warranty – $579.99
• 480GB Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition with 7% over provisioning & three year warranty – $1599.99

Doesn’t Slow Down With Use Like Ordinary SSDs
Ordinary SSDs offer fast read/write performance during first initial uses, but then experience significant write speed degradation over repeated usage. Independent simulation tests by drive performance experts confirm OWC Mercury Pro brand 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 Legacy Edition is able to provide up to 100X higher data protection than provided by ordinary SSDs as well as 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 Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition provides RAID like data protection and reliability without loss of transfer speed due to parity.

"The Mercury Extreme Pro Legacy Edition SSD line is like getting two upgrades for the price of one," said Larry O’Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. "It can be used in IDE/ATA based computers today thanks to the included installation kit; and then used as a future upgrade in a SATA based machine to unleash the full performance potential of the drive and the machine."