Other World Computing (OWC) introduced a new portable SSD and it is quite a beast. Not in regards to its design, but rather its specifications. The new Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini is a portable SSD that utilizes up to two SSDs to achieve speeds up to 738 MB/s and up to 4TB capacity. All wrapped up nicely into a stylish enclosure that connects through USB 3.1 Gen2.
“OWC storage solutions help creative professionals go further – both in the studio and in the field,” said Larry O’Connor, CEO, OWC. “With the Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini, we’re providing a powerful and portable USB 3.1 Gen 2 RAID solution that is ready for demanding mobile workflows, wherever they might be.”
The above almost speaks for itself, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t take a look at the full specifications and talk more about the drive. The up to 738MB/s performance rating is for sequential reads, but it is great at writing too with 650MB/s ratings. This is thanks to the built-in RAID functionality and the connection through a 10Gbps protocol that is USB 3.1 Gen.2.
The drive supports RAID 0 for doubling the capacity as well as RAID 1 for redundancy effect. Besides those, it also supports JBOD and Span. There are a lot of choices when it comes to the capacity too and it can come equipped with 240GB, 480GB, 1TB and 2TB SSD capacity or 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB HDD capacities.
The drive is fully bus-powered, so there’s no need for extra power supplies. Modern USB 3.1 can deliver plenty of power to support all kinds of setups. Besides the versions with SSDs or HDDs included, the enclosure can also be had without drives so you can install whichever drives you already own.
OWC backs the Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini with a 3-year warranty. As for the costs, the SSD models will set you back $238.99, $348.99, $548.99, and $798 respectively while the HDD models will cost you $228.99, $268.99 and $329.99. The empty enclosure can be yours for $79.99.
