Prosumer range
OWC has added four new "prosumer" SSDs to its
Mercury Extreme Pro SSD line. There will be four capacities, 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB, and
480 GB which can manage sustained read rates up to 285 MB/s with no speed
degradation.
The four SSDs can manage write speeds of up to 275 MB/s,
and sustained random 4KB write performance of 10,000 IOPS (with a burst of up
to 30,000 IOPS). It is all controlled by a fairly powerful SandForce
processor, which can manage seven percent over-provisioning to ensure a high
level of data reliability. The SandForce DuraClass has a better Block Management and
Wear Leveling technology to prevent the loss of data transfer speed over the
long term.
According to the press releasem the Mercury Extreme Pro
SSD 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, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD provides RAID like data
protection and reliability without loss of transfer speed due to parity," claims OWC.
The SSDs aren't cheap the 60GB version is $219.99 and the
480 GB version is $1,579.99.