OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD now offers 4TB capacity

AppleInsider

Mac upgrade specialist OWC has introduced a 4TB version of the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD, a high-performance drive for Mac and PC that claims to offer consistent reading and writing speeds over its entire range.

The Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSD is a universal-fit drive that works in any system accepting 2.5-inch SATA SSDs. This means it can be used as a replacement drive for older MacBooks, desktop Macs like the Mac Pro, and other notebooks and PCs.

Aimed at audio and video editing and production, as well as photography industries, OWC claims the drive excels at providing sustained performance. Read and write speeds exceeding 500MB/s are reported across all of a drive's capacity, instead of experiencing slowness when it starts to fill up with data. The drive's peak reading speed is 559MB/s, while writing tops out at 527MB/s.

The drive uses a combination of DuraWrite and RAISE technologies, as well as Tier 1 NAND flash, which is touted to offer high levels of data reliability, integrity, and longevity. Overprovisioning by 7% enables there to be headroom for data management, enabling both high performance and reliability levels.

OWC also offers a five-year limited warranty for the drive, along with live support.

The range is offered in capacities from 240 gigabytes, priced at $79.75, rising to 480GB for $119.75, and 1 terabyte for $219.75. A 2 terabyte drive costs $429.75, while the highest capacity at 4 terabytes is priced at $899.75.

Mac models capable of an upgrade with the SSD include the non-Retina MacBook Pro (Mid-2012 and earlier, all sizes), MacBook (Mid-2010 and earlier), Mac mini (Late 2014 and earlier), Mac Pro (2019, 2012 and earlier), and the iMac (2019 and earlier).

rob53

It’s amazing how far SSD speeds have come because 6G is actually slow except when comparing it to HDD turtle speeds. NVMe is a minimum of 4X faster but you need a newer motherboard with newer PCIe buses to achieve it. I’ve put OWC SSDs into MacBooks and iMacs and they make a huge difference. Just this change makes older Macs usable again. If you can easily open you Mac to replace the drive it’s the best couple hundred dollar fix you can do. 

maciekskontakt

How about comparing it to Inland Professional for half price almost the same speed sustained?

Mike Wuerthele

maciekskontakt said:

How about comparing it to Inland Professional for half price almost the same speed sustained?

I have an Inland Professional SATA drive, and it in no way sustains the claimed OWC speeds when the writes start piling up. Obviously, I don't have one of the new OWC drives, though.

andyring

What? Is this a 5-year-old repurposed article? Yeah, they're good drives but grossly overpriced. A Crucial 2TB SSD runs $199 with the same specs, or virtually the same specs. OWC's is $429.

In the last 5-6 years at work, we've used OWCs drives and ones from Crucial, Samsung, Kingston and others. Honestly, the non-OWC ones have been both cheaper AND more reliable. 

GeorgeBMac

I was under the impression that Mac drives (at least SSDs) had firmware that 3rd party drives could not duplicate (so the machine would lose some level of functionality)  -- and that Apple could refuse work on a machine modified by the user?

Is that false?

Or does it only apply to SSDs?

Or is it maybe technically true but of little importance?

Or is it a serious consideration?

Mike Wuerthele

GeorgeBMac said:

I was under the impression that Mac drives (at least SSDs) had firmware that 3rd party drives could not duplicate (so the machine would lose some level of functionality)  -- and that Apple could refuse work on a machine modified by the user?

Is that false?

Or does it only apply to SSDs?

Or is it maybe technically true but of little importance?

Or is it a serious consideration?

You may be thinking about TRIM support.

ziggie

andyring said:

What? Is this a 5-year-old repurposed article? Yeah, they're good drives but grossly overpriced. A Crucial 2TB SSD runs $199 with the same specs, or virtually the same specs. OWC's is $429.

If you're referring to the Crucial MX500, this use TLC NAND while the OWC use MLC. 

Hank2.0

I believe Apple enabled TRIM support with OS X El Capitan, OS X 10.10.4. It requires a command-line executable, named “trimforce” to activate it. Prior to that you used an app called "Trim Enabler" which is still around. I still use it because it has other health and maintenance features. Available at Cindori.org for about $15 (I'm just a satisfied user, not a shill).

melgross

I don’t think I would want an obsolete drive like this. With most every Mac offered the past few years having Thunderbolt, this drive is an insult. If it had both Thu derbolt and USB C version 2 or 3, I could get behind it. But why should anyone settle for 55MB/s when most others now offer 2GB/s? Makes no sense.

steve_jobs

 Take a look : https://gist.github.com/chris1111/30b9123a6d06864c0fe34666a107f72b ,should be nice if it were enabled by default.
At least in my ssd experience since its well tied to the ssd controller.

cia

First off, in regards to speed, this is a SATA III drive.  The SATA III bus is the limiting factor for speeds, not the drive.  

Second, this drive uses MLC, which allows it to provide those peak speeds over very long writes.  TLC is great and cheap, but when you are copying large files (Example, 2 hours of ProRes video in one file, is about 122 gig) TLC based drives will hit bottlenecks and slow down.  TLC has limits that most users don't ever see.  MLC (and even better, SLC) handles stuff like this better.

This is a "pro" drive for pro users who are still using SATAIII based machines.

If you don't read/write hundreds and hundreds of GB every day, you don't need this drive, buy a cheaper SSD and you won't notice the difference.   

I have an NVME PCI card in my MacPro, but also have a cheap $20 SATA III card in there too, this drive will work well in my video workflow as a 1080p live video record drive.

tzeshan

cia said:

First off, in regards to speed, this is a SATA III drive.  The SATA III bus is the limiting factor for speeds, not the drive.  

Second, this drive uses MLC, which allows it to provide those peak speeds over very long writes.  TLC is great and cheap, but when you are copying large files (Example, 2 hours of ProRes video in one file, is about 122 gig) TLC based drives will hit bottlenecks and slow down.  TLC has limits that most users don't ever see.  MLC (and even better, SLC) handles stuff like this better.

This is a "pro" drive for pro users who are still using SATAIII based machines.

If you don't read/write hundreds and hundreds of GB every day, you don't need this drive, buy a cheaper SSD and you won't notice the difference.   

I have an NVME PCI card in my MacPro, but also have a cheap $20 SATA III card in there too, this drive will work well in my video workflow as a 1080p live video record drive.

Thanks for the info? Is TLC suitable for Time Machine backup?

GeorgeBMac

Mike Wuerthele said:

GeorgeBMac said:

I was under the impression that Mac drives (at least SSDs) had firmware that 3rd party drives could not duplicate (so the machine would lose some level of functionality)  -- and that Apple could refuse work on a machine modified by the user?

Is that false?

Or does it only apply to SSDs?

Or is it maybe technically true but of little importance?

Or is it a serious consideration?

You may be thinking about TRIM support.

Or, I just had bad information! 

I had read that if a third party drive were used in a MacBook that sleep/wake did not function correctly.   But that was unverified information.

Thanks for the correction.

cia

tzeshan said:

cia said:

First off, in regards to speed, this is a SATA III drive.  The SATA III bus is the limiting factor for speeds, not the drive.  

Second, this drive uses MLC, which allows it to provide those peak speeds over very long writes.  TLC is great and cheap, but when you are copying large files (Example, 2 hours of ProRes video in one file, is about 122 gig) TLC based drives will hit bottlenecks and slow down.  TLC has limits that most users don't ever see.  MLC (and even better, SLC) handles stuff like this better.

This is a "pro" drive for pro users who are still using SATAIII based machines.

If you don't read/write hundreds and hundreds of GB every day, you don't need this drive, buy a cheaper SSD and you won't notice the difference.   

I have an NVME PCI card in my MacPro, but also have a cheap $20 SATA III card in there too, this drive will work well in my video workflow as a 1080p live video record drive.

Thanks for the info? Is TLC suitable for Time Machine backup?

Literally anything (even old slow cheap massive spinning drives) is fine for Time Machine backups.  I personally use a Western Digital 8TB spinning disk USB3 external drive for my Time Machine Backups.  I paid maybe $100 for it.

tzeshan

cia said:

tzeshan said:

cia said:

First off, in regards to speed, this is a SATA III drive.  The SATA III bus is the limiting factor for speeds, not the drive.  

Second, this drive uses MLC, which allows it to provide those peak speeds over very long writes.  TLC is great and cheap, but when you are copying large files (Example, 2 hours of ProRes video in one file, is about 122 gig) TLC based drives will hit bottlenecks and slow down.  TLC has limits that most users don't ever see.  MLC (and even better, SLC) handles stuff like this better.

This is a "pro" drive for pro users who are still using SATAIII based machines.

If you don't read/write hundreds and hundreds of GB every day, you don't need this drive, buy a cheaper SSD and you won't notice the difference.   

I have an NVME PCI card in my MacPro, but also have a cheap $20 SATA III card in there too, this drive will work well in my video workflow as a 1080p live video record drive.

Thanks for the info? Is TLC suitable for Time Machine backup?

Literally anything (even old slow cheap massive spinning drives) is fine for Time Machine backups.  I personally use a Western Digital 8TB spinning disk USB3 external drive for my Time Machine Backups.  I paid maybe $100 for it.

I use a G-drive. But it takes too much time. 

commentzilla

GeorgeBMac said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

GeorgeBMac said:

I was under the impression that Mac drives (at least SSDs) had firmware that 3rd party drives could not duplicate (so the machine would lose some level of functionality)  -- and that Apple could refuse work on a machine modified by the user?

Is that false?

Or does it only apply to SSDs?

Or is it maybe technically true but of little importance?

Or is it a serious consideration?

You may be thinking about TRIM support.

Or, I just had bad information! 

I had read that if a third party drive were used in a MacBook that sleep/wake did not function correctly.   But that was unverified information.

Thanks for the correction.

I've had 4 different models of OWC drives in a 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013 MBP and 2011 iMac and there were never any functionality issues at all. A vast improvement over the stock drives, SSD or HD.

commentzilla

melgross said:

I don’t think I would want an obsolete drive like this. With most every Mac offered the past few years having Thunderbolt, this drive is an insult. If it had both Thu derbolt and USB C version 2 or 3, I could get behind it. But why should anyone settle for 55MB/s when most others now offer 2GB/s? Makes no sense.

You mean 550 MB/s? Not everyone needs 2GB/s and those drives do cost significantly more per GB. The quality of the memory and the warranty are also an important consideration.

You can put these drives in Thunderbolt, USB-C or USB-A enclosures with SATA interfaces. There is almost an endless number of offerings. A Thunderbolt interface would only pay off in a RAID configuration, short of that a USB-C enclosure is the best option for Thunderbolt Macs. 

commentzilla

tzeshan said:

cia said:

tzeshan said:

cia said:

First off, in regards to speed, this is a SATA III drive.  The SATA III bus is the limiting factor for speeds, not the drive.  

Second, this drive uses MLC, which allows it to provide those peak speeds over very long writes.  TLC is great and cheap, but when you are copying large files (Example, 2 hours of ProRes video in one file, is about 122 gig) TLC based drives will hit bottlenecks and slow down.  TLC has limits that most users don't ever see.  MLC (and even better, SLC) handles stuff like this better.

This is a "pro" drive for pro users who are still using SATAIII based machines.

If you don't read/write hundreds and hundreds of GB every day, you don't need this drive, buy a cheaper SSD and you won't notice the difference.   

I have an NVME PCI card in my MacPro, but also have a cheap $20 SATA III card in there too, this drive will work well in my video workflow as a 1080p live video record drive.

Thanks for the info? Is TLC suitable for Time Machine backup?

Literally anything (even old slow cheap massive spinning drives) is fine for Time Machine backups.  I personally use a Western Digital 8TB spinning disk USB3 external drive for my Time Machine Backups.  I paid maybe $100 for it.

I use a G-drive. But it takes too much time. 

I'm using a standard Apple Time Capsule which backups up incrementally every hour. Why would I care how long it takes? For a clone time might be an issue.

In the end these OWC drives are an all around cost effective solution. There are also some middle of the road NVME drives that offer 1GB/s which are less pricy than the 2GB/s models. 

chasm

commentzilla said:

You can put these drives in Thunderbolt, USB-C or USB-A enclosures with SATA interfaces. There is almost an endless number of offerings. A Thunderbolt interface would only pay off in a RAID configuration, short of that a USB-C enclosure is the best option for Thunderbolt Macs. 

I was thinking about TB1 (which my semi-retired 2012 MBP has) for that, but unless there's a TB1 to USB-C adapter I'm not aware of, USB-C is not really an option for that vintage machine (it's easy enough to get a USB 3.x to USB-C adapter, but then your potential speed gets cut at least in half). It's telling how far Apple/Intel was ahead of the game with even the earliest Thunderbolt -- which had 10Gb/sec per channel -- that only USB-C 3.1 gen2 (one of the most recent versions of USB-C and still uncommon outside the Apple world) has managed to equal.

MacPro

commentzilla said:

tzeshan said:

cia said:

tzeshan said:

cia said:

First off, in regards to speed, this is a SATA III drive.  The SATA III bus is the limiting factor for speeds, not the drive.  

Second, this drive uses MLC, which allows it to provide those peak speeds over very long writes.  TLC is great and cheap, but when you are copying large files (Example, 2 hours of ProRes video in one file, is about 122 gig) TLC based drives will hit bottlenecks and slow down.  TLC has limits that most users don't ever see.  MLC (and even better, SLC) handles stuff like this better.

This is a "pro" drive for pro users who are still using SATAIII based machines.

If you don't read/write hundreds and hundreds of GB every day, you don't need this drive, buy a cheaper SSD and you won't notice the difference.   

I have an NVME PCI card in my MacPro, but also have a cheap $20 SATA III card in there too, this drive will work well in my video workflow as a 1080p live video record drive.

Thanks for the info? Is TLC suitable for Time Machine backup?

Literally anything (even old slow cheap massive spinning drives) is fine for Time Machine backups.  I personally use a Western Digital 8TB spinning disk USB3 external drive for my Time Machine Backups.  I paid maybe $100 for it.

I use a G-drive. But it takes too much time. 

I'm using a standard Apple Time Capsule which backups up incrementally every hour. Why would I care how long it takes? For a clone time might be an issue.

In the end these OWC drives are an all around cost effective solution. There are also some middle of the road NVME drives that offer 1GB/s which are less pricy than the 2GB/s models. 

I worry about Time Machine these days.  Dropped in 2018 by Apple.  No APFS.  I worry about how well it can truly back up and restore an APFS boot drive with Catalina.  It's dog slow due to hardlinks and I swear it degrades the LAN speed.