Thursday, January 15, 2009

OWC Mercury On-The-Go (500GB) WOWS the Tech Crowd

By Matt Ryan

With hundreds of external storage units to choose from, it is difficult to know which one is best for you. For those of you who are insistent on backing up your computers, are looking for great performance times, and could use a decent size of storage then OWCs Mercury On-The-Go just might be the right fit.

The Mercury On-The-Go 500GB, 5400RPM offers consumers a variety of high-speed connectivity ports, all easily easy to get to on the back of the unit. These ports include a USB 2.0 port, FireWire 400 port, and FireWire 800 port, although there is no sizable difference, in transfer rates, between the FireWire 400 and FireWire 800. The speed at which, this unit, performs read / write functions is astonishing, and by far, above that of many comparable units.

If you have a camera, camcorder, or any plug-n-play device, that connects via USB 2.0 or FireWire, you now have the ability to connect these devices directly to the Mercury On-The-Go 500GB. There is no longer a need to transfer files to your PC and then to a backup drive, and you can even do this on the road.

The Mercury On-The-Go can by be used by just about anyone, as long as you have a computer with either an Apple or a Windows operating system. The device is delivered unformatted, giving you the ability to format the drive as you see fit. The one, and only, downfall to the formatting, is that you cannot format the drive as FAT32, meaning you will not be able to use the drive on both an Apple and Windows machine.

In the box, you will get an AC adapter, necessary cables, along with backup software. The backup software provided is compatible with either Apple or Windows operating systems as you will receive both NovaStore NovaBackup and Prosoft Data Backup. An additional benefit is the Intech Hard Disk SpeedTools software, which also comes with the Mercury On-The-Go storage device.

You may only need your AC adapter when you are traveling, as most USB 2.0 and FireWire ports will provide enough power for your new unit to run. Shutting down the Mercury On-The-Go is as easy as flipping the power switch that is located on the back of the unit.

OWC encased this drive with a clear hard plastic. This allows consumers to visually experience the inner workings of the device, which is needed considering that the only LED light, on the unit, is on the hard drive itself.

Even though this unit measures 5.5 x 3 x 1 inch, it is still compact and easy to travel with. It is not nearly as compact as many other external drives, but it works. If you look at the fact that the Mercury On-The-Go offers one of the largest storage capacities, on the market, it should be no surprise that the device is not smaller than competitors' devices.

Due to the fact that all of you data is backed up, on one unit, OWC has implemented a 1-year warranty, on this device, on top of the 2-year warranty that Hitachi guaranteed on their TravelStar 5K500.

This unit typically runs for around $359.99, which is a little high for an external storage device. However, OWC counteracted the effect of a high sticker price, with the massive storage capacity and the excessively fast read / write performance. The Mercury On-The-Go is one of those units that is worth a couple extra dollars. - 14915

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