Press

Committed to leading the personal, SMB, and Enterprise Solid State Drive (SSD) industry, Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, announced today that it will highlight its broad line of award-winning SSDs in its booth #5231 in the LVCC North Hall during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week. The line includes a new consumer/prosumer notebook SSD and a new SMB/Enterprise SSD announced in separate CES press releases. With SSDs for nearly every Mac and PC produced during the past decade, OWC is the most comprehensive US manufacturer of industry leading SandForce® processor-based SSDs available today.

SSD Popularity Soaring
iSuppli expects 2011 SSD revenue to hit $4.4 billion—up 91 percent from $2.3 billion in 2010. By 2014, iSuppli expects SSD revenue to reach $7 billion. 2011 SSD shipments are projected to reach approximately 15 million units, compared to 6.9 million in 2010.

Key reasons for the growing popularity of SSDs include speed—they’re faster than any hard drive; there are no moving parts to fail and they offer a more reliable computing experience than hard disk drives (HDDs). OWC has taken these benefits a step further by enhancing its Customer Value Proposition.

OWC Customer Value Proposition
OWC only uses Tier 1/Grade A NAND flash in their SSDs, which cannot be said for all manufacturers. In addition, because OWC is the only company with volume SSD design and production in the US, it has a level of control in the manufacturing process not typically found in other brands. Confident in the reliability and performance of its SSDs, OWC encourages Mac and PC users to test drive its SSDs and was the first to offer a no-risk, no-hassle 30-day money back guarantee. OWC was also the first brand to offer a five-year warranty and is now the only brand to offer up to a seven-year warranty on its Mercury Enterprise SSD models.

Revered by Mac users worldwide, OWC remains the only aftermarket performance upgrade source for the 2010-2011 Apple® MacBook® Air. OWC also offers the industry’s only complete firmware support for the full line of Apple Intel Mac models made since 2006 and the first and only Mac-friendly and bootable firmware updater for SandForce Driven™ SSDs.Recognizing that customer service is pivotal to its success and its customers’ trust, OWC enhances its value proposition with a commitment to deliver the highest level of customer satisfaction, support and care.

The OWC SSD Difference
In addition to being designed and built-in-the-US from domestic and imported parts, all OWC SSDs feature:

• SandForce Processors with up to 28 percent over provisioning to maximize read/write performance and significantly extend the SSD’s endurance and overall reliability
• Up to 100x greater data protection than the highest rated enterprise-class conventional HDD provides
• SandForce DuraClass™ technology with ultra-efficient block management and wear leveling to eliminate virtually any reduction in data transfer speeds over heavy, long-term usage without dependency on less-than-effective OS TRIM management
• Intelligent "recycling" for advanced, free space management
• Best-in-class error correction (ECC) and SandForce RAISE™ technology for RAID-like data protection and reliability without loss of transfer speed due to parity
• 256-bit and 128-bit AES-compliant chip-based data encryption for added security

The OWC SSD Family
OWC’s Mercury Electra™ 6G SSD consumer model offers over 500MB/s sustained data rate performance. In addition to single drive use, it can be incorporated into a RAID 1 or SPAN configuration and is available in 60GB, 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB capacities with prices starting at $119.00. The Electra model is backed by a 3-year warranty.

OWC’s Mercury EXTREME™ Pro 6G SSD offers prosumers and A/V, photography, and graphic production professionals the ultimate in professional-grade SSD performance with over 500MB/s sustained data rates and up to 479MB/s incompressible data rates. In addition to single drive use, it can be incorporated into a RAID 0, 1, 10 or SPAN configuration, and is available in 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB capacities with prices starting at $239.99. The EXTREME model comes backed by a 5-year warranty.

OWC’s Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G SSD provides ultra-high-performance for demanding portable and desktop/tower Mac and PC users. Nearly saturating the SATA 3Gb/s bus, the Mercury EXTREME Pro 3G SSD delivers a data rate of up to 285MB/s. The 3G SSD is available with capacities of 30GB, 40GB, 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB with prices starting at $54.99 and a 3-year warranty.

The OWC Mercury Aura® Pro Express 6G SSDs is the first and only alternative to factory SSD options for the 2011 MacBook Air. The SandForce 2200-driven models deliver capacities that are nearly 4x greaterthan factory available SSD options. Because it is SATA Revision 3.0 (6Gb/s) compatible, it can take advantage of the 2011 MacBook Air’s built-in 6Gb/s SATA data bus to deliver peak, sustained data rates over 500MB/s, versus the factory installed SSDs, which are limited by SATA Revision 2.0 (3Gb/s) capability. The SSDs are now available in three sizes—120GB, 240GB and the newly announced 480GB model—with prices starting at $259.99 and are backed by a 3-year warranty.

With the OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 3G SSDs, 2010-2011 MacBook Air owners seeking maximum storage/backup capacity can replace their factory installed SSD with up to 8x greater capacity and up to 68 percent faster performance than the factory SSD. The 3G models are available in 180GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities with prices starting at $264.99 and are backed by a 3-year warranty.

The OWC Mercury Aura Pro MBA provides MacBook Air 2008/2009 edition users with speeds up to 41x faster than factory hard drive models. This SSD also offers up to 4x more capacity than the original factory SSD model. Prices for the SandForce-driven SSDs start at $129.99 and they are available with capacities of 40GB, 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and soon 480GB. The OWC Mercury Aura Pro MBA has a 3-year warranty.

The OWC Mercury EXTREME Pro Legacy Edition 3G provides a complete solution for easy installation into 3.5” IDE/ATA desktop systems. Offering 41x faster performance, the SSD starts fast and stays fast. Backed by a 3-year warranty, the 3G SSD is available in 40GB, 60GB, 115GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities with prices starting at $127.99.

OWC’s Mercury Legacy™ Pro is the fastest drive available for all of yesterday’s Mac and PC laptops that use a 2.5” IDE/ATA drive. It eliminates tedious drive spin up wait time and delayed system responsiveness by providing near instant data access, system boots, and app loads. The drive is available in 40GB, 60GB, 120GB and 240GB capacities with prices starting at $139.99 and includes a 3-year warranty.

The OWC Mercury Aura Pro 1.8" SATA 3GB/s SSD is for netbooks, subnotebooks and special applications that utilize a 1.8" SATA drive. The SSD delivers data rates of up to 275MB/s and up to 16x more capacity than the original factory hard drive option. The SSD is available in 40GB, 60GB, 120GB, 240GB and 480GB capacities with prices starting at $114.99 and includes a 3-year warranty.

Leveraging its success in the consumer/prosumer SSD arena, OWC will be unveiling the OWC Mercury Enterprise Pro 6G SSD at CES this week. (See separate OWC VPO press release.) Designed for demanding mission-critical Enterprise applications, this high-performance model will have 28 percent over provisioning, the longest warranty in the industry (seven years), and is available in 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, and 400GB capacities with prices starting at $629.00.

Availability
For more information on the complete OWC SSD line, including expert benchmark reviews, visit: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC. For more information on the OWC catalog of over 2,900 performance upgrades and accessories, or for reseller inquires, visit: http://eshop.macsales.com. For assistance in replacing a drive, click on Upgrading Your System Drive. OWC also has do-it-yourself installation videos posted on its web site.