OWC Mercury Elite hard drive experiences ?

Gabo · 01-12-2007, 06:08 PM

Hi everyone,
I'm new to the forum (though I stumble upon a LOT of information here with googles searches, which I must say is VERY helpful).

I read some topics concerning issues with external hard drives and have been able to further narrow my choice for a first external HD.

My list is as follows:
Western Digital My Book Pro Edition
LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface
G-Drive Q Serial ATA 500GB drive
OWC Mercury Elite Al Pro

I am looking for a "portable" drive with around 300Gb (for a good GBs/$ trade off). I'm in graphic design and must use it to perform editing tasks, thus the choice for triple interface (or quad which could be useful in the future but I have a macbook pro corde duo 17" at the moment and don't want to spend on a PCI card for sata).

With those choices made, I am still wondering about some points. First, I can barely understand the importance of Oxford chipset number, only thing I "know" is that most people seem to recommend 911+ or 924 (what about 912?). I am also hoping to get a SATA drive since it looks like it'll become a standard.

If you could give me your toughts about each of those drives (if some are getting "old" or too expensive in your opinion, bad experiences, overheating when plugged all day long, is on/off switch a must, blah blah blah

) that'd really help me. I would also like to know if anyone has any experience with OWC since their prices look really competitive and their drives seem well-built.

I must also point out that I chose those drives for price/quality reasons. The Lacie is sold at my university which drops the price, Western Digital looks rather "cheap" considering GBs/$ and quality for such price, OWC looks like pretty well reviewed (?) and G-Drive is expensive but not much people seem to have had bad experiences with it. There was also the Iomega Black series I tought off but the Triple interface 250 or 320 Gb isn't listed on their site anymore I think...

And finally, if someone could help me figure out why this RAID setup
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../ME8SR500GB32/
costs less than the single drive
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MAU8F7500G16/
Is it simply because they decided of those prices or are there specs I don't quite understand that could greatly affect their respective performances?!

Whew... think that's about it, hope you guys will be able to help me out on this one. Oh and by the way my budget is around 300$CAN...something like 270$ I think?! Is it ok or should i put some extra $ for something that'll last much longer?

Thanks to all in advance!

Gabo · 01-14-2007, 01:24 PM

Anyone, at least some advices about known reliability of those (LaCie and OWC Mercury Elite Al Pro Raid and single drive)? It's quite hard to looks these up alone actually...

styrafome · 01-14-2007, 01:40 PM

I own a LaCie, but I do not feel like buying another. I bought a Western Digital and returned it. All the other external drives I have are OWC or Transintl.com, both 2.5" and 3.5" size. I'm keeping those.

AHunter3 · 01-14-2007, 03:54 PM

I back up to an OWC Mercury Elite Pro, using FW-800. Never had a problem with it.

I've had a couple of those 2" On-the-Go external firewire drives (and/or "bring your own drive" kits) and with those, my experience = not so good. It's not the drives, it's something about the enclosure, its chips, connectors, board, etc (same drives work fine in other deployment). But several different drives in two different copies of that external case both exhibit the same symptom: drive starts clicking (some drives also beep!), any app trying to access data or save data on that drive gets a lollipop-beachball, and it's usually necessary to power off the external, say byebye to unsaved data, wait for the error messages about volume not put away properly, then power it back up and let it mount.

So: mixed-bag results for OWC, but so far no probs with anything bearing the "Elite" line name.

styrafome · 01-14-2007, 05:13 PM

I've got 3 or 4 of those On-the-Go enclosures from the times I upgraded the drives in my Mac and PC laptops over the years when I needed a place to keep the old drive useful. I've switched various drives in and out of the cases numerous times, probably more times than they're designed for. For whatever reason the number of problems I've had with them is zero. I really like them. I also use them bus-powered 99% of the time, and have never fried a port. Just another data point.

Gabo · 01-15-2007, 03:52 PM

Ok, I guess OWC Elite would be the thing to go with for the moment then, is it still portable for a single drive enclosure?

And anyone has an answer about my "RAID versus single drive" setup they offer.

Quote from first post:
And finally, if someone could help me figure out why this RAID setup
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../ME8SR500GB32/
costs less than the single drive
http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MAU8F7500G16/
Is it simply because they decided of those prices or are there specs I don't quite understand that could greatly affect their respective performances?!

coyotewriter · 04-17-2007, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabo


	Ok, I guess OWC Elite would be the thing to go with for the moment then, is it still portable for a single drive enclosure? And anyone has an answer about my "RAID versus single drive" setup they offer. Quote from first post: And finally, if someone could help me figure out why this RAID setup http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../ME8SR500GB32/ costs less than the single drive http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MAU8F7500G16/ Is it simply because they decided of those prices or are there specs I don't quite understand that could greatly affect their respective performances?!

it's because 2 250gb drives cost less than 1 500gb drive. i have 2 "on the go" owc 100gb drives and 1 elite 500 raid (w/ 2 250gb drives) which i got sfter my 500 lacie tanked. so far, so good: i love 'em.

papalud · 06-26-2007, 01:19 PM

I bought a OWC Mercury Elite Pro 500 gig drive after reading all the good reviews. I was using it as a back-up drive for my Lacie, so I transfered data to it about once a month. About 2 weeks ago the drive was no longer seen by any computer, and the light on front was blinking. I emailed tech support, who asked if it was seen in disk utility- I answered no--no reply from OWC...I sent another email---no reply from OWC. I called about a week later and the tech said the drive needs to come back, 50/50 chance the data is still there, email for a RMA number. So I email for the RMA number and again I get an email asking if the drive is seen in Disk Utility.

I'm waiting to see what happens with this. I can't say that I have much confidence in OWC products. This drive was only 7 months old and barely used. It has always been plugged into a battery back-up system.

I've never had problems with any of my Lacie hard drives, but I kept reading reviews of drives dying, so I thought I'd try OWC. I guess I'll stick with Lacie.

tws · 09-12-2007, 08:59 AM

i just caught this thread and thought it would be prudent to advise you of my experience with OWC.

on 4/23/07 i purchased 500GB OWC Mercury Elite-AL for $249.99

late august it malfunctioned and i lost 100gb's of data which was not recoverable. i called OWC and arranged for a replacement RMA...

it arrived yesterday and i discovered that they returned the same drive. it appears they simply repackaged it and sent it back. i can confirm this as i made a little felt tip pen mark on the outside case. also the drive seems to be loose inside the enclosure. this morning i talked to a customer service person and was advised that i could not have my money returned - after 30 days.

i was asked to call a mr. ben priest ext 163 at a later time...

i'm waiting to see if i can have my drive replaced with a new one...

i'll report more later and hope that it is good news...

tws

tws · 09-12-2007, 10:18 AM

just spoke with ben priest of OWC customer service. although they do not offer a refund after 30 days, they at least seem responsible for their products. he assured me that my drive was checked out and found to be OK.

if the drive were not, it would have been replaced. the enclosure is the same and not swapped out.

just wanted to provide a followup...

these drives have come down in price since i purchased this one last april.

fingers crossed...

tws

kerouac · 09-13-2007, 02:01 PM

I bought a OWC Elite Pro about 5 months ago. Personally, I love it. It never heats up, it's superquiet, stylish, and fast.

nickr · 10-30-2007, 08:36 PM

Reading this thread with interest.

I have a few Lacies and a few OWC Elites - all the externals are ATA drives - the Lacies with a Oxford 911 and the OWC's with Oxford 912's. I have had problems with both but by and large they are both good external drives.

On the Lacies I have two four year old d2's which have on two occasions gone bad. The symptoms were mostly failures to mount (and to unmount) and write errors or no ability to write large (over 30mb) files. After going through hell and testing them every way I could I found that I had a failed power supply. This has happened twice on the d2's. It was also interesting that the drive "funtioned" with the failed power supplies - the light worked, drive spun up and then clicked endlessly. Basically the drive showed every symptom of having failed when in fact it was the power supply which was providing inadequete voltage. Anyway, point is if trouble arises make sure the drive is adequetly powered.

I also have the OWC's. I have had to return two of three single enclosures due to a bad chip set in one instance and a failed drive in the other. That isn't great odds. But OWC was great about it and instantly diagnosed and replaced the drives in both cases. And, hoping I had just had some bad luck I got one of OWC's dual enclosures. I have that (the dual 400/800/usb) set up with two 500gb hitachi ATA drives. The dual is set up as a RAID mirror and has been great except.......

That has exposed another fire wire debacle. The addition of the dual to the IOGEAR 6-port FW 400 hub caused total chaos. Suffice to say it took me some time to figure out that the hub was causing all sorts of drive failures across the board. It seemed clear that I was having a problem with one drive at one time and then it would change to another. I have gone back to the daisy chain and everything is fine. I can replicate the situation and the hub is the problem. Hub is gone to be another peripheral hockey puck.

Anyway, that was sort of random. I guess the point is that both the d2's and the OWC Elite's have had there moments but have both by and large performed well when working. They have allowed me to keep redundant backups and I have lost nothing. Depending on why an external drive is needed some of the performance specs may be important but for backups the key is to be redundant when using external drives. If you don't keep a couple of backups inevitably there will come a time you lose.

What's the best drive to buy? I have no idea but I would reccomend buying a few and let the chips fall as they may.

Thanks

dsvrose · 11-03-2007, 09:04 AM

This is my second external drive from OWC. I have loved my 500GB, but the 1 Terabyte is terrible. It's almost always in some sort of "sleep mode" so that when I try to access it, it takes about 5 seconds to rev up and get going. My 5ooGB never goes to sleep... anyone have any idea what is going on here? Both drives are hooked up to the same computer via Firewire.

David

nickr · 11-04-2007, 08:11 AM

I had this problem with my 500gb. How are your drives hooked up? I got it working better by getting rid of my firewire hub and daisy chaining the drives instead.

01-12-2007, 06:08 PM	#1
Gabo Prospect Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 4	OWC Mercury Elite hard drive experiences ? Hi everyone, I'm new to the forum (though I stumble upon a LOT of information here with googles searches, which I must say is VERY helpful). I read some topics concerning issues with external hard drives and have been able to further narrow my choice for a first external HD. My list is as follows: Western Digital My Book Pro Edition LaCie d2 Hard Drive Extreme with Triple Interface G-Drive Q Serial ATA 500GB drive OWC Mercury Elite Al Pro I am looking for a "portable" drive with around 300Gb (for a good GBs/$ trade off). I'm in graphic design and must use it to perform editing tasks, thus the choice for triple interface (or quad which could be useful in the future but I have a macbook pro corde duo 17" at the moment and don't want to spend on a PCI card for sata). With those choices made, I am still wondering about some points. First, I can barely understand the importance of Oxford chipset number, only thing I "know" is that most people seem to recommend 911+ or 924 (what about 912?). I am also hoping to get a SATA drive since it looks like it'll become a standard. If you could give me your toughts about each of those drives (if some are getting "old" or too expensive in your opinion, bad experiences, overheating when plugged all day long, is on/off switch a must, blah blah blah ) that'd really help me. I would also like to know if anyone has any experience with OWC since their prices look really competitive and their drives seem well-built. I must also point out that I chose those drives for price/quality reasons. The Lacie is sold at my university which drops the price, Western Digital looks rather "cheap" considering GBs/$ and quality for such price, OWC looks like pretty well reviewed (?) and G-Drive is expensive but not much people seem to have had bad experiences with it. There was also the Iomega Black series I tought off but the Triple interface 250 or 320 Gb isn't listed on their site anymore I think... And finally, if someone could help me figure out why this RAID setup http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../ME8SR500GB32/ costs less than the single drive http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MAU8F7500G16/ Is it simply because they decided of those prices or are there specs I don't quite understand that could greatly affect their respective performances?! Whew... think that's about it, hope you guys will be able to help me out on this one. Oh and by the way my budget is around 300$CAN...something like 270$ I think?! Is it ok or should i put some extra $ for something that'll last much longer? Thanks to all in advance! Last edited by Gabo; 01-13-2007 at 05:06 PM. Reason: Incomplete informations

06-26-2007, 01:19 PM	#8
papalud Registered User Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 1	OWC Drive dead after 7 months I bought a OWC Mercury Elite Pro 500 gig drive after reading all the good reviews. I was using it as a back-up drive for my Lacie, so I transfered data to it about once a month. About 2 weeks ago the drive was no longer seen by any computer, and the light on front was blinking. I emailed tech support, who asked if it was seen in disk utility- I answered no--no reply from OWC...I sent another email---no reply from OWC. I called about a week later and the tech said the drive needs to come back, 50/50 chance the data is still there, email for a RMA number. So I email for the RMA number and again I get an email asking if the drive is seen in Disk Utility. I'm waiting to see what happens with this. I can't say that I have much confidence in OWC products. This drive was only 7 months old and barely used. It has always been plugged into a battery back-up system. I've never had problems with any of my Lacie hard drives, but I kept reading reviews of drives dying, so I thought I'd try OWC. I guess I'll stick with Lacie.

09-12-2007, 08:59 AM	#9
tws Prospect Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2	OWC buyer beware... i just caught this thread and thought it would be prudent to advise you of my experience with OWC. on 4/23/07 i purchased 500GB OWC Mercury Elite-AL for $249.99 late august it malfunctioned and i lost 100gb's of data which was not recoverable. i called OWC and arranged for a replacement RMA... it arrived yesterday and i discovered that they returned the same drive. it appears they simply repackaged it and sent it back. i can confirm this as i made a little felt tip pen mark on the outside case. also the drive seems to be loose inside the enclosure. this morning i talked to a customer service person and was advised that i could not have my money returned - after 30 days. i was asked to call a mr. ben priest ext 163 at a later time... i'm waiting to see if i can have my drive replaced with a new one... i'll report more later and hope that it is good news... tws

11-03-2007, 09:04 AM	#13
dsvrose Registered User Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 1	Trouble with OWC 1 Terabyte Drive! This is my second external drive from OWC. I have loved my 500GB, but the 1 Terabyte is terrible. It's almost always in some sort of "sleep mode" so that when I try to access it, it takes about 5 seconds to rev up and get going. My 5ooGB never goes to sleep... anyone have any idea what is going on here? Both drives are hooked up to the same computer via Firewire. David

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01-14-2007, 01:24 PM	#2
Gabo Prospect Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 4	Anyone, at least some advices about known reliability of those (LaCie and OWC Mercury Elite Al Pro Raid and single drive)? It's quite hard to looks these up alone actually...

01-14-2007, 01:40 PM	#3
styrafome Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 3,818	I own a LaCie, but I do not feel like buying another. I bought a Western Digital and returned it. All the other external drives I have are OWC or Transintl.com, both 2.5" and 3.5" size. I'm keeping those.

01-14-2007, 03:54 PM	#4
AHunter3 Hall of Famer Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: New York City Posts: 3,003	I back up to an OWC Mercury Elite Pro, using FW-800. Never had a problem with it. I've had a couple of those 2" On-the-Go external firewire drives (and/or "bring your own drive" kits) and with those, my experience = not so good. It's not the drives, it's something about the enclosure, its chips, connectors, board, etc (same drives work fine in other deployment). But several different drives in two different copies of that external case both exhibit the same symptom: drive starts clicking (some drives also beep!), any app trying to access data or save data on that drive gets a lollipop-beachball, and it's usually necessary to power off the external, say byebye to unsaved data, wait for the error messages about volume not put away properly, then power it back up and let it mount. So: mixed-bag results for OWC, but so far no probs with anything bearing the "Elite" line name.

01-14-2007, 05:13 PM	#5
styrafome Hall of Famer Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 3,818	I've got 3 or 4 of those On-the-Go enclosures from the times I upgraded the drives in my Mac and PC laptops over the years when I needed a place to keep the old drive useful. I've switched various drives in and out of the cases numerous times, probably more times than they're designed for. For whatever reason the number of problems I've had with them is zero. I really like them. I also use them bus-powered 99% of the time, and have never fried a port. Just another data point.

01-15-2007, 03:52 PM	#6
Gabo Prospect Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 4	Ok, I guess OWC Elite would be the thing to go with for the moment then, is it still portable for a single drive enclosure? And anyone has an answer about my "RAID versus single drive" setup they offer. Quote from first post: And finally, if someone could help me figure out why this RAID setup http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../ME8SR500GB32/ costs less than the single drive http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other.../MAU8F7500G16/ Is it simply because they decided of those prices or are there specs I don't quite understand that could greatly affect their respective performances?!

09-12-2007, 10:18 AM	#10
tws Prospect Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2	just spoke with ben priest of OWC customer service. although they do not offer a refund after 30 days, they at least seem responsible for their products. he assured me that my drive was checked out and found to be OK. if the drive were not, it would have been replaced. the enclosure is the same and not swapped out. just wanted to provide a followup... these drives have come down in price since i purchased this one last april. fingers crossed... tws

09-13-2007, 02:01 PM	#11
kerouac Prospect Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 14	I bought a OWC Elite Pro about 5 months ago. Personally, I love it. It never heats up, it's superquiet, stylish, and fast.

10-30-2007, 08:36 PM	#12
nickr Prospect Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 2	Reading this thread with interest. I have a few Lacies and a few OWC Elites - all the externals are ATA drives - the Lacies with a Oxford 911 and the OWC's with Oxford 912's. I have had problems with both but by and large they are both good external drives. On the Lacies I have two four year old d2's which have on two occasions gone bad. The symptoms were mostly failures to mount (and to unmount) and write errors or no ability to write large (over 30mb) files. After going through hell and testing them every way I could I found that I had a failed power supply. This has happened twice on the d2's. It was also interesting that the drive "funtioned" with the failed power supplies - the light worked, drive spun up and then clicked endlessly. Basically the drive showed every symptom of having failed when in fact it was the power supply which was providing inadequete voltage. Anyway, point is if trouble arises make sure the drive is adequetly powered. I also have the OWC's. I have had to return two of three single enclosures due to a bad chip set in one instance and a failed drive in the other. That isn't great odds. But OWC was great about it and instantly diagnosed and replaced the drives in both cases. And, hoping I had just had some bad luck I got one of OWC's dual enclosures. I have that (the dual 400/800/usb) set up with two 500gb hitachi ATA drives. The dual is set up as a RAID mirror and has been great except....... That has exposed another fire wire debacle. The addition of the dual to the IOGEAR 6-port FW 400 hub caused total chaos. Suffice to say it took me some time to figure out that the hub was causing all sorts of drive failures across the board. It seemed clear that I was having a problem with one drive at one time and then it would change to another. I have gone back to the daisy chain and everything is fine. I can replicate the situation and the hub is the problem. Hub is gone to be another peripheral hockey puck. Anyway, that was sort of random. I guess the point is that both the d2's and the OWC Elite's have had there moments but have both by and large performed well when working. They have allowed me to keep redundant backups and I have lost nothing. Depending on why an external drive is needed some of the performance specs may be important but for backups the key is to be redundant when using external drives. If you don't keep a couple of backups inevitably there will come a time you lose. What's the best drive to buy? I have no idea but I would reccomend buying a few and let the chips fall as they may. Thanks

11-04-2007, 08:11 AM	#14
nickr Prospect Join Date: Oct 2007 Posts: 2	I had this problem with my 500gb. How are your drives hooked up? I got it working better by getting rid of my firewire hub and daisy chaining the drives instead.