OWC announced it is now shipping new solid-state drive storage drives using the SandForce SF1232 processor designed to support higher flash density.
The new Mercury Extreme Pro SSD promises speeds that are some of the fastest for SATA 2.5" SSDs available today.
The drives use SATA 3.0, have the 2.5-inch form factor, and should be reliable with a 2-million hour mean time before failure (MTBF) average. The read speeds of the new OWC SSDs reach 285 MB/s with write speeds up to 275 MB/s.
OWC is now offering the new SSDs with storage capacities ranging from 60GB up to 480GB, although the 480GB SSD tops out with a very expensive price tag.
The 60GB SSD is available for $194.99; 120GB costs $349.99; the 240GB SSD costs $669.99; and the 480GB SSD model costs $1,599.99. A $220 50GB enterprise SSD also is available from OWC, with a five-year warranty for all enterprise drives.
"We're quite pleased to be the first SSD maker to commence regular shipping of the largest capacity, performance leading SandForce-based processor SSD on the market," said Larry O'Connor, OWC founder and CEO, in a statement.
There has been increased demand for SSDs with higher read and write speeds -- especially in the enterprise, which has enjoyed the higher reliability of SSDs -- but pricing and slower write speeds have kept some consumers and companies away. Manufacturers such as OWC, Kingston, SanDisk, and others have expanded their SSD product catalog while also slowly reducing the price of SSDs.
OWC should soon be joined by other manufacturers using the new SandForce processor in their SSDs.
