OWC Mercury Extreme Pro 120GB Solid State Drive Review

Manufacturer’s Product Page: Click Here
Part Number: OWCSSDMX120
Warranty: 3 Years
Price: about $320 US Directly from OWC



*PLEASE NOTE: The day this review went live, new information was given to us which changes certain aspects of the Mercury. We appreciate your understanding and any changes will be listed at the top of every page. Pay special attention to the pricing which we listed as $380 but is actually $320 at retail.


The juggernaut known as SandForce’s SF-1222 controller has continued its drive to world domination as it picks up newer manufactures on an almost daily basis. Naturally, some companies that have picked up this controller are not exactly household names here in North America outside of certain circles (like Apple users for example). Many are now trying to make a splash in the lucrative SSD market. One such company is Other World Computing or -OWC for short- who are best known for catering to that highly demanding, yet extremely finicky crowd of alternative computing enthusiasts. Today we are going to be looking at their brand new Mercury Extreme Pro 120GB Solid State drive.

As we said, OWC is not exactly well known here in North America outside of Apple circles but their presence is nonetheless established in this market. Even though OWC isn’t a name on everyone’s lips, they were actually the first company to release a SandForce drive; even beating OCZ to the marketplace. That does have to count for something and in our minds it shows OWC’s commitment to their customers.

As the 120GB in the name suggests, this is not just any ordinary SandForce drive as it is the first of the so called “extended” products we will be looking at. In a nut shell you get an extra 20GB of space versus the first generation SF-1222 products for your hard earned money with supposedly no downsides. In addition, since this is an extended version we fully expect the Mercury to come with the latest and greatest 310 production firmware. Needless to say it will be interesting to see how this new firmware stacks up against the others we have looked at. Of course, OCZ has had the 310 firmware out for a while now while other 301 and 305 firmware-loaded drives also litter the market from the likes of Corsair, G.Skill, Patriot and others.

OWC seems to have a mainly Apple customers in mind here since the price on their drive stands at a low $320 US. This is actually the lowest price we have seen for a SandForce SF-1222 drive so it seems like OWC could make a splash in what is shaping up to be a very cluttered high end solid SSD marketplace.