Review of OWC Mercury On the Go Portable Disk

Long have Slashdot Editors made known the fact that we'll review pretty much any interesting gadget shipped our way. This week we have the OWC "Mercury On-The-Go", a 2.5" external hard drive featuring FW800 and USB2 ports and available in 40 to 160gb flavors. Read on for my review of the drive.

I plugged it into my PowerBook using the included USB cable Since the device didn't immediately mount, I guessed I needed power too- I was disappointed, but not exactly surprised. Another dive into the box revealed a firewire and power cable. Oh, and a one page "Manual" and CD. Seconds later I was off and running.

The back of the the drive tells the story: 2 FireWire 800 ports, one USB 2.0 Port, a power switch, and a power plug. The case is transparent. Of course that means all you see is a boring old hard drive. I sorta wanted to just use it upside down- the bottom of a hard drive is more aesthetically interesting than the top.

The drive arrived Mac formatted, and shipped with a bunch of wacky stuff on it, including the old Ellen Feiss Apple ad, and a directory with a slew of high quality disk icons. I'll be honest- I'm obsessive about things like drive icons. I make sure that my iPod icon is the correct version of the iPod on my desktop, or when I mount my digital camera or PSP, the icons match the device. So while I'm sure the vast majority of users would simply blow away the folder, I find touches like this very nice.

The Mercury comes with a little carrying case too. Nothing to write home about really. The unit itself is quite small- almost exactly the same size as my Nintendo DS. Unfortunately the case must also carry the power supply which makes the whole thing much larger.

I've used a number of external storage devices, and performance was roughly as I would expect. Since it's an external drive, read/write performance is really more about cabling than anything else. It took 3:36 to copy 3 gigs of data over USB, and 2:24 to copy the same 3 gigs over FW800. The upside is that the FW800 cable provides power- I was able to mount the drive without use of extra power cables.

So without further ado, I present to you my executive summary:

• It looks nice. Nothing spectacular, just nice.
• USB2 is slower and requires an external power supply
• A good choice for FW800 support.
• $150 for the 40GB version up to $450 for the 160GB version.

My struggle with this drive is really the "Why"? It occupies an incredibly expensive niche between "Portable" and "Large".

If vast storage is what you need, with less portability, a 320GB external USB drive can be had for around $150-200. Less mobile to be sure, but twice the storage for just over a third the price. I've included a photo of the Mercury with a Gameboy DS and iPod just to give you a sense of the scale of the whole thing.

The Mercury On-the-go isn't going into your shirt pocket: especially if you are using the USB connection and lugging the external power adapter. If what you really crave portability, a 60GB iPod is way smaller, doesn't require an external power supply, and runs like $400.

On the other hand, if you need 100-160 gigs, and plan to use a FW800 cable, this is a reasonable, but pricey option. It does exactly what you would expect in an external hard drive. It's quick, easy, and simple. It just doesn't seem cost effective to me.

Wow.... an external harddrive

Wow.... an external harddrive. Color me impressed!

Review Review

Words = 609
Sentences = 38
Sentences per Paragraph = 2.9
Words per Sentence = 15.5
Characters per word = 4.3
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level = 8.3 ... just playing with you, Taco!

Screw That

Just buy an external IDE enclosure for $15 bucks anywhere. You can pop a 320 GB drive in that for a fraction of the price of this thing. Plus it is upgradeable.

If you want a smaller drive just do as above but with a 2.5" laptop drive enclosure.

Laptop drives are nice

We bought a case of them (+enclosures) to sell (populated with data) to our clients. They're a handy way to distribute data if you have to ship >8GB of it to your customer. Unfortunately the enclosures we bought came with a confusing Y-Cable, which we h

The USB Y-cable is necessary...

...to use the enclosures with combinations of certain higher-power laptop drives and certain computers that don't supply enough power to a single USB port. As most laptop drives are ~1A and the USB spec is 500mA this can end up being quite a few. I know I have to use the Y cable with my laptop (as the USB2 port is on a PC card) and my Shuttle, but don't need to use it on a computer in work.

With a Y-cable you will never need an external power supply, which is very handy and the key difference between a 2.5" and a 3.5" drive - far less to lug around.

Of course the point is moot if you are using Firewire which provides enough power for any laptop drive.

Re:Screw That

"If you want a smaller drive just do as above but with a 2.5" laptop drive enclosure."

You can buy these as just enclosures, for $59--and that's why they are popular. It's very fast to swap 2.5" laptop drives in and out of them. I have two myself.

Re:Screw That

Just buy an external IDE enclosure for $15 bucks anywhere.

Where are you buying these for $15? I'm paying $17 just for a decent drive sled at NewEgg and the decent enclosures are in the neighborhood of $35 there.

My version of on-the-go data

I love my T-Mobile EDGE wireless network service (via my phone to my laptop). It doesn't work well for huge files, but I work with mostly small files and if I need to access a large database or app, I just VNC into my office PC.

I see no purpose in my life

Re:My version of on-the-go data

I see no purpose in my life for huge files anymore

You've discovered some amazing new way to compress porn?

Re:My version of on-the-go data

You've discovered some amazing new way to compress porn?

One of the benefits of having a gorgeous lady of the house is the lack of need for porn :)

On the other hand, I have heard from many married men that the absolute opposite is true, but I have my own opinions why that's the case.

Zing

Now just make it play mp3s and release it five years ago and you'll make BILLIONS!

Not to sound like an asshole

I'm not trying to complain here or anything, but how is this special? It's just an overpriced external HD, right (and it is DEFINATELY overpriced, if that's all it is).

Why not just buy an external IDE enclosure? Do it yourself, that way you can change the

Portable HD = No power cube

I'm sorry, but for a harddrive to really be portable, it must be powered by USB or Firewire. Who wants to lug around yet another power adapter?

This is not news except for Firewire 800 connectivity. And Firewire 800 seems to be such a niche, I doubt it will ever really catch on.

Re:Portable HD = No power cube

I have this drive--it doesn't need a power brick if you adjust the on switch on the back to the setting where it gets the power over the bus. I use variations of this drive design on FW400 and FW800 all the time.

Here's a bigger, yet cheaper WD External 250Gb

http://www.circuitcity.com/ccd/productDetail.do?oi d=145402&cm_keycode=85 [circuitcity.com]

A bigger, yet cheaper option for anyone that is willing to do a mail-in rebate and doesn't need to put it in their pocket.

Beats the $hit out of G-Tech

Those prices are pretty good if you compare to to the G-Tech G-DRIVE mini [g-technology.com]

The G-Drive may look cooler with its "Rugged Aluminum Enclosure" and leather carrying case, but the OWC has FW800+USB2.0 and the G-Tech only has FW400+USB2.0. I wasn't able to find cache sizes, but I'm willing to bet G-Tech only has 8MB available. Here are some prices comparisons I put together (correct me if I made a mistake):

40GB(5400)

• OWC (16MB Cache)- $149.99
• GTech - $149.00

60GB(7200)

• OWC - $219.99
• GTech - $249.00

80GB(5400)

• OWC (16MB Cache)- $219.99
• GTech - $219.00

80GB(7200)

• OWC - $249.99
• GTech - $299.00

100GB(5400)

• OWC - $249.99
• OWC (16MB Cache) - $259.99
• GTech - $269.00

100GB(7200)

• OWC - $299.99
• GTech - $359.00

160GB(5400)

• OWC - $449.99
• GTech - N/A

Pretty damn good if you ask me!

--
"Man Bites Dog
Then Bites Self"

Re:Beats the $hit out of G-Tech

200GB internal hard drive+enclosure: $80.
Seems to be pretty obvious to me (at least if you don't have firewire 800, and you don't care exactly how small the drive is).

Mr. Taco,

Aside from previous posts alluding to this, was the audience considered when doing this review? Don't many /.ers go out of their way to buy something that they can put together themselves? The obvious /. answer (as covered in other posts) is to buy a che

OWC, a great company

As someone who has done business with OWC for the last eight years I just want to say that they've been great. I've ordered everything from software to RAM to processor upgrades from them and never had a problem. Once I got a couple of bad sticks of RAM (in an order of 50) and they were replaced promptly and without a problem.

power

I've bought quite a few 2.5" HD's and put them in cheapo USB enclosures. They all work fine without any external power. Why would I pay much more money for a unit that's much less portable (because it requires me to carry around a power supply)?

It doesn't care. Really.

I sorta wanted to just use it upside down- the bottom of a hard drive is more aesthetically interesting than the top.

Hard drives don't care if you run them upside down, taco. Honest.

Roll your own?

A power adapter? You've got to be kidding - Most external 2.5" HD enclosures can be powered by the USB bus itself. Plus, you are paying some company to take a drive, put it in a case, and slap their name on it. Why does this unit have Firewire 800 anyway? FW400 is faster than any laptop drive can go...And, besides, is Firewire REALLY necessary when just about every computer under the sun has USB 2.0 now? Besides, USB2.0 can also sustain transfer rates greater than most single hard drives can dish out. So why not roll your own enclosure?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16817145329 [newegg.com]
$18.99

Or if you really, really want firewire:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16817146035 [newegg.com]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822148073 [newegg.com]
How about a 160GB for $329

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82 E16822146047 [newegg.com]
Or a 7200RPM 80GB for $145?

So ask yourself - Is a clear case and a Firewire 800 interface really worth the extra $100?

Re:wow

was able to mount the drive without use of extra power cables.

That is more information than I need to know. I won't even ask which port you used.

Re:Ummm

Great advertis, ummm, I mean review, Taco.

Dude. Read the last 3 paragraphs. He's not exactly recommending you go buy this thing, just the opposite, he giving less pricy alternatives.

Re:Ummm

>> Dude. Read the last 3 paragraphs.

I doubt he read any of the paragraphs..

For those of you too lazy to read, the executive summary:

My struggle with this drive is really the "Why"? It occupies an incredibly expensive niche between "Portable