OWC teases 600MB/s Mercury Viper 3.5in SSD
OWC's Mercury Viper is a rare breed: a 3.5in solid-state drive offering a claimed 600MB/s throughput and capacities up to 1,920GB.
Best known for its range of after-market Apple add-ons, OWC's latest creation is one of those rare beasts: a 3.5in SSD. In a market where most manufacturers choose to pack the components required for solid-state storage into a 2.5in casing - giving it immediately compatibility with both desktops and laptops - OWC has instead opted for a larger 3.5in chassis, although with no images of the internals yet available it's not known whether this is for anything other than aesthetic purposes.
The advantage of the Mercury Viper over rival 2.5in devices comes in its performance: according to OWC's internal testing, the drive is capable of hitting read speeds of 600MB/s - and while firm performance figures have yet to be shared, that's an impressive achievement in a market where the best drives hover around the 500-520MB/s mark. Whether the drive will live up to OWC's promises in independent testing, however, remains to be seen.
The company is further claiming that the drive will launch in a wide range of capacities starting with an entry-level - if such a term is valid for a company's flagship storage device - 240GB model giving way to regularly-sized units up to the pinnacle device storing 1,920GB.
While OWC has somewhat cheekily claimed that its 1,920GB SSD is a 2TB model, it's still an impressively capacious design that should satiate pro-grade users' need for high speed coupled with high capacity - and without the use of PCI Express-connected SSD solutions, which typically come with a raft of restrictions attached including limited operating system support and the inability to use them as boot drives.
Sadly, there's one thing OWC isn't yet sharing: the price. With talk of targeting both the professional user and gamer, it's likely that the Mercury Viper will be priced towards the very top end of the market - and while the "2TB" model might sound tempting, its price tag will likely put it out of the reach of all but the most well-heeled enterprise customers.
OWC has promised to reveal full specifications, shipping dates and pricing information for the Mercury Viper line of SSDs within the next two months.
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Discuss in the forums Replyand still somewhat more than the 1862 you`ll get when you format a blank 2tb drive
Sounds good but the price is going to be really high.
As for the 3.5" SSD vs 2.5" I think I will stick to my 2.5" as they are easier to mount if you don't have any hdd cages.
And seeing as some high end SSD are hitting 550Mb/s i don't see the point in this drive for an extra 20Mb/s.
Also there is no mention what the max IOPS is and AFAIK that's what really matters when using a drive for the OS.
Bingo! This is what's really exciting about it for me. Long term it would be amazing to have a couple of 2TB SSDs in RAID0 just as the day to day norm - maybe with a mechanical drive for backup.
If your willing to spend thousands of pounds just to have a fast drive to store stuff on your mad.
you obviously don't have a steam library
As i said if you need more than 512Gb your doing something wrong.
A backup is just a second copy of the game, it's the same size as having the game installed. So why not just have them installed to begin with.
Of course this specific ssd most likely won't be cheap, but it should push down older ones in price, plus when the next gen comes this one will drop as well and so on, large ssds in the hands of average consumers are not a question of if, but when.
http://www.icydock.com/goods.php?id=121
You mean if I'm using more than 512GB I'm doing something differently to you?
No i mean you have more money than brains, you cant get around the fact that (HDD) mechanical disks are cheaper per GB than (SSD) electronic disks.
So you saying HDD are not cheaper per GB than SSD ?
Its a fact that you can now buy HDD as cheaply as 5p per GB, SSD are only now approaching the £1 per GB mark.
Its far from being a emotive, non factual statement which doesn't mean anything.
For your average home user it makes financial sense to only put what is used on a daily basis on a SSD and use a HDD for the rest.
They are? You're telling me that HDD storage is cheaper per GB than an SSD? Wow. You learn something new every day, and there was me thinking your well formed argument was originally "If you need more space than 512Gb for everyday use your doing something wrong". Price per GB never came into it, but I guess that's was just me being thick.
But back on track...
I do access more than 512GB of data every day, so by applying your logic I've clearly got very little intelligence.
Really?
Damn. I'm really quite surprised at this breaking news. I'm welling up in fact.
This shocking news is actually very distressing as I've always relied on my brain up until now. At least knowing this does explain my lifelong inability to solve the Seven Bridges of Königsberg problem.
I will be sure to let everyone I meet that my 'Corky42 certified Brain' score is significantly more petite than I would otherwise have believed. But you've made the connection between the data I access daily and my intelligence and surely you must be speaking the truth otherwise you wouldn't have said it.
Thanks for letting me know. This is life altering stuff.
I will be sure to read all your future posts as if my very life depends on them. For maybe it will in some small way, as I now believe that you have many great lessons in life you could teach me. By hanging onto your every word I will endeavour to become a better and 'more brainy' person.
Just like you.
Would you be so generous as help me now? Seeing as you seem to know more about my daily usage patterns than I do (After all I'm such a thicky), would you be so kind as to enlighten me exactly which of my data I should not be using?
I'll do my best to follow your line of thought this time, but please don't use any complicated words. You must remember I'm a girl of very little brain.
If you want to call your self thick that's upto you, i would just say you have not read previous comments, specifically.
And thats not the only comment mentioning costs.
Again you seem to have leaped before you looked
Nice sarcasm..........here is mine....... nice post.
a 512GB drive would be suitable for over 90% of people for OS, programs and games. I've gone from two 64GB SSD in raid 0 to a single 64GB SSD OS & programs. The other 64GB SSD has Ubuntu & Steam. SataII 256GB or SataIII 128GB going in for a steam/games drive. I also have a 2nd gaming machine that only has a 64GB SSD.
My Steam collection is large but I only ever have 6-8 games installed and numerous large mech drives for backup & storage.
For MOST people, including most gamers, a 512Gb SSD would be fine. For the common computer user a 128GB SSD would be fine, of all the PC's I fix or upgrade, I've only ever seen a handful use over 100GB. I do know of people that could use a 512GB+ SSD and It would make sense for them to have one over a HDD. But then I have more fingers on one hand then know of people this applies. All the people I know of with over 256GB SSD, only do it for the e-peen.
Oh and just because you access over 512GB doesn't mean Corky is wrong, your usage is above normal (or your lying :O)
agree on the 512GB affordability. but 120GB not enough? it'll get your OS @ 20GB say the same again for programs and any regular games you play on the remaining 70-80GB. I found multiplayer games are fine on a HDD if anything i prefer it, as i always get impatient when i load up quick but have to sit there waiting for other people, this may change when everyone has an SSD but now you still have to wait. Single player games i am currently regularly playing always go on SSD as there is a benefit. I wouldn't be without an SSD but atm with the prices as they are and for what most people use, 120GB and a HDD for files and irregularly accessed stuff is a better option. and one that real world performance wise isn't that different from pure SSD.
So the thread has gone from insulting my intelligence to insulting my integrity.
Nice.
So my usage is above normal - I never claimed I was a light user. I simply said "I'm using more than 512GB I'm doing something differently to you". It was this statement which triggered the first insult aimed directly at me.
Because the computer I use has a different usage to someone else's doesn't mean I'm doing something wrong or lacking in intelligence (Both claimed by Corky) and it doesn't mean I'm lying (An accusation by yourself).
You can turn Corky's statement into a 'Most people don't need more than 512GB' derivative if you like, but that's not how it was originally put.
Of course 'most' average users don't need more than 512GB, we're all in agreement on that. But just because someone doesn't fit into your personal category of 'most' doesn't justify insulting their intelligence or accusing them of lying.
That's it I'm done. From now on I'm ignoring you trolls.
This.
Most home users don't need > 512GB SSDs != more money than brains if you do.
And just in case it needs clarifying "you" would normally imply one person, not a company. :(
Plus need != want.
I have an I7 3770k, do I really need it? nah, what did I have before? a i7 920, did I need it? nah, could still use the Q6600 that I used before that, but guess what, I upgraded anyway. Same thing to some extent applies to SSDs, do I really need to move my entire flac collection to an ssd? nope, will I do so once ssds drop in price enough? sure why not.
If you need/want a lot of fast storage space you don't care what it costs. You purchase it anyways.
What is so hard to understand?
Do we need those flashy PCs? We could be an average consumer and buy a PS3, but we pursue performance.
Do we need mechanical keyboards that the average consumer doesn't? No, we simply prefer the speed.
If you can't understand we are in a niche then I fail to see why you are here. Many of us use storage at an exponential rate. I am an avid photographer and I store all my photos in RAW (a collection requiring 5TB). When I need to access these large images, it is very slow and inconvenient. Put aside your arrogance, it is not welcome, at least not from me.
"your doing"
"your willing"
"your mad"
"your lying"
It's "YOU'RE"! :(
Also
This. Having RAWs on spinning rust can slow Lightroom etc. to a crawl. Each individual's use case and performance requirements specifies their "need". If someone wants, can afford and actually uses such high capacity + high performance, how on earth can they be "doing something wrong"?
Glad someone went there. I wanted to but every time grammars corrected on here some users throw there toys out the pram.
See what I did there?
(Couldn't resist, sorry.)
talking about that.
i found with my antec 300 case i can screw a 2.5" samsung 840 pro on its side, meaning got a lot of air flow coming into the case flowing over it (can screw 2 down as only using 2 of the 4 screws)