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Most recently, an SSD manufacturer finally did what we have been waiting for from SSD companies for quite some time. We find it amusing that manufacturers haven’t thrown their support in SSD reliability through extended warranties long before this since SSDs have been shown to be pretty much indestructible.
Other World Computing (OWC) has not only tackled this with a new 5 year warranty on their new family of ‘Sandforce Driven’ 6G SSDs but also, they are still the only company we know of with a 30 day ‘no questions asked’ return policy.
It doesn’t stop there though. OWC has made the 5 year warranty applicable to not only new 6G SSD owners, but also any that have purchased the new SATA 3 Mercury Extreme Pro 6G from the first day of release. This says quite a bit for a ‘primarily Mac’ company that worked hard to show the world that their SSDs are one of the best available for both the PC and Mac user. It seems to have been paid off as we are seeing PC owners and enterprise throw their support behind the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G in amazing numbers.
NEW FIRMWARE
The new release of the 6G also now has updated firmware bringing it from the RC (Release Candidate) to a just released Ver. MP1_3.1.1. This can be seen in a quick look at the back of the SSD as shown here:
The question on everyone’s mind with respect to firmware, of course, is whether we can expect any performance improvement with the new firmware. We definitely did see an improvement in the 4k random write in both Crystal DiskMark ‘0Fill’ sample testing as well as AS SSD tests which utilize random data. Take a look. The new revision is on the left with our original RC SSD on the right:
CLEANER INTERIOR LOOK
A quick look under the cover also shows us that OWC has done some house cleaning as well. No longer do we see the trace wire that was visible in the initial release and now we can see the familiar OWC blue brand color along with company name.
At the end of the day we have to give a great deal of credit to Other World Computing for their understanding of the need to get a quality product out to the consumer as quickly as possible. Quite frankly, with just about every SSD manufacturer jumping aboard the ‘SandForce Driven’ train with the new 6Gbps processor, being seconded only by OCZ has brought the new OWC SSD line to the forefront of potential PC SSD buyers. This was a very smart move on their part!
Add to that the new ‘industry high’ 5 year warranty and 30 day money back guarantee that seems to be exclusive of OWC and you simply can’t go wrong! A quick click on our banner to the right will bring you directly to the 6G line.