The Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini Quad Interface RAID Enclosure is an exceptional way to create your own high-capacity, high-performance external storage out of any SATA 2.5" internal hard disk or solid-state drives. This enclosure can hold two of these drives of up to 12.5mm in size. It supports RAID 0, 1, and NRAID (or spanning) and can also be used as an external boot drive.
In terms of connecting to your computer, this enclosure features four different interfaces. At your disposal, you will have two FireWire 800 ports, one FireWire 400 port, one eSATA port, and one USB 2.0 port. With the eSATA port, you can transfer data at a speedy rate of up to 300MB/s. Also, with the FireWire 800 port, you can power the enclosure.
Beyond these ports, this enclosure is shock-resistant, near-silent and fanless in operation. While it comes formatted for Macs and is Time Machine and Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard ready, it can also be reformatted to work with your Windows or Linux computer system.
| Interface |
2x FireWire 800 ports 1x FireWire 400 port 1x eSATA port |
| Chipset | Oxford 946 chipset with eSATA, FW400(1394A), FW800(1394B), and USB 2.0 |
| RAID |
RAID 0 (Stripe) RAID 1 (Mirror) NRAID (Span) |
| Data Transfer Rate |
eSATA: up to 3.0Gbps (or 300MB/s) FireWire 800: up to 800Mbps (or 100MB/s) FireWire 400: up to 400Mbps (or 50MB/s) USB 2.0: up to 480Mbps (or 60MB/s) |
| Drive Types Supported | 2.5" SATA Solid State or Hard Disk Drives up to 12.5mm in size |
| Shock | Up to 1500G |
| Vibration | Dependent on drives installed |
| MTBF | Dependent on drives installed |
| System Requirements |
Mac: Mac OS 8.6 to 9.2.2 compatible, OS X 10.1.x and later (10.2 or later required for FW800 and USB 2.0) eSATA: Macintosh with eSATA interface, either built in or via 3rd party PCI eSATA card FireWire 800: Macintosh with FireWire 800 interface, either built in or via 3rd party PCI FireWire 800 card USB 2.0: Macintosh with USB 2.0 interface, either built in or via 3rd party PCI USB 2.0 card Windows: Windows ME and later Windows 2000 or later required for FW800 Operation Linux: Linux compatible via supported USB and FireWire interfaces 1 Please Note:Windows XP and earlier versions of the Windows OS do not support drives that are of a 2TB capacity or greater close |
| Recommended |
eSATA products for use with the enclosure eSATA Extender Cable for Mac Pro: Newer Technology eSATA Extender Cable Adapter for Mac Pro PCIe (PCI Express) eSATA Cards for Desktop: Sonnet Technology Tempo SATA E2P NewerTech MAXPower eSATA 6G PCIe 2.0 Card Firmtek Seritek/2SE2-E PCI Express NewerTech MAXPower 6G eSATA RAID card w/ port multiplier DAT Optic PCIe 8x 4 Channel eSATA host adapter HighPoint RocketRaid 2314 PCI-Express eSATA 4 Port RAID FirmTek SeriTek/2ME4E Four-Port External PCI-Express Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P Serial ATA Host Adapter HighPoint RocketRaid 2522 PCI-Express x8 eSATA 2 Port HighPoint RocketRaid 3522 PCI-Express x8 mini-SAS 2 Port PCI for Desktops and Towers: FirmTek SeriTek/2SE4 Four-Port External PCI-X ExpressCard/34 for Laptops: OWC ExpressCard/34 eSATA SATA I/II ExpressCard/34 APIOTEK EXTREME Dual eSATA SATA I/II Express Card |
| Boot Requirements |
Below are the requirements for using the enclosure (and separately-purchased drives within it) as an external startup drive. eSATA General Requirement For either Mac or Windows Computers: bootable eSATA host controller Mac: Built-in: Any SATA based Mac using a built-in SATA connection adapted to an eSATA connection will support booting. Port multiplier enclosures are not supported. Card/HBA: Most eSATA expansion cards or host board adapters will not be bootable. Check with your specific card manufacturer regarding Mac boot support. PC: Will boot as long as your BIOS supports booting from the eSATA interface. BIOS support will vary by motherboard and host board adapters. FireWire 800 Boot/Startup Mac: Intel Macs and some PowerPC Macs running OS 8.6 or later. Please note, non-Intel Macs will not be able to boot external enclosures that have over 2.2TB support enabled. This is a hardware limitation of the computer. PC: Will boot as long as your BIOS supports booting from the FireWire 800 interface. BIOS support will vary by motherboard and host board adapters. FireWire 400 Boot/Startup Mac: Intel Macs and some PowerPC Macs running OS 8.6 or later. Please note, non-Intel Macs will not be able to boot external enclosures that have over 2.2TB support enabled. This is a hardware limitation of the computer. PC: Will boot as long as your BIOS supports booting from the FireWire 400 interface. BIOS support will vary by motherboard and host board adapters USB 2.0 Boot/Startup Mac: All Intel Macs. Unofficial support exists for various PowerPC models running OS 8.6 or later, but OWC cannot guarantee any particular boot support. Please note, PowerPC Macs will definitely not be able to boot external enclosures that have over 2.2TB support enabled. This is a hardware limitation of the computer. PC: Will boot as long as your BIOS supports booting from the USB 2.0 interface. BIOS support will vary by motherboard and host board adapters. |
| Power Requirements |
Bus power via FireWire 800 supported on all models equipped with an available FireWire 800 port either factory stock or via add on FireWire 800 PCI Card Note: eSATA connection requires FireWire bus power or external power supply and USB port requires external power supply Note: AC adapter not required for most applications provided computer bus supplies appropriate power needs |
| Operating Environment |
Temperature Operating: up to 32° to 158°F / 0° to 70°C Non-operating: up to -40° to 185°F / -40° to 85°C Relative Humidity Operating: up to 5% to 90% RH (non-condensing) Non-operating: up to 5% to 90% (non-condensing) |
| Dimensions (DxWxH) | 5.6 x 6.1 x 1.1" (14.4 x 15.4 x 2.8 cm) |
| Weight | 1 lb (0.46 kg) |
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Pros
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about OWC / Other World Computing Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini Quad Interface RAID Enclosure:
I'm happy to finally have a set up that I feel is a reliable back-up solution. I have a third working drive, and use this RAID enclosure to hold 2 copies of all my RAW photo and video material. When the drives are full, I split them up for archiving in two separate locations.
Call OWC if you need help setting it up - they were very helpful when I was trying to get this thing set up the way I needed it.
Pros
Cons
Best Uses
Comments about OWC / Other World Computing Mercury Elite Pro Dual mini Quad Interface RAID Enclosure:
I would give it 5 stars if there was a way to verify the consistency between the hard drives when setup in RAID. Otherwise works like a charm and survives long travels, specially with SSD drives.
Displaying reviews 1-2