A few years ago , 500 GB of storage space may have sounded like a flock . But after collecting several years ’ Charles Frederick Worth of digital pic and compiling a vast and meticulously assembled euphony program library , you may be singing a different tune . If you need a half - terabyte of new storehouse to hold up all your digital computer storage , OWC ’s Mercury Elite - AL Pro Quad 500 GB will ably fit your needs — and give you some room to give up .
have the latest trend in hard - disk enclosures , this driving force offers , in addition to the three ports traditionally found on Macs ( USB 2.0 , FireWire 400 , and FireWire 800 ) , another port you might not use immediately : a speedy eSATA ( external SATA ) connecter .
The driving is housed in a sleek , ash grey enclosure and features a perforated grill faceplate and a snugly fitting stand that allows you to lay it vertically . The driving force admit a full - size USB embrasure on the back , though it lacks an antitheft slot . The drive did not come in with a manual of arms or any other documentation .
The drive is preformatted for the Mac , so getting up and running is as simple as connecting the provided AC mightiness arranger , plugging in to one of the four ports on the drive ( an eSATA interface plug-in is not included , but OWC betray several types ) , and work on the power . The drive has a fanless construction , which contributes to a scarcely noticeable noise level . The drive amount bundled with ProSoft Engineering ’s Data Backup ( ) and Intech ’s Hard Disk SpeedTools .
In our test , the driving force turned in respectable functioning numbers . To give you an idea of the performance gains eSATA can provide , our test showed that eSATA was about 10 percentage quicker than FireWire 800 .
timed trials
plate = Minutes : Seconds
How We Tested : We ran all test with the parkway touch base to a dual-2.5GHz Power Mac G5 with Mac OS X 10.4.8 installed and 1 GB of RAM . We examine the drive using FireWire 800 and eSATA . We copied a folder containing 1 GB of data point from our Mac ’s hard drive to the external hard drive to test the drive ’s write speed . We then repeat that file on the outside drive to test both read and write speed . We also used the campaign as a lolly disk when running our low - memory Adobe Photoshop CS test . This trial run is a set of four tasks do on a 150 MB file , with Photoshop ’s memory set to 25 percent.—Macworld laboratory examination by James Galbraith and Jerry Jung
specifications
Macworld’s buying advice
If you ’ve outgrow your current storehouse and need to elaborate , weigh the Mercury Elite - AL Pro Quad 500 GB . Its quiet surgical operation , good performance , and software system parcel will make it a welcome addition to your desktop . If 500 GB is too big or too small for you , the driving is also usable in other capacities , from 250 GB to 750 gigabyte .
[ Jeffy Milstead is a Macworld Lab alumnus and a writer living in San Francisco . ]
