OWC Mercury Elite External HDDs

[audiophile65]

Just wanted to ask if any of you can recommend the OWC Mercury Elite Ext. HDD's for backing up music files.

Since I will be buying the 2014 Mac Mini in August, I just wondered if you could recommend either of the following:

 

OWC Mercury Elite Pro (USB 3.0/FireWire 800/eSATA) 7200RPM

or

OWC Mercury Elite Pro (USB 3.0 with +1 port) 7200RPM

 

or

 

OWC Mercury Elite Pro Mini (USB 3.0 + eSATA, bus powered, portable) 5400RPM

 

I plan to order 2 identical 2TB versions of the above mentioned OWC drives.

 

I currently own 2 1TB Oyen Digital MiniPro's (USB 2.0/FireWire 400 and 800)

 

Thanks for your help.

[kumakuma]

I've got about a dozen of these OWC enclosures, connected using either Firewire or e-Sata.

 

They are rock solid.

 

I purchase them empty and put Western Digital red drives in them. 

[audiophile65]

1 minute ago, kumakuma said:

I've got about a dozen of these OWC enclosures, connected using either Firewire or e-Sata.

 

They are rock solid.

 

I purchase them empty and put Western Digital red drives in them. 

 

First, can you tell me more about WD red drives?

Second, since I'm not an all-out computer expert, how easy is it to install the WD red drives into enclosures?

[kumakuma]

24 minutes ago, audiophile65 said:

 

First, can you tell me more about WD red drives?

Second, since I'm not an all-out computer expert, how easy is it to install the WD red drives into enclosures?

 

Here is some information from WD on the drives:

 

https://www.wdc.com/products/internal-storage/wd-red.html

 

I have found them extremely reliable for both data and backup purposes.

 

If you can operate a screwdriver, you won't have any issues installing the drive. Just avoid touching the back of the drive where the circuit board is.

 

Here's a video:

 

 

[tmtomh]

It's dead-easy to install a bare drive in an internal case - no worries there.

 

OWC sell great products and have great customer service - a great company, highly recommended.

 

That said, in recent years pretty much every major drive manufacturer produces rock-solid products (with the exception of some Seagate drives from 6-10 years ago), and you'll do better on price from Amazon and other vendors than from OWC.

 

Also, if you're just using the drive(s) for backup, speed isn't terribly important after you do the first backup, because subsequent backups are incremental and therefore much smaller. I mention this because the best backup is the one you keep up to date. For that reason, I like the smaller, "mini"/portable drives. They are slower (5400rpm vs 7200rpm) and cost a little more per GB, but because they are bus-powered, they don't need a separate power cord or AC brick - just plug them in via USB and you're good to go. They also are a little quieter than their full-size cousins.

 

 

[kumakuma]

13 hours ago, tmtomh said:

That said, in recent years pretty much every major drive manufacturer produces rock-solid products (with the exception of some Seagate drives from 6-10 years ago), and you'll do better on price from Amazon and other vendors than from OWC.

 

I had at least six of these fail on me within a few months of each other. 

[tmtomh]

8 minutes ago, kumakuma said:

 

I had at least six of these fail on me within a few months of each other. 

 

I had a less extreme version of this situation. Maybe 3 years or so after i bought my Late 2009 iMac, Apple issued blanket repair/recall on the hard drives, saying they could fail. They were Seagates if memory serves. Mine was fine, but I brought it in to be safe, and they did a drive swap for free.

 

Unfortunately the replacement also was a Seagate, and it died in the middle of the night a couple of weeks ago. Six years isn't terrible, but it's the only drive I've ever had that's died in fewer than 10 (or in most cases 12-15) years.

 

I also installed a 2nd drive a couple of years ago, an SSD for the OS, my apps, and my important docs. So the Seagate drive has only been used for storage since then, getting much lighter use than a normal boot drive would - which makes it even more surprising and disappointing that it failed.

[charlesphoto]

I use a Mercury with a 2.5” HD connected to my NUC for local files for Roon. Works great, powered by an HDPLEX 100 (along with the NUC). Yeah, just get the bare case and HD of your choice. Works great. 

[kumakuma]

For backups, an even cheaper solution is to just use raw drives and one of these:

 

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock?_ga=2.207148884.699063029.1532642025-412975533.1531509253

 

Just have to a little more careful handing/storing the drives to avoid shock and static damage.

[charlesphoto]

I use a bare drive dock for backups for my photography biz. Stick your HD backup into a small pelican case and put it into your car trunk and take it with you everywhere. 

[daverich4]

I had four of their enclosures fail on me over the years before I gave up on them. 

[AudioDoctor]

I have a very old OWC Neptune 500GB Firewire400 drive still soldiering on.  I lost the power brick in a move and they sent me a new one for free when I inquired about ordering a replacement. That should tell you all you need to know about OWC.  100% Recommend.

[AudioDoctor]

5 minutes ago, daverich4 said:

I had four of their enclosures fail on me before I gave up on them. 

 

Was it OWC branded, or a 3rd party brand?

[daverich4]

Just now, AudioDoctor said:

 

Was it OWC branded, or a 3rd party brand?

 

Mercury Elite purchased from OWC. 

[AudioDoctor]

weird, you're the only person I have ever seen speak of a problem with them.

[wgscott]

I've also had a problem with their externally powered drive/enclosure.

 

The Firewire bus ones have been fine.  I think I have four of those scattered about.

[AudioDoctor]

Can people that wear emergency blankets inside out really be trusted though? ?

[Ralf11]

https://petapixel.com/2018/08/07/samsung-is-making-4tb-ssds-cheaper-for-everyone/

 

[wwaldmanfan]

I have a 2TB Mercury Pro Elite Dual RAID Firewire 800/USB 3.0. It uses two 7200rpm drives. Works great with Firewire. You have to use the external power brick to give it enough juice for USB connectivity. It's been reliable, but it spins louder than my 2TB Western DIgital MY Passport bus-powered 7200rpm Firewire/USB 2.0 portable drives, which are virtually silent. Maybe because there are two drives in the RAID enclosure.

OWC is very customer-friendly. I've also bought RAM chips from them.

[Superdad]

Well I have a large collection of OWC Mercury Elite aluminum single drive enclosures--from almost every era of interface combinations--and before that I had several of the Mercury plastic clamshell versions.  Mostly Oxford chipsets, but I just got one with the JMicron chipset.

 

I have been mostly pleased with them though I have over the years had 2 failures of the interface bridge board (which in both cases I was happy it was just that and not the drive mechanism--I just moved the drive to another enclosure).  

 

But I won't even buy another drive-loaded case from them as the 2TB unit I got was both noisy and the drive failed before its much older siblings.  I prefer to pick my own drive mechanisms.  Unfortunately I just last week discovered that the 4TB drive I bought (to replace the aforementioned failed one) is not fully supported by my quad-interface Mercury Elite enclosure.  Only 2.2TB are seen. Did not realize that this 3-year enclosure would not go above that. 

 

 

[daverich4]

On 8/7/2018 at 2:49 PM, AudioDoctor said:

weird, you're the only person I have ever seen speak of a problem with them.

 

??‍♂️