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OWC Mercury Elite-AL "Quad Interface" external HD enclosure

J

jb60606

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jan 27, 2008
871
0
Chicago
I have the raid edition from OWC and Guardian which seems to work just fine. Being RAID with fans is a bit annoying buy necessary for heat dissipation.

I personally prefer G-technology enclosures, but you are forced to over pay for loaded enclosures.

I like the fact of the SATA extenders, will have to consider buying that!
 
Thanks

Do you know if the single drive Mercury Elite-AL comes with a fan? I was kinda hoping it didn't, and that was my reasoning behind purchasing the slower WD Green Power drive.

Doesn't mention a fan in the description, but, then again; OWC likes to leave a lot to the imagination unfortunately.
 
I have one and installed a 1tb seagate barracuda with the NS ending model and I have to say that this external enclosure is THE BEST EXTERNAL ENCLOSURE I have ever used. And no it does not have a fan but runs cool and quiet (obviously makes a noise from the hdd but pretty quiet in terms of sound as to my other external drives that sounds like an airplane taking off).

I looveee fw 800, its soooo fast.
 
I have it, I have the 750GB model. It's a bit bigger than my other firewire external enclosure, which I didn't expect. It seems to be cool but that might be because feels like a thick aluminum casing. I'm pretty happy with it, the only issue I find it minor...sometimes when I hook it up and turn it on, it doesn't always detect on my Mac...but turning it off and back on again seems to fix that.
 
321estrellas said:
I'm pretty happy with it, the only issue I find it minor...sometimes when I hook it up and turn it on, it doesn't always detect on my Mac...but turning it off and back on again seems to fix that.
Click to expand...

I havnt had that problem not even once from my 1tb seagate so far but I wouldnt say its an issue.. because for all I know is that most hdd's will do this no matter what. Even my other external hdd and my 2.5" hdd does it once in a while and I mean once in a while like once a few months or so.

Even though I own a mac pro I ordered this enclosure to use the 1tb drive with fw 800 so I can keep stuff on backup and use it to transfer certain files to my mbp without having to reboot my mbp or mp all the time.
 
Considering it will likely be connected to the internal SATA ports (via eSATA extender) do I have to have it powered on before I power on the computer? Or will it not be recognized otherwise?

Thanks
 
I just got my OWC Mercury Elite-AL Quad Interface (I guess it wasn't on backorder), the eSATA Extender, and the (1 Terabyte) Western Digital "Green Power" RE2-GP hard drive.

After about a 2hr installation (The eSATA Extender installation was a BlTCH, though, mainly because NewerTech didn't update their installation instructions to reflect the 2008 MPs and I lacked a proper screw driver, light and common sense :) ), the external hard drive is up and running via eSATA and pushed through it's first TM backup with ease. What once took hours over a USB drive has been reduced to about 25mins.

Pros:
-No fan/No added noise

Cons:
-Though it can be disconnected, the blue power/activity light is a little bright/annoying.
-During the TM backup, the HD's temp hit 101 degrees and appears to be staying there. At idle, prior to the backup, it was around 90-94. Internal HDs are at 88 a piece (1x Samsung F1 750GB, 1x WD 320GB).

Other thoughts:
Even with a slower (by design) hard drive, it still outperformed the stock WD 320GB that came with the MP.

And to answer my own question from above; yes, you do need to power the drive on prior to powering up the Mac Pro.
 

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Using the Green Power drive for Time Machine is a great idea.

Others might consider the WiebeTech drive which has the same specs, but has some shock suppression dampers.

Question: Why esata? I thought that Firewire 800 is just as fast and a no-brainer for installation.
 
adjuster said:
Using the Green Power drive for Time Machine is a great idea.

Others might consider the WiebeTech drive which has the same specs, but has some shock suppression dampers.

Question: Why esata? I thought that Firewire 800 is just as fast and a no-brainer for installation.
Click to expand...

I chose eSATA because I'll also be adding an external Blu Ray drive . From what I've seen, the only other option is USB 2.0 for external 5.25" enclosures, and, from what I've read, the performance is less than stellar. I saw a FW400 option, though it had lots of bad reviews.

It'll also be sharing time with a Windows computer, making 'external' a necessity, at least until BR drives drop below $100 (a long ways away, it seems).
 
Anyone here, preferably with the single drive enclosure, care to share HD temps? At idle, I'm getting between 100-104 (74 degree ambient temp).

I was told this is too hot. I wish there was a mini external USB fan I could purchase.

Thanks
 
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