OWC Mercury Extreme Pro vs. Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD

[Ice Dragon]

I'm weighing my options here as I get ever so close to purchasing my Mac Mini.

Both are OWC SSDs...

In the red corner, there is the Mercury Extreme Pro 120 GB with 7% over-provisioning and a three year warranty for $320 (£206). In the blue corner is Mercury Extreme Pro RE 100 GB with 28% over-provisioning and a five year warranty for $370 (£238).

20 GB more storage seems as though it would be a no-brainer, though the five year warranty and higher percentage of over-provisioning is tempting for a little bit more.

So let's see what the users here have to say.

 

[Giuly]

I'm weighing my options here as I get ever so close to purchasing my Mac Mini.

Both are OWC SSDs...

In the red corner, there is the Mercury Extreme Pro 120 GB with 7% over-provisioning and a three year warranty for $320 (£206). In the blue corner is Mercury Extreme Pro RE 100 GB with 28% over-provisioning and a five year warranty for $370 (£238).

20 GB more storage seems as though it would be a no-brainer, though the five year warranty and higher percentage of over-provisioning is tempting for a little bit more.

So let's see what the users here have to say.

100GB SandForce-1200 drives have the old firmware, thus only allowing to use 100GB of the 128GB of flash inside, rather then the 120GB of the non RE. The RE is intended for RAID though, as you want to replace your only hard drive in the Mini or use it along with a hard drive in a Mac Mini Server (Well, I guess so), the non-RE offers much more GB/$.

The 120GB Phoenix Pro already announced that it would fight the non-RE, as being the same drive, with an unlocked firmware which allows 50k IOPS w/ 4K writes instead of the 25k the other SF-1200 drives allow.
In the UK may it's £6 more expensive then the OWC SSD, though, in the US this drive is cheaper. Get whatever is cheaper.

 

[Ice Dragon]

That is helpful but also confusing.

So you are saying both OWC drives are using old firmware? I mean I must admit... both OCZ and Phoenix have awesome looking logos though.

I will keep studying before my purchase though I know I'll make out great in the end as time moves on.