MCE Technologies introduces its 320GB MobileStor Performance hard disk drive upgrade

Jan 30, 2008 12:01 GMT  ·  By

MacBook owners looking to increase their storage space will be glad to hear that MCE Technologies has just introduced its 320GB MobileStor Performance hard disk drive upgrade for both MacBook and MacBook Pro.

At $349, the 320GB HDD operates at 5400RPM, featuring a maximum sustained transfer rate of above 75MB/sec. Burst transfer rates go up to 150MB/sec. The drive supports Native Command Queuing (NCQ) and S.M.A.R.T. status monitoring, supported by Apple's Disk Utility, which can warn you if the drive is experiencing problems that can lead to disk failure.

However, the real treat is the enclosure. The MCE MobileStor Performance Hard Drive Upgrade Solution includes a lightweight portable 2.5" SATA enclosure that sports both eSATA and USB 2.0 ports. It requires no screws to install your drive, as MCE themselves claim, being bus-powered, booting your MacBook Pro or MacBook when connected via USB.

A built-in heat-dissipator at the top of the enclosure ensures that the drive runs cool. Blue and red LEDs indicate power and activity, respectively, while the enclosure itself comes in especially handy when installing the new drive into your Mac. Users are able to simply insert the original SATA drive they've just removed from the notebook into the enclosure, boot from it, and run the included SuperDuper! cloning/backup software to clone the original drive to the new one. Easy as pie!

Opting for the MCE MobileStor Performance Hard Drive, you'll finally have all the storage space you need for your notebook, plus a backup or all-purpose portable storage device (yes, your old drive).

Note that the MCE MobileStor Performance HDD responds to S.M.A.R.T. status commands from the status commands query. Therefore, it can warn of possible impending disk failure long before it happens, giving the user enough time to archive important data.

Available capacities range from 120GB to as much as 320GB! MCE's new HDD is compatible with the 17" and 15" MacBook Pro and the 13.3" MacBook.