14 DAY TRIAL // Back in October 2009, Other World Computing first introduced its 1TB Mercury On-The-Go portable hard disk drive. Now, the company has decided to re-launch its product, even offering advanced functionality in order to boost its appeal. Essentially, the device has not been changed, except for the fact that it can now come with the Western Digital Scorpio Blue 2,5-inch drive. What is special about this is that the device uses WD's 'Advanced Format' technology, which was detailed back in December.
The 'Advanced Format' technology used in these storage units changes the sector size from 512 bytes to 4,096 bytes. This increases the format efficiency and boosts the storage space-allocation by increasing the ECC block size. Overall, error-correcting capabilities, compared with those of regular drives, are improved by 50%. These advanced formatting and data-integrity features are combined with a working speed of 5,400RPM, a cache memory of 8MB, an MTBF of 1.2 million hours and the plug-and-play capability, all in a small, compact frame that can fit inside a pocket, although the 1.1 kg weight might have a certain discouraging effect when considering such a means of transportation.
"When you have one of the fastest portable drives on the market as proclaimed by various leading media sources, you don’t rest on your laurels," Larry O'Connor, CEO, Other World Computing, said. "We continue to push performance boundaries by adding faster and higher capacity drives to the On-The-Go so it continues to be the standard by which all other drives are measured."
The HDD is compatible with PCs, Macs and digital devices and comes in multiple versions, differentiated by their connectivity options. The USB 2.0 version is priced at $229.99, the FireWire 400 & USB 2.0 combo interface model sells for $249.99 and, lastly, the triple interface FireWire 400/800 & USB 2.0 has a price tag of $269.99. All three are backed by a three-year warranty and may be ordered directly from the company's official website.