OWC Developing Enterprise Class PCIe Solid State Drive Solutions Featuring Next Generation SandForce SF-2000 Series Processor

8x & 16x PCIe 2.0 SSD based cards available in early 2011 will offer up to eight drives with up to 4GB/s sequential Read/Writes, up to 480K IOPS, 28% over provisioning, TRIM support, Native Command Queuing, and double AES-256/128 data encryption

October 7, 2010, Woodstock, IL -- Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading zero emissions Mac® and PC technology company, announced today it has begun developing OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) Solutions that will feature the SandForce® SF-2000 second generation processor announced today and being demonstrated by SandForce at Storage Networking World next week. OWC's 8x and 16x PCIe SSD cards will be available with up to eight SSDs for capacities up to 3.2TB, offer up to 4GB/s sequential Reads/Writes and up to 480K IOPS, provide 28% over provisioning for data reliability, and double data encryption for security assurance. Exact pricing and model configurations for the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will be announced in early 2011.

Highest Performance For Demanding Enterprise Applications

The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will be an ideal solution for I/O intensive enterprise servers, storage arrays, and high-end workstations in the financial, telecom, web/mail, gaming, public security, retail, and professional media creation/editing industries. With robust Native Command Queuing to enable up to 32 concurrent operations, OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will deliver significantly higher Input/Output Operations per Second (IOPS) and throughput performance - up to 480K IOPS - than other SSD technology on the market today, as well as dramatically outperform traditional hard disk drive solutions.

Faster Writes To Keep Pace With Reads

Because it's critical to have balanced read and write speeds to provide highest enterprise class system performance, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards maximize the throughput of PCIe 2.0 technology bandwidth so write speeds can achieve the highest level of read speeds up to 4GB/s. Also, by utilizing the second generation SandForce SF-2000 series processor with non-512B sector support, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will maintain high performance in SAS environments.

Built In Hardware RAID Engine

Whether users are seeking the pure speed of RAID 0, or the protection of redundancy via RAID 5 or 10, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe SSD cards will use an advanced on-board RAID engine to offer the convenience of optional RAID levels. And while advanced TRIM is fully supported, the DuraClass advanced internal data and wear leveling management technology reduces the need for it, thereby eliminating TRIM set up and maintenance issues in RAID environments.

Reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Unlike traditional hard disk drives, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards will have no moving parts, resulting in a quieter, cooler running, and lower power consuming storage solution. Now the same server workload can be handled in a more cost efficient manner over a longer usage period, thereby reducing TCO.

Field Upgradable For Future Expansion

The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe Solid State Drive (SSD) cards utilize interchangeable drive modules in place of permanent, surface-mounted NAND to allow customers to upgrade their card in the field and maximize their initial investment.

Continued Use Of Proven DuraClass Technology

While offering a variety of new features over its existing award-winning consumer class Mercury Extreme Pro line (http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/internal_storage/Mercury_Extreme_SSD_Sandforce), the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe SSD cards will continue to utilize SandForce DuraClass™ technology. The ultra-efficient block management & wear leveling built into every OWC SSD has been proven to prevent write speed degradation commonly experienced by other SSD brands. Along with consistent, reliable speed, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe SSD cards will provide up to 100X higher data protection than provided by ordinary SSDs as well as leading enterprise class hard disk drives. By combining best in class Error Correction Code (ECC) and SandForce RAISE™ (Redundant Array of Independent Silicon Elements) technology, the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro Enterprise PCIe SSD cards will provide RAID like data protection and reliability without loss of transfer speed due to parity.

"Utilizing SandForce processors in our SSDs keeps us steadfast in our 22 year commitment to developing products that offer the highest performance available," said Larry O'Connor, Founder and CEO, Other World Computing. "We're very excited to be among the first SSD manufacturers that will feature this next generation of processors designed specifically for uncompromised enterprise use."

"We are pleased Other World Computing, as one of our Trusted SSD Manufacturers, is expanding their product line to add the leading edge enterprise class performance our newest processor family offers," said Kent Smith, Senior Director of Product Marketing at SandForce. "OWC brings a proven and well regarded reputation of leveraging the exceptional performance and reliability of SandForce technology to market."

About Other World Computing (OWC)

Other World Computing (OWC) has been providing quality hardware products and support to the computer industry since 1988 and features one of the largest online catalogs of computer, iPod®, iPhone®, and iPad™ enhancement products through its e-commerce portal http://www.macsales.com. As a Premiere Level Apple Developer Connection member, OWC also provides extensive US based technical support for Macintosh users around the world as well as Internet access via http://www.fastermac.net and http://www.owc.net