AUGUST 9--Other World Computing (OWC; Woodstock, IL; www.macsales.com), a provider of products and services for the Macintosh marketplace, has introduced the high-performance Mercury Elite FireWire/USB 2.0 Combo Storage Solution that operates at 7200 rpm. The Mac OS and Windows-compatible combo drives are available in storage capacities ranging from 40 to 120 Gbytes and feature transfer rates of up to 480 Mbytes/s with USB 2.0 and up to 400 Mbytes/s with the FireWire connection.
The FireWire/USB combo drives are designed for professionals and consumers who need convenient, portable storage for large amounts of data. These high-speed, high-capacity drives can be used to back up data, transport and synchronize files between multiple computers and free up valuable hard-disk space on existing computers; they are ideal for high-audio/video applications. The combo drives are also especially convenient when transferring data between computers that may feature only FireWire or only USB platforms.
Mercury's FireWire external hard drives offer massive hot-swap storage that can be quickly and easily disconnected from the computer and either locked up for security or shared from one computer to another. The Mercury Elite drives are compatible with any computer with a FireWire or USB port, using either Mac OS 8.6-9.2.2; Mac OS X; Windows 98 or higher operating systems.
For computers without FireWire or USB ports, OWC offers several combination FireWire/USB PCI adapters for desktops and CardBus PCMCIA FireWire cards for notebooks.
Each combo drive includes a FireWire cable, USB cable, an external power supply, which reduces noise, Intech's HD SpeedTools software, and a one-year warranty. USB 2.0 is backwards compatible with USB 1.1, as are all of OWC's Mercury combo drives.
