Features - Storage Innovations:

OTHER WORLD RELEASES ITS FIRST FireWire 800 PRODUCTS

Other World Computing (OWC), a leading provider of products and services for the Macintosh marketplace, has launched its Mercury Elite Pro FW800 series of storage solutions, OWC's first products to support the new IEEE 1394b FireWire 800 standard.

Utilizing a custom Oxford922 bridge solution, the new Mercury Elite Pro FW800 storage solutions offer data transfer rates of more than 60 Megabytes per second, as much as 50 percent faster than previous FireWire/USB 2.0 solutions. These 7200RPM units are available with up to 250 Gigabytes of storage capacity and 8MBs of cache memory.

"The greatest impact of these new drives is speed," said Larry O'Connor, president and chief executive officer of Other World Computing. "Transferring, reading and writing large data files have never been faster, or easier, than with the new FireWire 800 standard. Additionally, these drives are 'plug-and-play' compatible with machines equipped FireWire 400 (1394a) and USB 2.0/1.1, giving users complete portability with the maximum performance available from these interfaces. As a result, the new Mercury Elite Pro FW800 drives are perfect for anyone working with large files, such as movies, videos, music, photography, databases -- anything that takes up a lot of digital space. They are also particularly well-suited for anyone using high-end audio, video, or AV applications for recording and/or editing."

Features for the Mercury Elite Pro FW800 storage solutions include:

• Two nine-pin FireWire 800 (1394b) ports;
• One six-pin FireWire 400 (1394a) port;
• One USB 2.0/1.1 port;
• One 7200RPM "nearly silent" hard drive;
• 2MB or 8MB of cache;
• A Cool Blue LED Activity Indicator light;
• A free copy of Intech HD SpeedTools;
• All connecting cables; and
• A full two-year warranty.

Operating systems supported by the Mercury Elite Pro FW800 storage solutions include:

• Apple OS v8.5-9.2.x;
• Apple OS X, all versions;
• Microsoft Windows 98SE, ME, 2000, and XP; and
• Any other operating system that supports either FireWire or USB ports.

Pricing for the Mercury Elite Pro FW800 storage solutions range from $249.99 for an 80GB solution with 2MB of cache to $519.99 for a 250GB solution with 8MB of cache. Additional details and complete pricing information can be found online at www.macsales.com/fw800.