News

posted on 18 April 2008 11:43

Other World Computing (OWC) has announced the highest-capacity portable drive on the market at 500GB.

The Mercury On-The-Go 500GB model uses a 2.5-inch Hitachi Travelstar 5K500 hard drive, spinning at 5400rpm, inside a package measuring 3-inches wide, 3.5-inches long and 1-inch high. It will fit in a shirt pocket but, at 11oz weight, it might be better to have it in a jacket pocket instead.

There is no fan and heat is dissipated through an aluminium heatsink on the base of the device. It supports both Firewire 800 and 400 connectivity plus USB 2.0, and will connect to both PCs and Macs plus any other intelligent devices with these interfaces.

For the Mac the Mercury drive is Leopard Time Machine-ready. It also comes with Prosoft DataBackup III for OS X and NovaStor NovaBackup for Windows plus a set of tools for Mac users. There is a carrying case and a 1-year warranty.

It's available from OWC and its resellers.

We might expect 7,200rpm units heading towards this capacity level in a year or so.

^{[Paul Roberts, news editor.]}