Other World Computing has a new 2.0TB entry in its line of solid-state-drives called the Mercury Electra 6G MAX. While the Mercury Electra 6G line is great for use internally or in an external enclosure, the new 2.0TB Electra 6G MAX is qualified for internal use only.
Last year I replaced my system drive with a Mercury Electra 3G SSD, 960GB and was quite happy with “breathing” new life and speed into my Pro Tools computer. For both faster operating speed and more storage, I wanted to replace my internal 1TB audio hard drive as well. The 2TB Mercury Electra MAX 6G 2.5-inch SSD I received for review is capable of real world speeds of 490/471 MB/sec read/write speeds.
After formatting, I copied over to the Mercury Electra MAX about 510GB from my existing 7200-RPM audio drive and launched a Pro Tools session. It had already used 100 voices and put another 156 tracks (voices) in record for a total of 256. The System Usage window in Pro Tools showed Disk usage (read/write activity) at 17%. The same session configuration on my old drive showed 44%—more than twice plus there were occasional CPU spikes to 100%.
Now with the OWC Mercury Electra 6G for audio and Mercury Electra 3G system drives, I find large Pro Tools sessions load faster, and run much smoother with less hiccups that I’ve come to expect using my old hard drives.
As tested, the Other World Computing 2.0TB Mercury Electra MAX 6G 2.5 Serial-ATA 7mm Solid State drive sells for $697.99.
eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/SSD7E6G02T
BARRY RUDOLPH is a recording engineer/mixer who has worked on over 30 gold and platinum records. He has recorded and/or mixed Lynyrd Skynyrd, Hall & Oates, Pat Benatar, Rod Stewart, the Corrs and more. Barry has his own futuristic music mixing facility and loves teaching audio engineering at Musician’s Institute, Hollywood, CA. He is a lifetime Grammy-voting member of NARAS and a contribut- ing editor for Mix Magazine. barryrudolph.com
