OWC Mercury On-The-Go user reviews (500GB)

Pros Portable, dependable, reliable. All forms of connectivity (less USB3) is very nice and no need for external power if using firewire.

Cons None at this time

Summary I've had this HD for about a year and a half and have not had one issue. In that same time I've replaced a WD and am about to replace a Seagate HD, all were bought at about the same time. I've taken this HD on various trips so that I have full access to my vast movie and photo library. This HD has far exceeded my expectations and I have since bought two more OWC hard drives. All are workhorses.

Pros -user openable-if you know what to do when you get inside

Cons sensitive to shock. gets burning hot. stupid rubber feet fall off in a matter of hours. dual firewire 800 ports doesn't give you options of how to hook up.

Summary I've had two of these issued through school, and both exhibited the same problems. the drive would shut off at the slightest movement-even sitting on a table on a moving train. shut offs lead to corrupted catalogs and headaches, and spending more money to go with another, slightly more orange brand that exhibits reliability even when being tossed around.

Pros large capacity drive

Cons while having some geek appeal the clear cover is really not great looking unless you are weird and happen to like the hard drive look most people try to conceal.

Summary One correction. The reviewer says that FAT32 doesn't support capacity of this size. Huh? That is plain wrong. You can format FAT32 for 500GB drive and both windows and Mac will work fine with it. Windows can't format FAT32 to that size, but you can format it on the Mac for 500GB. Or there are 3rd party tools you can download for free on windows to do the job. The reviewer should check the facts before making statements like that.

Anyway, the drive is a bit expensive, but works well. The performance I get is a lot higher than review, but the testing methodology isn't mentioned so that makes the numbers published here kind of meaningless. The bottom like for a product like this is that it is small and large and without the need for external power (like the others in this class) it is super convenient for travel. Just can't get over how ugly it is though!!