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OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD - Boot Up Test

After the initial read/write test of the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD, I installed Snow Leopard and a mix of applications to test launch times. While I didn't measure the process, the installation of Snow Leopard and the three Adobe CS5 products seemed to go quickly. Usually when I'm installing any of these products, I expect to spend a fair amount of time waiting for the process to finish.

Of course, the initial read/write tests I performed should have clued me in to the raw performance potential of this SSD, but actually experiencing the performance, rather than simply measuring it, is quite a kick.

I performed the boot test with a stopwatch, to measure the elapsed time from pressing the Mac Pro's power on button until the desktop first appeared. I performed this test 5 times, always from a power off state, and averaged the results for a final score.

For comparison, I measured the boot time of my usual startup drive, a Samsung F3 HD103SJ. The Samsung is a better than average performer, but by no means one of the fastest platter-based hard drives available.

Mac Pro Boot Time

• Samsung F3: 51.8 seconds
• OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD: 30.7 seconds

The difference in boot times was impressive. I hadn't thought of my current startup drive as contributing to a slow boot process, but after experiencing the faster SSD drive, I've seen the light.

OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD - Application Launch Test

Application launch times may not be the most important attribute to test. After all, most individuals launch their workhorse applications only once or twice a day. How much does shaving a little off of this time contribute to overall productivity?

The answer is probably not a lot, but it does serve an important function. It provides a measurement that can be easily referenced against day-to-day Mac usage. Measuring read/write speeds provides raw performance numbers, but measuring application launch times puts the performance in perspective.

For the application launch test I chose 6 applications that should represent a good cross-section for Mac users: Microsoft Word and Excel 2008, Adobe InDesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop CS5, and Apple Safari.

I performed each test 5 times, restarting the Mac Pro after each test to ensure that no application data was being cached. I measured the launch times for Photoshop and Illustrator from when I double-clicked an image document associated with each application until the application opened and displayed the selected image. I measured the other applications in the test from when I clicked their icons in the Dock until they displayed a blank document.

Application Launch SSD

• Adobe Illustrator: 4.3 seconds
• Adobe InDesign: 3 seconds
• Adobe Photoshop: 4.9 seconds

• Word: 2.2 seconds
• Excel: 2.2 seconds

• Safari: 1.4 seconds

Application Launch Samsung F3

• Adobe Illustrator: 11.5 seconds
• Adobe InDesign: 8.9 seconds
• Adobe Photoshop: 8.1 seconds

• Word: 6.5 seconds
• Excel: 4.2 seconds

• Safari: 4.4 seconds

OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD - Final Benchmark

After I finished all of the previous tests, I once again ran the read/write performance benchmark. The purpose of running the benchmark a second time was to see if I could detect any performance falloff.

Many currently available SSDs have a nasty habit of declining in performance after only a bit of use. To test how well the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD will perform over time, I used it as my daily startup drive for two weeks. During those two weeks I used the drive for all of my typical tasks: reading and writing email, browsing the web, editing images, playing music, and testing products. I also watched a few movies and TV shows, just for testing purposes, you understand.

When I finally got around to running the benchmark tests again, I saw very little difference. In fact, all of the differences could be explained by simple averaging errors in my samples.

Standard Results:

• Peak Sequential Read: 250.132 MB/s (1024 KB file)
• Peak Sequential Write: 248.286 MB/s (1024 KB file)
• Average Sequential Read: 153.537 MB/s
• Average Sequential Write: 172.117 MB/s

• Peak Random Read: 246.761 MB/s (1024 KB file)
• Peak Random Write: 244.344 MB/s (1024 KB file)
• Average Random Read: 145.463 MB/s
• Average Random Write: 171.733 MB/s

Large Results:

• Peak Sequential Read: 268.315 MB/s (10 MB file)
• Peak Sequential Write: 261.313 MB/s (6 MB file)
• Average Sequential Read: 266.468 MB/s
• Average Sequential Write: 257.943 MB/s

Expanded Results:

• Peak Sequential Read: 269.849 MB/s (100 MB file)
• Peak Sequential Write: 258.438 MB/s (20 MB file)
• Average Sequential Read: 268.868 MB/s
• Average Sequential Write: 257.575 MB/s

OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD - Final Thoughts

The OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD was impressive, in both its initial performance and its ability to maintain performance levels over the time I had the drive for testing.

Much of the credit for the performance of this SSD goes to the Sanford processor, and the over-provisioning of the SSD by 28 percent. In essence, the 50 GB model we tested actually has 64 GB of available storage. Likewise, the 100 GB model contains 128 GB; the 200 GB model has 256 GB; and the 400 GB has 512 GB.

The processor uses the extra space to provide redundancy, error correction, wear leveling, block management, and free space management, all methods to ensure the same level of performance over the anticipated 5-year lifetime.

The raw speed is impressive, well beyond what you'd expect to see in standard platter-based hard drives. After using the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSD for two weeks as a loaner, I'm sorry to send it back.

If you're looking to optimize your Mac's performance, this series of SSDs from OWC should be on your short list. The smaller models would be very effective as scratch space for multimedia authoring or image editing applications. The larger models would make fantastic startup drives if you want maximum performance, all the time.

The only downside to the OWC Mercury Extreme Pro RE SSDs is their price. Like all SSDs, they're still at the upper end of the price/performance equation. But if you have a specific need for speed, you won't go wrong with these drives.



Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.