OWC Mercury Elite Pro Hard Drive vs. G-Tech G-Raid

[Michael Totten]

G-Raids seem to be the default drive, but they're a bit on the expensive side. Once in awhile I get producers asking if they can substitute LACIE's & for no particular reason I get an uneasy feeling having my footage backed up on Lacie's.

So I'm curious about OWC's Mercury Elite Pro Drives, has anyone used them? It'd be primarily for offloading, storing R3D's & potentially some lightweight editing / grading.

Here's a link: http://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/MEAQ7H20TB64/

 

[Jordan Livingston]

I've used OWCs all the time as G-Tech alternatives (there was a period of time last year when G-Techs were frequently unavailable but OWC managed to maintain a healthy stock). I can say that OWCs seem to run just a little hotter and just a little louder; the G-Tech enclosure seems to be more robust. Other than that, I have never any problems whatsoever with the OWC drives. I highly recommend them.

Best,

- Jordan

 

[Jack Allred]

I have been using OWCs 4 drive raid configuration and Its been great. I had a drive fail 6 months ago, And the mercury elite performed excellently. Alerted me, I replaced the failed drive, and it rebuilt the data, and i never had a hiccup. Great product.

 

[Matt Gottshalk]

They are excellent. Although I would use the 4 drive Qx2 or 2 drive Guardian Maximus for redundancy on the field.

 

[Elliott Balsley]

I'm using a G-Speed Q right now, and it's clicking loudly whenever reading or writing. It's about 2 weeks old, and never been mistreated. What I hate about G-Tech is their lack of configuration / monitoring software, so I can't check SMART diagnostics or anything else. I used a Promise Pegasus R4 a few weeks ago, and they had a great software that could read multiple temperature sensors, SMART data, and much more.
Even when I first got the G-Speed, I had to change it from RAID 5 to 0, and their utility doesn't support Mac OS newer than 10.6!! I finally got it to work on my 10.8 machine, but it took 30 minutes of tweaking.
I would love to buy an OWC Mercury Rack Pro, but they're on back order indefinitely, according to both OWC and Full Compass.

 

[Colter Ripley]

Yeah I really like the mirrored drives for in-field work. Having two drives in a Raid 1 enclosure. G-Tech definitely has the most robust one.

If you're really concerned with the safety of the drives, make sure to get Enterprise class drives. They are a lot stronger and made to work for years. Consumer class drives seem to get shittier as time goes on.

 

[david_winters]

Been using OWC for years, love them. I have 60 of these at the office. 1 and 2 TB for editorial.

EDIT: We've killed several from tip over. Place enclosure on the side, NOT on the "feet" which have rounded corners. We lost 4 spinning drives in an earthquake in 2008, due to placing on the designed "feet."

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/PerformanceRAID

We backup to bare SATA drives with these.
http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/NewerTech/Voyager/Hard_Drive_Dock

And use these on set and for shutting footage.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/usb/raid_1/Gmax_Portable

3 year warranty. We send about 3 drives back per year. OWC repairs or replace with no hassle.

 

[Robert A. Ober]

I really like my Caldigit VR set to RAID 1. I have tested the failover and rebuild and it works well. Not sure why they do not get the love that G-RAID gets. The Caldigit folks have been real nice as well.

Y'all be cool,
Robert

 

[rod bradley]

I've got six OWC 4 drive boxes and have never had any problems, with one rebuild. I have populated the boxes myself with off-the-shelf drives (mostly Samsungs) but only because of budgetary considerations. And it's probably better to buy theirs populated if you can afford. OWC has great customer service. I would buy with confidence. It's the most bang for the buck out there as far as I can determine.