OWC Speeds Up 2.5-inch Portable Drives

The latest Mercury On-the-Go drives from OWC fit into a standard 2.5-inch enclosure but spin at an impressive 7200 RPM with 320GB of storage.

Notebook users looking for tiny portable drives that pack both capacity and performance have one more option today thanks to Other World Computing: the first 2.5-inch 320GB drive that spins at a desktop-like 7200RPM.

OWC used a TravelStar drive from Hitachi and added a slick transparent enclosure to turn it into a portable storehouse in its Mercury On-the-Go line. The bus-powered (either USB 2.0 or FireWire) design also eliminates the need for an AC adapter, so you can quite literally drop it in your pocket and go.

The new drives run from $239.99 (for the simple USB 2.0-powered version) up to $279.99 (for a version that includes FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and USB 2.0 connections.)  Other drives in the same 11-ounce form factor can be had down to 40GB or up to 500GB in capacity.