On Thursday, Other World Computing (OWC) launched a new dual boot enabler for Apple Boot Camp that supports a number of the company’s solid-state drives. The free application can be downloaded here, enabling users to partition their drive with Windows on the Mercury Accelsior S, the Mercury Accelsior E2, the OWC Aura SSD for mid-2013 and later MacBook Air and Retina-based MacBook Pro notebooks, and the OWC Aura SSD for Mac Pros dated 2013 and later.
According to OWC, users can uninstall the enabler once it’s no longer needed, or they can leave it installed for future use, as the program does not use system memory or other system resources. The downloadable file itself weighs a mere 42KB and requires OS X 10.6.8 at the very least to be present on the Mac device. The company notes that this program is required when using the OS X Boot Camp utility.
OWC offers the Aura SSD in two capacities: 512GB and 1TB, both with usable capacities of 480GB and 960GB, respectively after 7 percent over-provisioning. The drive has a maximum write speed of 446MB per second, a maximum read speed of 763MB per second, an incompressible write speed of 425MB per second, and an incompressible read speed of 754MB per second. Encryption is chip-based and 128-bit AES compliant.
OWC actually introduced the Aura SSD earlier this year. The drive comes with an optional upgrade kit that includes all the tools customers need to swap out the factory-installed model. The kit also comes with an OWC Envoy Pro drive enclosure so that the unused factory-based drive isn’t sitting around collecting dust. With the purchase, customers get free support and access to videos that show how they can upgrade the storage on their own. The drive comes packed with a three-year limited warranty.
The Mercury Accelsior E2 is a PCIe 2.0-based solid state drive that is offered in 120GB, 240GB, 480GB, and 960GB capacities. Requiring two eSATA ports, the drive has a maximum read speed of 823MB per second and a maximum write speed of 783MB per second on a Windows-based PC. For Macs, the drive is capable of up to 678MB per second read speeds and up to 688MB per second write speeds. Encryption is chip-based and 128-bit AES compliant.
While the Mercury Accelsior S isn’t listed on OWC’s website, there is a vanilla Accelsior S dual-lane PCIe 2.0 expansion card that allows the customer to add a 2.5-inch SATA 3 drive directly to the card itself. The card supports sustained speeds up to 550MB per second, giving that tired old Mac or Windows PC a needed shot of adrenaline. For this solution, OWC recommends slapping on the Mercury Electra 6G SSDs, or the Mercury Extreme Pro 6G SSDs.
If you want to see how to upgrade your Mac product with an OWC SSD solution, check out the company’s video library here. This section covers everything basically, from installing an SSD in a 13-inch MacBook to cramming memory into a Mac Pro Tower.
