Mercury Aura Pro

The Mercury Aura Pro is a SandForce-powerd SATA 2 3.0 GB/s drive with a form factor of 1.8 inches, ideal for use in laptop computers. The solid state drive can reach a maximum sequential read speed of 285 MB/s and a maximum sequential write speed of 275 MB/s. The IOPS, meanwhile, at random 4 kb can reach up to 50,000. The Mercury Aura Pro comes with a SF-1200 controller  and seven percent over provisioning firmware set. This means that a seven percent extra memory space is used for data management. Together with the controller are Tier 1/Grade A Multi-Level Cell (MLC) NAND Flash Memory modules.

Data protection is ensured by ECC of that can recover 24 bytes in a sector consisting of 512 bytes. Unrecoverable read errors are only less than 1 sector per 10¹⁶ bits read. Native command qeueing is supported as well as SMART commands and TRIM. The Mercury Aura Pro has a Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) of 2,000,000 hours and comes with a three year warranty. Users can choose between 40 GB, 60 GB, 120 GB, 240 GB and 480 GB capacities.

Specifications:

• Sequential Read: Up to 285 MB/second
• Sequential Write: Up to 275 MB/second
• NAND type: MLC
• Interface: SATA 2 3GBps
• Controller: SandForce SF-2100
• Form Factor: 2.5 inches
• Power Consumption (idle): 0.09W
• Power Consumption (active): 2.2 W
• DRAM Cache: None
• TRIM support: Yes
• SMART support: Yes
• Warranty: 3 years

Part Numbers:

• 40 GB: OWCSSDAP3G040
• 60 GB : OWCSSDAP3G060
• 120 GB : OWCSSDAP3G120
• 240 GB : OWCSSDAP3G240
• 480 GB : OWCSSDAP3G480

Reviews:

AnandTech (archived)

The OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G is a well executed SSD upgrade for 2011 MacBook Air owners. You get an absolutely huge performance increase and an option for users who want the entry level 2011 MBAs but with a larger capacity SSD. If your MacBook Air is your primary workhorse, perhaps even your desktop replacement, and you got stuck with a Toshiba SSD the OWC option makes a lot of sense. OWC thankfully provides everything you need in the box to get into your MacBook Air and swap drives.

storage review:

When evaluating storage upgrade options with the 1.8″ mSATA interface, buyers don’t have a lot of options. Thankfully they do have the OWC Aura Pro though, a high-speed SSD that makes few compromises when compared to it’s larger 2.5″ SSD cousins.