OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini USB–C Portable Hard Drive

An affordable pocket hard drive

OWC makes a range of high–end and enterprise–class storage solutions but also has drives for users with more everyday needs. The Mercury Elite Pro mini uses a spinning drive rather than a solid state drive and is thus much more affordable, while still offering performance that will be perfectly adequate for a good many people. Extremely lightweight, it is nonetheless very well built and comes with a USB–C cable plus USB–A adapter from which it also draws its power.

It’s plug–and–play and compatible with more or less anything from computers to gaming consoles, as well as being bootable and Time Machine ready. The HDD versions come in 1 or 2 TB capacities at 5400RPM or 7200RPM respectively, and SSD versions are also available, though at a much higher price. OWC’s claim of 540MB/sec performance was more or less borne out by our tests, which came in slightly under that but not by much. In use you’d be hard pressed to tell it's a spinning drive, since even under load it was silent and didn’t seem to get warm. Dragging and dropping movie files was really quick, with a 3.5GB file copying over in under 10 seconds.

This drive strikes a great balance of price and performance. It’s not as fast as an SSD but it's also much more affordable and perfectly fast enough for backups, movies, gaming and working with all but the highest bit rate digital videos. For all manner of file storage and computing tasks, it's a very attractive option.

OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini USB–C Portable Hard Drive Features

• Compatibility: Mac OS X, OS X, macOS, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Home Server, Linux, iPadOS 13+, Android 10+, Chrome OS
• Mechanisms Supported: 2.5-inch SATA drives up to 12.5mm height
• Chipset: ASM235CM
• Plug and Play: Yes
• Host Port Requirements: USB-A or USB-C Port
• Power Supply: Bus-powered
• Drive Bays: 1 bay supporting: 2.5-inch SATA drives
• Device Ports: Host Port - USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C up to 10Gb/s (1250MB/s) - USB 2.0/3.0 backwards compatible
• Power/Activity LED: Yes
• Housing Color: Silver
• Housing Material: Aluminum
• Dimensions (Height x Length x Width): 2.4 cm (0.9 in) x 12.4 cm (4.9 in) x 7.8 cm (3.1 in)
• Weight: 130.0 g (0.29 lbs)
• Ambient Temperature: Operating: 41°F to 95°F (5°C to 35°C); Non-Operating: -4°F to 140°F (-20°C to 60°C)

OWC Mercury Elite Pro mini USB–C Portable Hard Drive Price

• 0TB DIY Enclosure: $39.99
• 1TB(5400RPM HDD): $88.99
• 2TB(5400RPM HDD): $114.99
• 1TB(7200RPM HDD): $119.99
• 480GB(SSD): $94.99
• 1TB(SSD): $124.99
• 2TB(SSD): $199.99
• 4TB(SSD): $499.99

An affordable, fast, portable hard drive.