OWC’s Mercury Pro external 16x Blu-ray & Optical Storage

Let’s first look at our hardware and software testbed before we unbox the Mercury Pro, and then head to the benchmarks and images.

Test Configuration – Hardware

• Intel Core i7-4770K (reference 3.5GHz, HyperThreading and Turbo boost is on to 3.7GHz; DX11 CPU graphics), supplied by Intel.
• ECS GANK Domination Z87H3-A2X motherboard (Intel Z87 chipset, latest BIOS, PCIe 3.0 specification, CrossFire/SLI 8x+8x) supplied by ECS
• 16 GB DDR3 HyperX Kingston “Beast” RAM (2×8 GB, dual-channel at 2133MHz; supplied by Kingston)
• GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB (reference clocks), supplied by Nvidia
• Onboard Realtek Audio
• Genius SP-D150 speakers, supplied by Genius.
• 2TB GB Toshiba 7200.10 hard drive
• Cooler Master Silent Pro Platinum 1000W power supply unit supplied by Cooler Master
• Thermaltake Water2.0 Pro watercooler, supplied by Thermaltake
• Thermaltake Overseer RX-I full tower case, supplied by Thermaltake
• OWC Mercury Pro 16x External Blu-ray burner, on loan from OWC
• ASUS BW-12B1ST 12X Blu-Ray writer
• HP LP3065 2560×1600 thirty inch LCD
• Blu-ray 50GB RE 2x Blu-ray disk
• 6x Blu-ray 25GB and 4x 50GB Blu-ray disks, supplied by Digistor
• CM Storm Quickfire TK keyboard, supplied by Cooler Master
• Razer Mamba mouse, supplied by Nvidia at the E3 2013 Press Conference
• Tt eSports DRACONIUM Aluminum mouse pad, supplied by Thermaltake

Test Configuration – Software

• PowerDVD 14, supplied by Cyberlink
• REWIND, Blu-ray archiving software, supplied by DIGISTOR
• Nvidia GeForce WHQL 337.88. High Quality; Single-display Performance mode; Prefer Maximum Performance. Shader Cache on, Vsync off.
• Highest quality sound (stereo) used in all games.
• Windows 7 64, DX11. Latest drivers for all programs
• Opti-Control, Shareware
• Nero Disk Speed, Freeware
• PassMark

Unboxing – External versus Internal

Here is the box for the 12x ASUS internal drive that we got on sale from Newegg.com.

It does not come with any Blu-ray disk playback software but is suitable for archiving purposes using a light version of Cyberlink’s Power2Go Essential. It’s basically disc burning and copying software for CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray Discs that will even work with BDXL.

To play Blu-ray disks using our ASUS or OWC drive, we chose PowerDirector 14 which includes a fully-featured playback suite for disks including for Blu-Ray. CyberLink kindly supplied us with a reviewer’s copy of their ultra edition and included their entire movie-making software suite. Currently, it is on sale at CyberLink’s site for $84.95.

Older editions of PowerDirector, such as 12, can often be found on sale for under fifty dollars and they work great with Blu-ray playback and movie creation for most users. PowerDirector 14 is the very latest version and it will easily handle 3D movie playback, upscaling and conversion as well as support for 4K and the latest codecs.

Here is the box in which the Mercury Pro arrives.

The back of the box lists the specifications, system requirements, and what’s included.

It’s packed very well for shipping.

The Mercury Pro Optical drive comes with two 25GB 4x Blu-ray write-once disks and what is shown below: Mercury Pro Blu-ray burner, user guide, bundle notice, necessary cables for the quad interface (USB 2.0/3.0/Firewire 400/800), and power adapter (not shown).

Here is the power adapter.

The Mercury Pro is a good-looking unit that uses an aluminum case to match the Mac Books.

It is built like a tank. Here are the connectors.

Here is the unit from the bottom. It has rubber feet to keep from scratching the surface it is placed on.

Here it is from another angle:

We have the unit out of the box and we have decided to use USB 3.0 for all of our benching and burning needs. Now we need to install it.

INSTALLATION

Installation requires no extra drivers to use your Blu-ray drive for storage. Just Plug and Play.

Here are the properties of a 25GB 4x disk

Here are the properties of a 50GB 6x diskJust like with hard drives, the usable amount of storage is less than stated.

Archiving using Windows 7

Using Windows to record means dropping and dragging the files you want copied onto the drive.

Don’t make the mistake of recording at a higher speed than the disk is rated for, usually 2X, 4X or 6X. If not, you will get this error message and will have made a coaster.

We never had issues using DIGISTOR’s excellent 6X Blu-ray media at 6X burning speeds.

Here is the success message.

You have the option to burn these same files to another disk.

Most of the Blu-ray disks that we use are 6X 25GB or 50GB capacity.  25GB 4X disks have dropped to nearly DVD DL pricing, yet some of them can record at 6X.  Quality 6X 25GB disks can be found for a small premium while 6X 50GB record once disks can be bought on sale for about two dollars each.  50GB rewritable disks can be purchased for about ten to fifteen dollars each, but their limitation is that recording speeds are limited to slow 2X burning, which means about 90 minutes:To burn that same 50GB of data to a 6X write-once disk would be about three times faster, or take about 30 minutes.  Erasing 50GB of data from the rewritable or write once disk is fast, about 20 seconds on either drive.

Well, we have our internal ASUS 12X and our 16X OWC external Blu-ray drives installed and we are ready to archive, and perhaps later on we will want to watch or create a movie on Blu-ray. Naturally, first we want to know about performance and we will compare between our two drives.