DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY NEWS

OWC Announces Industry's First Blu-Ray External Drives With "Quad Interface"

October 22, 2008 -- Woodstock, IL -- Other World Computing (OWC®) http://www.macsales.com, a leading Mac and PC technology company, announced today its new line of OWC Mercury Pro™ Blu-ray “Quad Interface” external drive solutions.  The first Blu-ray external drives on the market offering a “Quad Interface” of FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0, and eSATA, the OWC Mercury Pro drives feature 4X Blu-ray disc write speed for burning up to 1 gigabyte of data per minute; a data transfer rate up to 150MB per second; Plug and Play connection flexibility; and the convenience of compatibility with both Windows and Macintosh systems.

Burn up to 50GB per Blu-ray Disc and Read/Write to All Optical Media

Immediately available and priced starting at $499.99, the Mercury Pro Blu-ray external drive solutions are ideal for consumers with large amounts of High-Def or other video, photos, music, and data files that they want to archive or retrieve using optical media.  Mercury Pro Blu-ray drives read and/or write virtually all optical media, including Blu-ray, HD-DVD, DVD-RAM, and CD-R/RW.  The drives provide the well-known advantages of Blu-ray, such as high-capacity storage (burn up to 50GB per disc, enough space for a four hour High-Def movie); full high-quality HD Picture; and Surround Sound capabilities.  In addition, the new OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray drives now have write performance twice as fast as previous Mercury Pro Blu-ray external drive models.

Pricing for OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray Write and Read external drive solutions:

• OWC Mercury Pro SW-5583:  $499.99.  Writes and reads Blu-ray, DVD, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW discs.  Includes all connection cables and two 25GB BD-R discs. 

• OWC Mercury Pro SW-5583T:  $579.99. Writes and reads Blu-ray, DVD, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW discs.  Includes all connection cables, starter media, and full retail version of Roxio Toast 9 Titanium (Mac OS X).

OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray “Quad Interface” external drive solutions have been fully tested for compatibility with most Apple and Windows built-in and third party DVD/CD tools and players, including Apple iTunes, Apple Disc Burner, Apple iDVD 5, Apple DVD Studio Pro, EMC Retrospect Express, NTI DragonBurn, Roxio Toast, Roxio Easy Media Creator, and Nero Burning.

For more information on the OWC Mercury Pro Blu-ray external drive solutions, visit:

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/optical-drives/

About Other World Computing (OWC)

Other World Computing (OWC) has been providing quality hardware products and support to the computer industry since 1988.  The Illinois based company operates the popular e-commerce portal www.MacSales.com, which features one of the largest online catalogs of computer and iPod enhancement products, including Mercury, Neptune, and NewerTech® acceleration, storage, and FireWire® product lines.

OWC is a Premiere Level Apple Developer Connection member and provides extensive US-based technical support for Macintosh users around the world.  OWC is also a strategic partner with Axiotron and exclusive US distributor of the award winning Axiotron Modbook™.

OWC is the winner of numerous awards, including Computerworld Magazine’s Top Green-IT Companies for 2008, BizRate’s Gold Circle of Excellence for 2008, and the 2008 “Business Champion Award” from McHenry County Economic Development Corporation.  The company’s management umbrella includes leading Internet Service Providers www.fastermac.net and www.owc.net and is the leading technology employer as ranked by the McHenry County Business Journal.  For more information, see www.otherworldcomputing.com or www.macsales.com.