OWC ships triple-interface 750GB external drive

Other World Computing (OWC) announced it is shipping a new three-interface external hard disk drive featuring Seagate’s recently-announced 750GB Barracuda 7200.10 drive mechanism. The new drive comes with FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 and costs $599.99, according to MacWorld.

The OWC Mercury Elite-AL drive uses an aluminum chassis designed to complement the austere look of Apple’s pro desktop and laptop hardware. The drive measures 9.0 x 2.1 x 5.8 inches. It uses an Oxford Semiconductor-made interface to connect to the Mac, and includes EMC Dantz’s Retrospect backup software.

Last week Seagate Technology announced the release of a 750GB 3.5-inch hard disk mechanism — the first Seagate drive in that form factor to sport perpendicular recording technology. Seagate says that perpendicular recording packs bits more closely together, achieving greater capacity as well as higher throughput without requiring the drive to spin faster.

OWC is using a 750GB mechanism with a 16MB data cache buffer. OWC’s triple-interface offering may appeal more to users looking for a high-performance system than Seagate’s own external drive, which features FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 only.

The new 750GB model joins several smaller-capacity drives in the Mercury Elite-AL line. OWC also manufactures a Firewire 400/800-only version for $589.99 and a FireWire 400/USB 2.0-only version for $569.99.