An easy fix for portable storage when you upgrade a laptop drive.
The great thing about laptops is their portability. But that convenience comes at a price. Compared to their desktop counterparts, portable computers don’t offer the same storage capacity that larger machines can offer. And as digital media becomes more prevalent, gobs and gobs of data is becoming the norm. Thankfully, Apple makes it fairly easy to swap out the smallish drives that came with your MacBook, in favor of newer, faster, higher-capacity drives. And once you remove the old drive, popping it into an external enclosure is a great alternative to just tossing it out.
Other World Computing’s Mercury On-The-Go enclosure is a simple way to make use of an old drive—or take advantage of a great deal on a bare drive. We were able to install a drive into the Mercury enclosure in just a couple of minutes. Thankfully, the process required little more than a couple small Phillips screwdrivers—no pesky torx screws like some other enclosures we’ve seen.
Inexperienced users might balk at the lack of printed instructions in the box, but a PDF is available on OWC’s website. Even without instructions, the process of opening the case and installing a drive is pretty straightforward. Essentially all it takes is plugging the drive into the enclosure’s connector and tightening a couple of screws.
The On-The-Go is designed to fit 2.5-inch laptop drives, and there are versions available offering FireWire or USB connectivity—or both. In our tests, the USB version performed flawlessly, and we appreciated that it was bus-powered—no need for an AC adapter or a multiple USB ports for power. Because of the large heat-sink, the enclosure was on the heavy side, but still very portable. And stylistas beware: It would have looked right at home next to your candy-colored iMac, but the clear-plastic-and-blue-LED aesthetic is several generations behind Apple’s elegant designs.
Mercury On-The-Go is a solid, simple enclosure for a notebook drive. The old-school styling is dated, but the enclosure gets the job done with a minimum of fuss.
Good build-quality. Easy to assemble. Includes USB cable and carrying case.
Kind of heavy. Styling is dated. No printed instructions in the box. 
musicrebel
January 15, 2009 at 10:25am
I'm sorry. It was my other drive not the Mercury that started smoking.
