It's not the biggest portable hard drive OWC has to offer, but if speed is your top concern, you can now get a still impressive 320GB model from the company, which will spin at an always-desirable 7,200 rpm without the need for a pesky AC adapter. As with OWC's other Mercury-on-The-Go drives, you can also get this one in your choice of FireWire 800/400 + USB 2.0 Triple, FireWire 400 + USB 2.0 Combo, USB 2.0 + eSATA, or plain old USB 2.0 versions, each of which include a handy carrying case and the requisite backup software (for both Mac and Windows), and will set you back $280, $260, $258, and $240, respectively.

We know you've been sitting on your hands since January, waiting for Samsung to ship this SpinPoint M6 500GB, 9.5mm laptop drive wonder. That whole "released in France" thing was just rubbing it in your face, and we apologize, but it looks like your wait is finally over: OWC's Woot! shop has the drive for sale as of now. You can't buy one sans enclosure, but the $310 USB 2.0 + eSATA version or the $350 FireWire 800 / 400 + USB 2.0 version (there's also a $320 model) should prove useful in housing an old 2.5-inch drive, or perhaps an ant farm.

[Thanks, Dan C.]

OWC's Mercury On-The-Go family of pocket-lovin' hard drives has been around for quite some time, but the group is getting an all new leader courtesy of the recently announced 500GB edition. Packing a half-terabyte of space on a 5,400RPM, 8MB of cache drive, the unit even includes FireWire 800, FireWire 400 and USB 2.0 to ensure compatibility with pretty much whatever rig you're dealing with. You'll also find a copy of Prosoft DataBackup III for OS X and NovaStor NovaBackup for Windows bundled in, but you won't be getting any closer to this bus-powered unit than the photo above without laying down $359.99 to call one your own.

Nearly two years ago we all stood in awe of OWC's 1TB Mercury Elite Pro Aluminum Dual RAID, and just a few days after the company announced its multifaceted Quad Interface variety, now its upping the ante again. The 2TB edition of the external HDD presumably packs a pair of Hitachi's 7K1000 drives into an enclosure no bigger than any other twin-stuffed unit, and provides data transfer rates of over 80Mbps. The RAID 0 array is reportedly "designed to meet the performance demands of video and audio production," and while it's not exactly implied, to put a solid dent in your wallet as well. The drive connects up via USB 2.0 or FireWire 400 / 800, and can be snapped up now if you're willing to hand over $1,099.99.

[Via MacMinute]

We're pretty impressed by OWC's "gotta plug 'em all" collection of ports on this new external drive, the OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro, which features a "Quad Interface" and 1TB of 7200RPM storage in a Mac-friendly enclosure. The drive can handle FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 and eSATA, and OWC is claiming speeds up to 80MB per second on FireWire and 150MB/s on eSATA, thanks to the Oxford 924 chipset. The $600 pricetag is a wee bit steep, but OWC is nice enough to include FireWire, USB and eSATA cables in the box, along with various backup softwares for Mac and Windows. We're getting a little tired of the Mac Pro-style cheese grater look, but you can find 1TB drives with a whole lot more ugly, that's for sure, so we won't complain too much. The drive should be available now, in capacities on down to 250GB if you're not quite ready to make the 1TB plunge.

Since Apple is a bit too busy making teh sexay phones, OWC and Axiotron are taking up the slack with their new ModBook, which hacks up MacBooks and turns them into glorious slate-style tablet computers. The duo didn't cut many corners, either, since their MacBook mods hold onto most of those original specs, plus add in an optional built-in GPS module, and of course that Penabled Wacom digitizer. Pen input runs at 20x display resolution, with 256 pressure levels and zero battery use, and the MacBook's LCD is protected with some Chemically Strengthened glass, complete with a paper-like texture and anti-reflective coating. The ModBook is also shielded by aircraft grade magnesium alloy, with a copper and nickel layers for scratch resistance. Thanks to that slot-loading MacBook drive, the ModBook is apparently the only slate-style tablet computer with a built in CD/DVD drive, making it a nice option for portable DVD playback use. The ModBook is relying on Apple's Inkwell technology and other OS X enhancements for tablet functionality. Naturally, they're not exactly giving these things away, but the prices still seem reasonable for what you're getting: $2199-$2699 pre-order pricing for the "Good," "Better" and "Best" options. The latter two feature GPS, but if you pre-order now you can get it tossed into the low-end version as well. No word on an exact ship date, but it sounds like it won't be until March, April or later.

Who knows what Steve Jobs and co. have in store for us next week at Macworld, but we'd be pretty damn floored if they trotted out a Mac tablet for the awaiting hordes. But never fear, it looks like OWC and manufacturing partner Axiotron are stepping in to fill the void with what they dub the "ModBook, the first ever Mac® tablet computer solution." While we'd have to take issue with the claim of first, since resourceful hackers have been modding up their own Mac laptops into tablets for years now, but the fact that these two companies are bringing the slate-style notebook to the masses for what we presume is a high but attainable price point is plenty noteworthy. The touch input comes courtesy of WACOM, and thanks to Apple's Inkwell technology, there's already plenty of pen-based interfacing available in OS X. Axiotron and OWC also managed to stuff a GPS option into their ModBook, for even more good times, but unfortunately that's all the info we've got so far. We'll be finding out more when the computer is officially unveiled on January 9th at Macworld.

[Via TUAW; thanks Matthew H]