OWC's Ultra-Fast Portable SSD for Thunderbolt 3 Macs Now Available With Up to 4TB of Storage - MacRumors
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OWC's Ultra-Fast Portable SSD for Thunderbolt 3 Macs Now Available With Up to 4TB of Storage

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OWC today announced that its ultra-fast Envoy Pro FX external storage drive is now available in a larger 4TB capacity, with pricing set at $899 in the United States. The drive was first released in early 2021 in 240GB, 480GB, 1TB, and 2TB capacities.

owc envoy pro fx featured
The Envoy Pro FX is equipped with a Thunderbolt 3 port for ultra-fast data transfer speeds up to 2,800 MB/s when connected to a Mac with Thunderbolt 3 ports, including the 2016 and newer MacBook Pro, 2018 and newer MacBook Air, and many recent iMac, Mac mini, Mac Studio, and Mac Pro models. The drive can also be used with the latest iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad mini models, Windows PCs, and many other devices.

With a single Thunderbolt 3 cable that connects to a Mac for data and power, IP67-rated water and dust resistance, and military-grade drop protection, the Envoy Pro FX provides a worry-free plug-and-play experience. Read our review of the Envoy Pro FX from last year for a closer look at the top-of-the-line (and expensive) portable SSD.

Tag: OWC

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Top Rated Comments

A
antibolo
48 months ago

Boooo, only up to 4 TB.

As a backup drive for recent Macs, we need up to at least 8 TB, better 16.

External SSDs that can be bought shouldn't be smaller than the internal drives that Macs come with.

If I can buy a MacBook with 8 TB internal SSD storage, I should be able to buy an external drive with 16 TB.
For backup usage, you should just get a mechanical hard drive.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
B
BootsWalking
48 months ago

I got a used HP MSA Storageworks SAS enclosure with 25 2.5” bays and 25 480Gb muskin chronos sata 6Gb ssd on a LSI 9260-8e 1gb controller and it is way faster while giving me the performance I need. I paid less than 1k total 2 years ago…
And nearly as portable as the OWC drive 😜
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
K
kubaw
48 months ago

Looks good… and expensive. I recently bought a 4TB SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD ('https://www.westerndigital.com/products/portable-drives/sandisk-extreme-pro-usb-3-2-ssd#SDSSDE81-4T00-G25') for half the price. Not as fast as this OWC drive (up to 2000MB/s instead of 2800MB/s) but I prefer Sandisk's compact form format.
It's worth noting though that 2000MB/s is only achievable with non-Mac computers, since it requires USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, that no Mac supports. So only 1000MB/s effectively.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
canonical Avatar
canonical
48 months ago
I have one of their Thunderblade drives - the hardware is very good. However, it ships with some required software (Softraid), and they first tell you your existing version is out of date and you must download a new version ... and when you download and install the update, it starts telling you the update has expired, and demanding money for an upgrade ... just really nuisance-ware. Based on all that hassle, I would not buy an OWC product again ... which is a pity because the design of the hardware is great. I still have not figured out how to get rid of the irritating 'upgrade me' messages that stick on my desktop everyday.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
M
MacUser 2022
48 months ago

The drive will show up as a bunch of individual drives unless you have RAID software. OWC ships a version of SoftRAID that only works on the hardware you bought unless you upgrade to the paid universal version. SoftRAID is generally very good though I haven't used it with Apple Silicon yet.
Can't you just use Disk Utility on the Mac to Raid the individual drives? I would think you could and not use the software they provide.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
A
alexe
48 months ago
Boooo, only up to 4 TB.

As a backup drive for recent Macs, we need up to at least 8 TB, better 16.

External SSDs that can be bought shouldn't be smaller than the internal drives that Macs come with.

If I can buy a MacBook with 8 TB internal SSD storage, I should be able to buy an external drive with 16 TB.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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