OWC Debuts New Thunderbolt 3 Products: SSDs, PCIe Expansion Chassis, Six-Bay RAID, and External GPU

[MacRumors]

OWC has announced that it will be debuting a range of new Thunderbolt 3 products at the 2017 NAB Show this weekend in Las Vegas.

Envoy Pro EX with Thunderbolt 3​

First up is the Envoy Pro EX, a pocket-sized, bus-powered SSD with Thunderbolt 3. Storage capacities will start at 240GB. As it remains a prototype, no release date was specified. OWC's existing Envoy Pro EX with USB 3.0 starts at $199.99.

Mercury Helios 3​

OWC's new Mercury Helios 3 is a PCIe expansion chassis with a dedicated cooling fan and two Thunderbolt 3 ports. It can accommodate a half-length, full-height, double-width PCIe card. OWC said it will be available in the second quarter of 2017. Pricing was not disclosed.

Other products include the Helios FX external GPU powered by Thunderbolt 3, ThunderBay 6 six-bay RAID with Thunderbolt 3, and Mercury Viper portable Thunderbolt 3 SSD suitable for daisy chaining. OWC said the ThunderBay 6 is coming in late 2017, but no word on pricing or availability for the other products.

OWC's previously announced Thunderbolt 3 Dock and DEC for the 2016 MacBook Pro will also be on display at the show.

Article Link: OWC Debuts New Thunderbolt 3 Products: SSDs, PCIe Expansion Chassis, Six-Bay RAID, and External GPU

 

[dannys1]

Love OWC, their products are great. They've enabled me to get 4TB 1500MB/s read/write on my iMac via Thunderbolt 2.

The 6 bay should allow about 3000MB/s over Thunderbolt 3 which will be on par with the new PCI-E SSD that'll be in the machines. I don't think you'd need any faster than that for many years - just an increase in random access for smaller files and the like - multi gigabyte sound libraries load of me in seconds as it is.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

Love OWC and have been a friend of Larry for more than 20 years, but I feel like they do more announcing of products than actual releasing of them.

 

[justperry]

First up is the Envoy Pro EX with Thunderbolt 3, a pocket-sized, bus-powered SSD with desktop-class performance and speeds up to 40 Gb/s. Storage capacities will start at 240GB. As it remains a prototype, no release date was specified. OWC's existing Envoy Pro EX with USB 3.0 starts at $199.99.

I can tell you this, it won't be 40Gb/s, there are no SSD's with that speed, the bus (Thunderbolt 3) has the bandwidth but that's just it.

 

[Scorder]

I pre-ordered the TB3 dock and am still waiting for it. The latest word was that it would ship later this month. To be fair I'm not aware of any other previously announced TB3 docks by competitors shipping yet either.

 

[leman]

Wow, SSDs with speeds up to 40GB/s. Thats almost twice the speed of the RAM. Not bad!

 

[justperry]

Wow, SSDs with speeds up to 40GB/s. Thats almost twice the speed of the RAM. Not bad!

Gb/s, not GB/s.

 

[WhoDaKat]

One thing I don't like about OWC is that they list the throughput of the connection to tell you what speeds you can get... which is total BS. Sure TB 3 can do 40 Gb/s but an SSD can't. Not even freaking close. At best its shady marketing, at worst its an out right lie. Stupid things like this have kept my money in my pocket when it comes to OWC.

 

[djbuddha]

Please please please release an m.2 enclosure

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

"Other products include the Helios FX external GPU powered by Thunderbolt 3..."

Why is the most important announcement here barely a footnote?

 

[loon3y]

"Other products include the Helios FX external GPU powered by Thunderbolt 3..."

Why is the most important announcement here barely a footnote?

so meaning it can utilize modern PC Games? If its ever ported to Mac?

 

[guzhogi]

Please please please release an m.2 enclosure

I know, right? Make it straight TB3, too. No USB or anything else.

 

[leman]

Gb/s, not GB/s.

Ups, I was totally sure I saw GB/s. Still respectable SSD speeds

 

[justperry]

Ups, I was totally sure I saw GB/s. Still respectable SSD speeds

I know you know the difference, just replied before someone else made a snarky comment.

 

[Defthand]

Aside from their RAM upgrades, I wouldn't advise others to purchase OWC-branded hardware. Their external SSD USB-powered drives are notoriously unreliable. Adding insult to unjury, they charge a restocking fee for returning flawed products.

 

[OldSchoolMacGuy]

"Other products include the Helios FX external GPU powered by Thunderbolt 3..."

Why is the most important announcement here barely a footnote?

Because of the announcements, it's the one that will sell the least. There are far more looking for hard drive solutions than graphic solutions in this instance. Even with a big bad video card, there aren't a ton of Mac game options anyways. The price will also mean very few will actually buy the external GPU unit.

 

[MikhailT]

One thing I don't like about OWC is that they list the throughput of the connection to tell you what speeds you can get... which is total BS. Sure TB 3 can do 40 Gb/s but an SSD can't. Not even freaking close. At best its shady marketing, at worst its an out right lie. Stupid things like this have kept my money in my pocket when it comes to OWC.

While I agree with you that it is marketing BS on OCW side for their own SSDs and their SSDs aren't going to be doing 40GBps, you are incorrect that an SSD can't do it. Sure, it can. Kingston has an upcoming data center SSD that can push nearly ~7GBps.

40Gbps TB3 is around ~5GBps but less than that due to overhead.

Last year's Samsung 960 Pro PCIe SSD can do about 2GBps. Put 2 of them in Mercury Helios 3 with two PCIe slots and you can get it close enough to the max TB3 speed.

Intel's Optane SSD today is already doing 2GBps at low depth and that's just the first-gen.

 

[gee4vee]

I can tell you this, it won't be 40Gb/s, there are no SSD's with that speed, the bus (Thunderbolt 3) has the bandwidth but that's just it.

NVMe SSDs in M.2 form factor would make it worthwhile. My Samsung Pro 950 in my desktop PC can reach about 2.2 GB/s (yes, gigabytes). TB3 would max at 5 GB/s. I doubt they will use one of those, but they should. Otherwise it's a waste of the TB3 bandwidth.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

These are fast speeds!!!

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

Because of the announcements, it's the one that will sell the least. There are far more looking for hard drive solutions than graphic solutions in this instance. Even with a big bad video card, there aren't a ton of Mac game options anyways. The price will also mean very few will actually buy the external GPU unit.

There is a minority who will be interested in the eGPU for Windows 10 Bootcamp though.
[doublepost=1492717122][/doublepost]

While I agree with you that it is marketing BS on OCW side for their own SSDs and their SSDs aren't going to be doing 40GBps, you are incorrect that an SSD can't do it. Sure, it can. Kingston has an upcoming data center SSD that can push nearly ~7GBps.

40Gbps TB3 is around ~5GBps but less than that due to overhead.

Last year's Samsung 960 Pro PCIe SSD can do about 2GBps. Put 2 of them in Mercury Helios 3 with two PCIe slots and you can get it close enough to the max TB3 speed.

Intel's Optane SSD today is already doing 2GBps at low depth and that's just the first-gen.

Future proof marketing! Telling the truth in advance of whenever commercially available SSDs actually reach the stated speeds.

 

[rybitronn]

https://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2017/20170417_2033-OWC-teaser-fast.html
https://blog.macsales.com/40681-a-new-world-of-speed-owc-innovation-on-full-display-at-nab

 

[justperry]

While I agree with you that it is marketing BS on OCW side for their own SSDs and their SSDs aren't going to be doing 40GBps, you are incorrect that an SSD can't do it. Sure, it can. Kingston has an upcoming data center SSD that can push nearly ~7GBps.

40Gbps TB3 is around ~5GBps but less than that due to overhead.

Last year's Samsung 960 Pro PCIe SSD can do about 2GBps. Put 2 of them in Mercury Helios 3 with two PCIe slots and you can get it close enough to the max TB3 speed.

Intel's Optane SSD today is already doing 2GBps at low depth and that's just the first-gen.

The reason the Kingston is fast is because it's was formatted as a 4X400GB Raid.

But I expect Intels' Optane (3D XPoint) to be much faster, it has been said it will be a factor 1000 faster than normal SSD's and I think I also read it last 1000 times longer.

I can't believe we haven't seen any Thunderbolt 3 docks with Thunderbolt 2 ports on them. The new stuff is great, but many of us still have TB2 products in use.

Yeah I know Apple made adapters, but I'm having to move away from OSX sadly.

It's backwards compatible AFAIK with a TB3 to TB2 converter.

 

[brentsg]

I can't believe we haven't seen any Thunderbolt 3 docks with Thunderbolt 2 ports on them. The new stuff is great, but many of us still have TB2 products in use.

Yeah I know Apple made adapters, but I'm having to move away from OSX sadly.

 

[H3LL5P4WN]

so meaning it can utilize modern PC Games? If its ever ported to Mac?

There's several detailed posts on another Mac-related site covering this very topic, using a different brand enclosure. Also most, if not all, Blizzard games are cross platform.

 

[manu chao]

Please please please release an m.2 enclosure

You probably could use the Helios box to use PCIe slot based SSDs, but that is an expensive and large solution.