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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.jpg

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.

Article Link: OWC's Ultra-Fast Portable SSD for Thunderbolt 3 Macs Now Available With Up to 4TB of Storage
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2022/08/03/owc-envoy-pro-fx-new-4tb-option/
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Reactions: donikatz
Wow that's $$$. Do we know what underlying SSDs they use in the FX/EX/SX? Too bad they don't also sell just the enclosure like they do for other lines, since OWC enclosures are usually pretty HQ.
 
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Reactions: Huck
I bought a few of the lowest capacity (240GB) versions a while back for a project that needed speed but not high capacity. Testing showed them as pretty fast in reading but doing only half that in writing. Replaced the Aura blades inside with Samsung and things are much better.
 
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Always great to see more high speed external Thunderbolt SSD storage options on the market!!
 
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I just bought an enclosure and installed a 512 GB Samsung NVMe stick. Performance is about 2,600. That is fast enough for me on a secondary drive. And I could probably get higher performance if I got a larger SSD.
 
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donikatz said:
Wow that's $$$. Do we know what underlying SSDs they use in the FX/EX/SX? Too bad they don't also sell just the enclosure like they do for other lines, since OWC enclosures are usually pretty HQ.
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They also have the SX line if you don't need USB and can live with just Thunderbolt 3. They're a little bit cheaper. They occasionally have refurb units for less, but in limited quantity and the lower capacity refurb units sell out quickly.
 
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…
 
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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.
 
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canonical said:
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.
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Wait, the drive won't work without a driver? The 14th Century is calling. They want their storage back.
 
rpmurray said:
I assume you got that on sale because the 4TB units on the site in the link you provided are going for $539.99 at the time I'm posting this.
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Yep, I got one during Amazon Prime Day for €400 (excl. sales tax) in my country.
 
RalfTheDog said:
Wait, the drive won't work without a driver? The 14th Century is calling. They want their storage back.
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That's software for their RAID enclosures, nothing to do with this Envoy Pro. Perfectly normal for RAID to require a driver (nagware is a different story).
 
RalfTheDog said:
Wait, the drive won't work without a driver? The 14th Century is calling. They want their storage back.
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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.
 
I love their drives, I use the 2TB version of this enclosure. Their overall lineup of portable SSDs is a bit confusing though, with very little difference in price per gigabyte. You can get the Pro SX, which is a similar enclosure, but only works with Thunderbolt -- only about $30 less. The EX enclosure is USB-only, so considerably slower, but the 4TB version is only $100 less.
 
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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.
 
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alexe said:
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.
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For backup usage, you should just get a mechanical hard drive.
 
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These prices are so 1990's. I really wanted that 1Gb drive but wasn't going to pay the $1,000 pricetag
 
error said:
Looks good… and expensive. I recently bought a 4TB SanDisk Extreme PRO Portable SSD 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.
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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.
 
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jdb8167 said:
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.
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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.
 
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