X
Tech

OWC ThunderBlade SSD: Extreme storage for professionals

One drive can house up to 8 terabytes of storage and offer read speeds topping out at 2,800MB/s. And if that isn't enough, you can daisy-chain up to six ThunderBlade drives together to give you 48 terabytes of storage.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

If you're looking for serious storage, you need to take a look at OWC's latest creation - the ThunderBlade.

Must read: iOS 11.3: Tips, tricks, and how to fix the biggest annoyances

The ThunderBlade is a sleek, stylish, yet rugged ThunderBolt 3 enabled external hard drive. Inside the unit are four M.2 SSDs, with capacities up to 2TB each, with total ThunderBlade capacities ranging from 1TB to 8TB.

And it's fast storage too; with up to 2,800MB/s read speeds and 2,450MB/s write speeds. And using OWC's SoftRAID software, two ThunderBlades can reach read speeds up to 3,800MB/s, making it the perfect choice for media professionals who have to deal with large amounts of data, especially 4K, 5K, and 8K video.

The ThunderBlade features dual Thunderbolt 3 ports, allowing the user to daisy-chain up to six devices (which in total would offer a whopping 48 TB of storage!), and configure the drives for RAID 0, 1, 4, 5, and 1+0 (span and independent drives are also supported).

For those who need to move data about, the ThunderBlade comes with a durable ballistic hard-shell protective case.

The ThunderBlade is compatible with both Windows and macOS.

OWC ThunderBlade SSD

"We at OWC can't thank our customers enough for allowing us to do what we love so much every day," said Larry O'Connor, founder and CEO of OWC. "We strive to build products that will go further and deliver a better return on our customers' technology investments. The ThunderBlade is one more example of a solution that will allow our customers to work more effectively, a product that can literally change the way they create. Everyone at OWC is excited by the boundless opportunities the next 30 years will bring for our customers."

This is a premium product, and as such the prices are premium, with prices ranging from $1,200 for the 1TB option, all the way to $5,000 for the 8TB unit.

Which means that six 8TB units daisy-chained together to give you that maximum of 48TB would set you back a cool $30,000.

Each ThunderBlade is backed by OWC's 3-year warranty.

See also:

10 Apple products you shouldn't buy (April 2018 edition)

Editorial standards