Expert’s Rating
Pros
Cons
Our Verdict
It ’s pricey , but OWC ’s Thunderblade four - slot , NVMe SSD Thunderbolt 3 inclosure delivers the execution goods – with up to 32 TB of capacity – to the pro that need it .
Price When Reviewed
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The Thunderbolt 3 ports and power connector on the back of the ThunderBlade.
Best Pricing Today
OWC ’s ThunderBlade delivers excellent read and write performance in a handsome , svelte package that is uncommitted in electrical capacity up to a whopping 32 TB . In fact it ’s the third riotous international SSD we ’ve test , and the fastest Thunderbolt SSD in the charts .
What it is not , is cheap . Expect to position down thousands , not hundred for the experience . For a production aimed at film and TV pros , that ’s not by and large an issue . For you and me …
The Thunderbolt 3 ports and power connector on the back of the ThunderBlade.
The ThunderBlade is a black , radiator - fin , 4 - expansion slot NVMe M.2 SSD enclosing measuring approximately 7.5 - inch long , by 4.75 - inches wide , by 1 - inch marvellous . It ’s a rather hefty ( and aphrodisiac by my lights ) beast at 1 - pound sign , 10 - Panthera uncia . No inadvertently sliding off the table with this one .
A 3 - inch long slit on the front is home to the ability / activity LED , while the rear of the building block offers up two Thunderbolt 3 ports as well as the DC input jack . The power brick ( AC adapter ) that fits into said input is 15 volt and 4.8 ampere .
As it ’s visualise as fast , rugged storage for video fieldwork , the ThunderBlade fall in a stalwart carrying display case that fits both the drive and the index arranger . The case is made of thick , encroachment - tolerant plastic that we ’re sure will hold up .
The ThunderBlade sitting in its rugged carrying case.
The ThunderBlade ships with a three - class license for the Pro version of the company ’s cross - platformSoftRAIDsoftware . After three twelvemonth , you suffer the power to create new arrays , but basic functionality rest entire – you do n’t fall behind use of the drive .
You may of course also utilise macOS ’s or Window ’s own software solutions , but you ’re then tied to one or the other operating system . One reason I opt hardware RAID is that it ’s OS - independent . Many of the recovery cock I apply are Linux - based .
Note that the ThunderBlade is also available in an eight - time slot interlingual rendition , logically monikered the ThunderBlade X8 . Alas , you ’d think it would top out at 64 TB , but it ’s presently sitting at 16 TB with a 32 TB rendering out presently . We wish there were unpopulated version of both the four - slot and eight - slot .
The ThunderBlade sitting on its side, upright.
OWC ThunderBlade: Price
carry onto your hats folks : the entry - level 2 TB ThunderBlade we tested be a cool $ 800 . It beget steeper from there , with the 4 TB version costing $ 1,180 , the 8 TB version is $ 1,800 , the 16 TB version is $ 2800 , and the 32 TB interpretation setting you back a rather frighten away $ 6,000 .
The pricing places the ThunderBlade steadfastly in AV professional soil , as there are certainly cheaper ways for ending users to get this type of performance and capacity . At least up to 16 TB . 8 TB SSDs still carry a respectable premium at well over $ 1,000 each ( four are in the 32 TB version ) .
OWC ’s own 1M2and especiallyAdata ’s SE92040Gbps USB 4 SSDs come to bear in mind as more affordable options for final stage users .
Nothing wrong with these sequential and random transfer numbers from AmorphousDiskMark. .
Still , OWC makes eminent - lineament goods and the warranty is three years which is estimable for an external drive . But given the price , we do wish the SoftRAID Pro licence was never-ending , not limited to three year .
How fast is the ThunderBlade?
Pretty darn tight would be the answer to this interrogation . Even with the four smaller 480 GB SSDs OWC ship in our test unit , the ThunderBlade proved the third profligate external SSD I ’ve examine . It ’s trump only by the aforementioned Adata SE920 and OWC ’s 1M2 – both 40Gbps USB 4 drives .
quiz on a Mac Studio with AmorphousDiskMark and Disk Speed trial proceeded without incident , but there were one or two issue on PCWorld ’s test bed that are describe at the end of this part .
We tested in RAID 0 and RAID 1 + 0 , which you might look at for redundancy in the larger capacity constellation . We also screen the ThunderBlade in non - RAID as single drives but operation was as rickety as it was with the latterly reviewedOWC Express 4M2 . About 840MBps reading , and 750MBps writing .
Disk Speed Test didn’t rate the ThunderBlade at highly as AmorphousDiskMark
IMHO , there ’s no reason to grease one’s palms a ThunderBlade if you do n’t run it in RAID 0 . NVMe SSDs are not the loser take a chance that hard drives are , and there are cheaper options for individual drive .
Blackmagicdesign ’s Disk Speed Test rated the ThunderBlade as substantially slower than AmorphousDiskMark , with the latter being more in line with the Windows test dick shown after the Disk Speed Test computer graphic .
CrystalDiskMark 8 on IDG ’s PCWorld Windows test seam thought very highly of the TunderBlade ’s serial carry-over capabilities as you could see below .
Though not as fast as the USB 4 drives, the ThunderBlade is pretty darn fast.
Random public presentation under CrystalDiskMark 8 was good , but not as full as the USB 4 drives .
The ThunderBlade was very tight in our 48 GB transfer trial . curb its own against the two extremely fast USB 4 SSDs .
The SSDs being only 480 GB did rule out our 450 GB ( 483 billion bytes ) write to a single drive , but we carry it would be as slow as the 4M2’s[link when possible ) we lately reviewed .
Random performance under CrystalDiskMark 8 was good, but not as good as the USB 4 drives.
The ThunderBlade in RAID 0 is wonderful in this large Indian file write , forecast good things when you stream 4 K or 8 kibibyte video to it .
As to those Window mannerism , in a couple of instances , a reboot was required before a SoftRAID mass or the separate drives would show up . And bizarrely , when I forgot to reformat to NTFS from APFS , SoftRAID still mount the APFS bulk and CrystalDiskMark 8 and AS SSD both run very well . By what mechanism this was possible , I have no mind ( no other suitable software installed ) unless SoftRAID sports an APFS driver for Windows . If it does , it is n’t double-dyed as our real - domain 48 GB test write freeze at the 88 percentage mark . Once reformatted to NTFS , everything was hunky - walleye and the ThunderBlade performed as advertised .
Note : After this clause put out I was informed that SoftRAID install Macdrive which report for the intensity still showing up . OWC pick the reboots on Windows Thunderbolt , which I ’m more than quick to believe , and the companionship has fix the APFS equipment driver yield that do the tranfer freeze .
The ThunderBlade was very fast in our 48GB transfer tests. Holding it’s own with the two extremely fst USB 4 SSDs.
Should you buy the OWC Thunderblade 4?
We wish the styling , we make love the furrowed enclosure and carry fount , and the functioning is splendid in RAID 0 – the only manner the ThunderBlade should be utilized by my lightness . That leaves fiscal wherewithal as your sole consideration when buying a ThunderBlade .
The ThunderBlade as fantastic in this large file write, portending good things when you stream 4K or 8K video to it.
