Other World Computing has updated its ThunderBay 4 direct attached storage enclosure with Thunderbolt 5 connectivity. The unit accepts 4 SATA drives across 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch form factors and delivers transfer speeds up to 1703 MB/s with solid state media. Pricing begins at $549.99 for the bare enclosure.
OWC configures the unit for mechanical hard drives or solid state storage. Transfer rates reach 1268 MB/s when using mechanical drives and 1703 MB/s when loaded with solid state drives. Storage management runs through the SoftRAID application, which supports RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 6+, 10, and JBOD configurations for individual drives.
SATA drive limits prevent the internal storage from using the full speed of Thunderbolt 5. OWC handles this limitation by adding 1 downstream Thunderbolt 5 port to the chassis. This allows the unit to act as a pass through hub in an existing Thunderbolt 5 chain, connecting downstream monitors or high speed accessories without losing bandwidth.
The base hardware without drives retails for $549.99. Purchasing the enclosure with a SoftRAID software license brings the price to $699.99. A preconfigured enterprise bundle containing the enclosure, the SoftRAID license, and 128TB of mechanical enterprise storage costs $9479.99.
