We visited OWC at Computex 2023 and we were awestruck by all of the different types of products they have. I’ll have to say that yes, they are a bit niche but if you can actually find a use for these products, then you’ll be delighted.
Most of OWC’s products revolved around Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4, and even USB 4 standards too. For example, if you want 10Gb/s Ethernet connectivity, then OWC has that adapter too. It’s supremely high quality – has a metal enclosure and also a silicone bumper case around it to protect against drops and damages.
OWC also has USB-C docks too. Lots of varieties, actually. Here, we have a small one that has an SD card reader, USB-A port, and also HDMI 2.0 port – all packed into a small body.
If you want a more permanent dock on your table, then OWC has one too. This is the Thunderbolt 3 Dock with 14 ports and can even be linked to 5 additional Thunderbolt devices too.
The most insane dock that I’ve seen is this one – the OWC Thunderbolt Go Dock that has a lot of ports and you can plug in this dock to the wall so you can even charge your laptop via that 90W USB-C port at the side too. And yes, you still can link it with 5 other Thunderbolt devices.
Now, if you need extremely high file transfer speed with your camera that uses CFexpress then OWC also has you covered. This is another dock but with a CFexpress reader at the front.
What if you want something like a multi-drive RAID bay that is not that complicated? Well, OWC has the ThunderBay 4 that supports four 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives and the ThunderBay 8 that supports eight drives. You can then stripe them in RAID and connect to your computer via a Thunderbolt cable and get insane transfer speeds out of it.
There is another more advanced version called the ThunderBay Flex 8 which does look like a PC and it’s not particularly new – but what interests me is the speed that this storage enclosure can achieve. You can slot in U.2 or M.2 drives and then stripe them in RAID as well – and it has a PCIe expansion slot. You can slot in a capture card, NIC, or an I/O card.
This kind ThunderBay Flex 8 is perfect as an ingest station.
For video editors like me, I see this kind of products as something that I can use to edit videos and archive old videos. Of course, OWC also included an extra DisplayPort and another Thunderbolt port so you can link to other devices too. Nice bonus, honestly.
And there’s also an external GPU enclosure too. The AKiTio Node Titan enclosure is fancy because you can actually press the top and a handle pops out and you can carry it with you. It’s not a new product – but I’m particularly surprised by how well it is made.
Now, if you need a NAS then OWC has two different variants for you to choose from. The first one is the OWC Jupiter Mini which runs on TrueNAS Core OS firmware and OpenZFS file system and has two 10Gb/s Ethernet ports.
The second option is the easier plug-and-play OWC Jellyfish Mobile that runs on Jellyfish – and also has Kyno for OWC Jellyfish integrated to help you sort through your footages. It doubles as an ingest station, a transcoding machine thanks to the Jellyfish Media Engine, and also Jellyfish Manager to help you administrate access to the NAS.
Then, OWC also has external SSDs too. This Envoy Express is a simple one but comes with a piece that attaches to the back of your laptop and the entire SSD can be slid into place, so you don’t have something dangling off your laptop.
The Envoy Pro FX on the other hand, is a prebuilt external SSD that is dust, drop, and waterproof certified (no idea what’s the IP-rating) and the entire enclosure is made out of aluminium. There are fins at the side to ensure proper cooling too.
OWC also has SD cards and CFexpress cards of varying speeds These cards can be paired with OWC’s Innergize software to ensure the cards are functioning in their tiptop condition.
There are two card readers too. Both of them have different ports but the idea remains the same – you have an integrated cable under the unit, but you can still connect it with another USB-C cable if you want to. Then, there is a physical write protection lock on the card reader itself too.
Lastly, let’s talk about the OWC Accelsior expansion cards. they are made for Macs and the shorter one can fit in four M.2 SSDs whereby the longer one can fit in eight M.2 SSDs. Of course, you can then RAID them for even higher speeds.
