OWC Connects All Your Data For Fast Workflow (Techfluence 2020)
Back to: Techfluence 2020 Main Page (Sept 2020)
OWC helps simplify data organization and backups with three new products: The USB-C Travel Dock, Envoy Pro EX SSD enclosure and Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB-C that works like a data hub with dual drive bays.
Most of OWC’s products are dual platform Windows and Mac (80-90%) with customers like major motion picture companies. So if you’re a video editor or a photographer and move a lot of large files, this stuff is right up your alley.
USB-C Travel Dock
The USB-C Travel Dock is small and light at 3.2 x 3.2 x .9 inches (imagine a square sized hockey puck or a can of tuna – without the weight). It works with any computer or tablet with USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 port, including Linux and Android.
Being a compact piece of gear, it’s ideal for road warriors who need to lighten their load and for on-location backups for data techs. It offers the following interfaces:
- USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C with 100W power pass-through
- 2 x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A
- HDMI 2.0
- SD card reader (UHS-II)
- USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-C captive cable
The HDMI port supports 4K video (4096×2160, 30Hz) and the price is MSRP $54.99.
Envoy Pro EX
The Envoy Pro EX can house NVMe drives in m.2 form factor up to 2TB in size. It looks sleek; perfect for the office and tough – with IP67 rating for dust and water. This is also great for on-location work to quickly back up data.
You can pick up just the enclosure or buy one with an SSD already installed. There are 3 interfaces you can choose from with the following transfer speeds:
- USB 3.1 Gen 2 (USB-C cable) – up to 980 MB/s
- Thunderbolt 3 – up to 2800 MB/s
- USB 3 (USB-A cable) – up to 400 MB/s
Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB-C
The Mercury Elite Pro Dual USB-C houses 2 SATA drives (2.5” and 3.5”) for up to 32TB of storage. Once your drives are installed, you can select between 4 storage techniques from default RAID 0 (striped) to RAID 1 (mirror), JBOD or SPAN.
Three open ports are built-in for your convenience, allowing you to connect and transfer files directly to the Mercury Elite Pro:
- USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB-C @10 Gb/s)
- 2 x USB 3.2 Gen 2 (USB-A @10 Gb/s)
Usage is universal and isn’t limited to just PC and Mac workflows – you can use it with gaming consoles if you really want (though it might be a little overkill). Whatever you use it for, your data will be kept cool with heat dissipating off the aluminum case and a fan running quietly at 30dB.
For me, what I find fascinating is the max data transfer rate for SSDs. Somehow the write speeds are faster than read speeds by around 200 MB/s. I’ve never seen writes exceed reads before, so it’s a bit surprising.
SSD: READ: 825 MB/s, WRITE: 1026 MB/s
HDD: READ: 506 MB/s, WRITE: 503 MB/s
This piece of kit seems to fit the bill nicely for video and photo editors. So if you’re on the market for fast storage you can work off of without being on a network (which may be a requirement for security reasons), the Mercury Elite Pro might be a solid choice for consideration.
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More info: https://www.owcdigital.com/
Event: Techfluence 2020 (Sept 2020)
