Review: OWC ThunderBlade - the fastest external SSD setup I've tested!
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- Опубликовано: 11 сен 2024
- This dual ThunderBlade setup pricey, but it's insanely-fast, dead-silent, and cool to the touch. OWC: bit.ly/2Xmhqtz
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I’ve been using this drive for about a year and it is simply outstanding. I’ve been able to multicam in final cut eight 4K angles at the same time at full resolution with no dropouts.
On which Mac?
@@selectshotsdotmedia Everything is faster, editing, rendering, exporting. The best part is the insanely high data rates it can sustain. So, I can be copying to and from the drive simultaneously with zero lag while editing. The multitasking potential is virtually unlimited in addition to the speed. I have hit the drive hard from all directions and never gotten it to slow down.
@@selectshotsdotmedia In default configuration it is one block of storage as RAID 0. There is included software called SoftRAID that allows you to customize things a little bit. It will act like a normal hard drive when plugged in. It will require a power adapter that is included. And as an added bonus the unit will provide a little bit of power delivery to a Mac. It is a low power delivery, but it it helps if you want to run your laptop from battery power.
I also have the M1 Maxed out and it works great. The simultaneous data load that the drive can run is simple amazing. Copying to AND from simultaneously while editing in Final Cut, and bouncing from Logic is nothing for this drive to do all at the same time. I have even had it hooked up in a network environment with 4 editors using media off the drive at the same time. I think the data speed is near 3,000 - so I have never had the drive lag in the 5 years I have used it.
It is especially awesome to load up 6 SD cards from a long video shoot day and have them all transfer to the drive at max speed at the same time.
I use it as my primary work drive for all current projects, and then I archive to Seagate Expansion drives for long term storage.
Great review!
Much better than the others on RUclips right now. One problem I have though is that no one explains the real benefits of this thing. Theoretical benchmarks are great, but everyone always explains the specs and never shows WHY it is meant for the "Video Professional". The bandwidth on this thing is insane! We own the 8TB version. Transferring a RED Mag with 450GB of footage to it takes 15min. That's fast, but as you pointed out, it's not mind-blowing. We can easily get that same speed with a single NVMe SSD. The real "pro" usage of this thing is when you take advantage of the full bandwidth by transferring multiple Mags simultaneously. Using a 2018 Mac Mini and Hedge file transfer software, we were able to transfer x3 RED Mags over USB 3.1 readers, checksum verified, and duplicated (RAID 1+0 meaning there is a 4TB RAID 0 volume mirrored once) in a total transfer time of 15min! It takes the same exact time to transfer a single Mag as it does to transfer 3 separate 450GB Mags to the same ThunderBlade. That's a combined 1.35TB and it's mirrored! Try doing that with your iMac's internal SSD... (we did. Not even in the same ballpark). Our production uses this device at the end of a full shooting day. We will inevitably have 3 or 4 full mags to backup totaling somewhere around 2TB of data. Traditionally this takes an hour or two and the DIT must wait until it's all done, transferring 1 Mag at a time. With this we save SOOO much time and effort. One simultaneous transfer, 15-20mins.
BlackMagic Speed Test is nice and all, but you need to show them what "it's meant for the pros" means. Use the bandwidth!
Love your reviews though, just wish there were more real-world use cases.
Chris, thanks for your feedback. You make good points and I will take your feedback into account for future videos.
Another outstanding, well-written, detailed and entertaining review! Thanks so much, Jeff! Love your very practical, and very sophisticated reviews.
Thanks for watching, Benjamin.
I have used HP P800 Thunderbolt3 for a while. It is also really fast and more portable (more than 2000M/s read), and, much more AFFORDABLE. It does not require extra powering. And if you purchase two and use RAID0 in disk utility, I think it can also achieve the performance in this video. The only drawback is that it only has 1TB for maximum.
As always, great video. I also really appreciate how you make it clear and up-front what is your content and what is advertising. RUclipsrs who make the transition between these two so subtle that you don't realize you're watching an ad till its half over really turn me off.
Very good lesson on using two buses to get the most speed from your two drive setup.
Haha! Insane! I love it!
The ThunderBlade has been on my Wishlist for quite a while for obvious reasons. Not only super-fast, but bulletproof and dead silent. I was wondering how these would work in a pair in Stripe 0 and they certainly don't disappoint. Thanks for testing that! Someday. 😉
Thanks for watching.
Those flashing lights would give me an epileptic fit!
Hi 9to5mac you are the man, i really love your content you inspired me to start my own youtube channel ... thank you for motivation.
Wish they sold these as empty enclosures. Loading them with (8) Samsung 980 Pros or Sabrent 4 Plus would push it all the way to 5000MB/s.
Jeff, could you do a video where you compare editing performance? One of those RAID setups vs both of em in RAID?
That would be awesome and would help us understand how much speed is needed for editing. Thank you.
As well as for running heavy heavy audio applications like DAW's or DJ software.
Thanks!!!!
Imma getting ONE!
I have 2 thundeblades connected to my new Mac Studio in raid0 using SoftRaid Pro, and I get above 5.000mb/s speed in both read&write. My question is, could I add a third thunderblade unit and see an even higher speed? Or I won’t see any benefit and I should stay with two? The Mac Studio Ultra has 6 thunderbolt3 buses and ports so it might work. Just wondering! Thanks
I NEED THE TRIPLE DECK SANDWICH Thunderblade Combo for my A7sIII 8k Workflow!!!
Seriously though, is this set-up more expensive than storage upgrade from apple store when one buys imac pro?
There are YT tech reviews, then there's Jeff's reviews!!! Thanks!
Thanks. And yes, it’s more expensive. For starters, the iMac Pro maxes out at $2800 for 4 TB. That’s actually not a bad price, I guess, all things considered. It would probably give the dual ThunderBlade setup a run for its money speed-wise, although it’s only a fourth of the size.
THIS SANDWICH IS SO DELICIOUS for 2019 Mac Pro!
An 8TB SSD would solve all my space and access issues for a good 5 years at minimum. If only it wasn’t SO expensive. Why are there no cheaper alternatives for thunderbolt 3 users?
There’s lots of thunderbolt drives out there that are less expensive. We’ve covered tons of them.
so just build a smalll htpc with two 8tb drives and a 1tb ssd for caching boom problem solved putting 8tb of ur stuff on 1 drive is a really reallly really bad idea
@@9to5Mac Thunderbolt 3 drives? Hopefully not those portable ones like the T5 or Sandisk ones? Great for on the go folks but anything delivering high speed transfers aint cheap.
chinito77 Maybe, for a life time. LOL
Great explanation! Why don't you get close to the 2800-3500 read speed with just one Thunderblade using all 4 ssds in raid 0?
I got as far as $3500!!!! Not for a poor booy like me but thanks for the review, always appreciated.
For sure, thanks for watching.
I really need that to store my nokia 6600 photos! My HDD is full!!
Great, thorough review. Really appreciate the instructional part on using the softRAID system. Thank you!
I think this is the first drive I see that would work great also with the 10bit 4k60p!!! :O
In late 2019 I'd advise you to wait for USB 4. It's gonna be backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and devices should be much cheaper. Also, if you buy external NVMe box and NVMe SSD separately, you can save some money.
There is a very important thing you forgot to mention,
We'll talk about it a little bit later
I genuinely laughed. I probably need a better organization structure for my videos. Haha.
Interesting to look at this 4 years later. I'm evaluating different options to decide if I want to upgrade my 2019 MP to the 2023 version, or go with a Mac Studio. The Mac Studio is $3k cheaper, but I think all of the other stuff I'll need to buy (I need a LOT of SSD storage for sample libraries) would eat up a LOT of of that $3k, and I'd have poorer performance. Currently, I also have two WD mechanical drives in the MP with the carrier, and I'd need a space for those.
I wonder if OWC has a Thunderbolt 4 version of this in the works. Just for comparison, in my 2019 MP, I have a single Crucial P3 + 4Tb NVMe stick on an OWC PCIe card. Just checked it, and the write speed is 2860MB/s and read speed is 2700MB/s, That 4Tb Crucial NVMe stick only costs $225 on Amazon right now. So, unless you need the portability of the ThunderBlade and can't go with a Mac Pro, you're paying way too much for memory. The advantage of really fast and quiet storage using PCIe cards in a MP makes the $3k price difference worth it. For instance, 32Tb of ThunderBlade memory is $5,500 today (6.15.23), 32Tb of memory inside a Mac Pro, using 8 Crucial P3+ sticks @ $225 ea., and two OWC four NVMe PCIe cards with heatsinks @ $279 ea. is only $2,358 total (and the performance is great). There are even faster options out there, but here in 2023, ThunderBlade performance isn't that great, and it's quite expensive. And, you have to deal with the clutter of cabling and wall warts.
Just ordered the drive directly from the OWC site. While the price is the same from Amazon US, I ended up paying almost 20% in custom fees. OWC Customer support kindly brought to my attention that the Terms and Condition checkbox explicitly states there might be additional fees in the form of duties. I politely bought to their attention that clearly their ricing strategy penalizes customers who buy directly from them. net-net, good products, but do not buy them from them, but rather from Amazon or other resellers
Why aren’t they updating the OWC Ministack to have space grey, SSD and Thunderbolt 3? Wasted opportunity!
Is there a more budget friendly setup?
Yes, if you don't need 8TB. The Samsung X5 allows for speeds up to 2300 / 2800 GB/s, but 2TB of storage costs around 800,- $ on Amazon right now.
If you need more capacity - the tested OWC Thunderblade makes more sense.
@@RadekPogoda Still overpriced. 900 Euro for an empty case is the best offer i can find. I hope that the price goes down. 20GBit enclosure with 2400MByte/sec is already available for 170 Euro. A 10GBit is for 35 Euro.
Now I think it makes sense to max out the storage of iMac Pro. The asking price of this sad is way out of reasonable price. And only 1x link for each ssd if used alone? Cmon
Hi there, I am still running a 5k iMac and I’m not really looking to upgrade for a couple of years yet. I was just wondering if you could do a speed test using Thunderbolt 2 if possible to see if the results are similar as I am looking to get 2 of these and use them in a similar setup for 4K editing
Wow, dreamy speed. I want them both, but would have to sell my car for the 8TB versions .. sooo, that’s not very practical. Do all storage capacities contain 4 individual SSDs inside (including the 1TB model)?
Good question, I imagine that’s the case, but I’m not sure. Will check with them to find out.
The narrator must be Edward Furlong pretending to be a cute girl on the phone 😂
i think it should double the speed when in raid0...
SO MUCH MONEY.
Very impressive 😳
great job and thank you for making this video
GREAT video! Thank you!
If you allow me one question please. Do you know how fast is using RAID 5?!
Thanks in advance and sorry for my English; I'm still learning
Have a Productive and Healthy Day!
can you use raid ? and if yes what is one drive becomes corrupt how you can replace the drive ?>
I would love to see good review of mac mini STX stack
Any recommendations for most of us who have an earlier model iMac rather than those trying to upgrade their latest brand new just released iMac Pro? Just hating, but great video btw. #iMacLate2015
So if you purchase just the 2tb (single ssd) version your speeds would be around 6-700?? Seems incorrect.
Nice to see. Did you have any weird interference with your UA Arrow interface while using the OWC drives? More in particular having the UA Arrow not being detected or disconnected by the system?
No interference at all.
@@9to5Mac Very good. Many thanks for answering.
Would there be a significant reduction in speed/performance when connecting via Thunderbolt 2?
Would 4 drives split across 2 busses (2 drives per thunderblade) be faster than 4 drives on a single bus?
Is this backwards compatible to thunderbolt 2? also can it be configured to be in raid 0 and use it as the main drive for 27" imac 2015 instead of the fusion drive?
Thanks a lot!
i would love to know how this stands up to the Envoy Pro FX or SX as they are same speeds, i assume that the stand alone power vs the bus power and a much bigger cooling housing will help it in real world situations where the drive is running non stop for hours on end
so, am i going to see noticeable timeline responsiveness in adobe premiere on a mac with this?
Insane, if somebody can afford just two of the fastest 8TB SSDs to build up a RAID0 configuration with just 8TB😳
best egpu setup recommendation for an iMac 14,2 ?
Hi! I always enjoy your polished style content and indepth information. This is my first time to comment. Had to let you know you are awesome! your tone while speaking is great too.
Would you think it is the same case for the OWC 4m2 thunderbolt drive when it comes to bandwidth each ssd gets? so if I would use only one ssd in the 4m2 enclosure(waiting to upgrade storage amount in the future due to cost issues) it will only have 1x link therefor limiting the access speed?
I'm pretty sure this is the case, yes. One lane per M.2 slot. I haven't tested it, however. Maybe I will in the future.
@@9to5Mac thank you for replying! appreciate all you do!!
External Thunderbolt 3 nmve SSD is more fast than internal Sata 3 SSD on iMac?
It’s too bad that TB limits the drives to 1 lane per drive. I have four NVME on a 16 lane PCI-E card and each NVME drive is allocated 4 lanes. Max burst speed in RAID 0 is 5,600 MBs. You’re paying for 8 drives and getting half the speed. Too bad.
Please test Xcode android Studio, test speed simulator, emulator etc... with Macbook Air
Buy 64GB or 128GB RAM and put your build directory on a RAMDISK.
I guess this is overkill for TM backups?
Yeah, this is more of a working-storage solution. Relegate your backups to cheap storage.
@9to5mac why don't you guys make a different kind of video? Like macOS mojave in old machines like rMBP 2015? (13''), pros and cons?
Thanks
It’s cool white fast SSD’s, but what are you going to use it for?
All programs for pictures and video is using from 300mb/s to 1000mb/s ore am I wrong?
And when loading in from the memory card, the bottle neck is the card 95-500mb/s
8k video editing perhaps?
The Nameless Editor Yes, and also a god GPU, CPU white a lot of core, and a lot of ram... not many people ho do 8K this days...
Ah. but how long does it last?
Not expensive in accordance with APPLE pricing contingencies
Great vid, anyways luminar is worth buying, great app for light photo editing
Thanks, and yeah, Luminar is pretty fresh. Appreciate the view.
nggak salah dijuluki thunderblade. prinsip size it doesnt matter tembus gaes 🤦♂️👍
Can you please test the OWC Express 4M2 with 4x Gen4 SSD (980 Pro Samsung or another one..) it should get 5000mb/s right?
It’s cool
Way cheaper than the G-Technology G-Drive Pro SSD.
I’m sorry, how much? Wtf?
heres me crying with my macbook pro mid 2010 with speeds around 200 :( lol getting a 2018 model this year though :)
It's all good man, as long as it works for you, it's fine.
Thanks Jeff mate, Great review and good to know how best to set them up for WHEN I win the $ lotto $ and buy three of these and go mad with making a Sh%t load of videos yeah.
kinda wish you would have worked on Premiere any other rendering type software to see how it handles. especially 4k rendering.
or 2 and 3
Each SSD has only x1 PCIe lanes? Talking about bottlenecks... pretty major design flaw imho.
It’s not a design flaw for the ThunderBlade, it’s the way Thunderbolt 3 is designed. There are four lanes for the Thunderbolt 3 connection, which means each SSD inside the enclosure gets a lane.
@@9to5Mac Thanks for the clarification. So I guess they used 4 drives to achieve maximum capacity? Because the latest/fastest SSDs already use and need x4 PCIe alone.
What's the song name at 7:45 please?
Never mind I finally found it : Isaac Joel - Red Elder
What about two Samsung X5 in Raid 0?
Good question. I think I might add that to my to-do list. One bad thing about the X5s, though, because they are so small they are more susceptible to throttling when under load. Probably not a very ideal setup for workflows that need reliable throughout numbers from A-Z. Those Samsung’s are still good drives, though.
Two nvme in raid 0 would be faster and cheaper than this.
Yeah, now to upgrade that iMac...wait a second...! 😉
Why can't those be bus powered?
You’re powering four SSDs for starters, which surely requires more power than the bus can feed it. Also, reliability might come into question, you need a reliable power source for data integrity.
It's pronounced "ahn" not "own"
Thank you. I hate the way this guy talks. It bugs me so much. Every time I wanna watch their videos I close them after I remember how much I hate his voice/speech pattern. Nasally and can't pronounce anything right. Like seriously, "hands-own review?"
Wait... why does this guy sound like Kal Penn?
Samsung x5, bro 😂
Heard the price, left the video... 😂😂😂
I'm not even mad.
9to5Mac dude love your videos. I Literally bought all my apple stuff because of your reviews.
DOES NOT WORK WITH APPLE'S T2 CHIP!!!!!!
All this for so much money and now i get the double speed of 7GByte/sec from a normal NVMe M2 disk on PCIe4 or 15 GByte/sec when using the best RAID Adapter. Just need to buy Ryzan instead of Apple you fake professionals. 4000 GB with 15GB/sec cost 1500 Euro (Samsung 980 PRO and MSI M.2 Xpander-Aero)
👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
I'd use RAID 10, 5 or 6 instead
Or you can have regular backs and keep your working-storage speed.
It's not so fast... My HDD is about 60mb/s 😂😂😂
doubtful
60 Milli Byte? Respect!
@@Joe__Tech 🤔
He actually thinks NAND flash needs to be cooled. Ya kid Nand actually works more efficiently at high temps.................
thats embarrassing lmao
I'm always willing to learn, my friend. Feel free to explain your point of view. So you're saying all of that dual-sided thermal paste, and that large, metal, heat-dissipating enclosure that the manufacturer put together is all for naught? 🤔
9to5Mac
It's for show yes. They would need about 1/4 of the cooling efforts they threw in. To keep the drives running in there optimum temp range.
Theres many reasons why this is; far to many to list here especially in the detail needed. Since you would need to understand the architectural nature of the dies themself and how electrons interact with one another as they are moved in low and high Temps.
But yes the short of it. Nand flash even under load needs Very Little heat disapation. And the thermal paste alome was overkill. Having a goddy heay sink to it was even more wasteful.
9to5Mac
Funny thing is while right now we can only use nand drives at higher Temps than most components and safely. In the next few yrs we will start to get self healing nand drives. That when used at even higher Temps. The drives will heal or rejuvenate the dieing cells due to thermal annealing.
So Ya nand flash isn't like normal components they like warm environments.
@@TheReal_ist Hmm, very interesting, I didn't know that. I guess I need to hit the books then 🤷🏽♂️ I always knew that these modules got EXTREMELY hot, and that always concerned me. Good to know. Thanks for sharing. P.S. Even with that said, I still think there's a benefit in eliminating some of the heat, so that the user doesn't burn their hand on a super-hot enclosure. I made the mistake of touching one of these modules before, and let me tell you, it wasn't fun.