OWC Offers Thunderbay Mini, Thunderbolt v2 Enclosure for 2.5-Inch SSDs or Hard Drives (4 bays)

The OWC Thunderbay 4 has become MPG’s all time favorite external storage.

OWC is now offering the Thunderbay Mini, a 4-bay enclosure for 2.5-inch drives (SSDs or hard drives). The smaller unit is attractive for portability and/or for installing solid state drives (SSDs) in a compact form factor. MPG will have SSD and HDD units for testing soon.

For example, a 4TB OWC Thunderbay Mini, using 4 X 1TB SSDs. While there are Thunderbolt 2 external SSDs that can max-out the bus, the 4TB capacity with a RAID-5 option (3TB usable capacity in RAID 5) adds fault tolerance to speed, a big plus for those who want to minimize the risks of any drive failure for critical work. But if needs change, one can switch at will, since the RAID is software RAID-5.

Or it can be run for maximum speed and capacity as RAID-0 stripe (4TB capacity) or a mirrored solution, or individual drives/volumes—see SoftRAID 5.

The Thunderbay Mini can also be outfitted with 2.5-inch hard drives, which allows up to an 8TB Thunderbay Mini (6TB as a RAID-5 solution).

MPG recommends the RAID-5 edition, because it includes SoftRAID 5, and one can then pick and choose whatever RAID or non-RAID one wishes.

OWC Thunderbay Mini — 4-bay enclosure with Thunderbolt 2 for SSD or HDD