An exterior drive for storing your photographs, audio information and movies is sensible in case you are a Mac person. Apple costs lots for bigger SSDs while you order your MacBook, Mac mini or iMac.
In fact, you’ll want to guarantee your new Mac has sufficient onboard storage for working macOS and your favourite apps, however there’s no level paying by means of the nostril for a bigger Apple SSD for those who use it for photographs, music, spreadsheets or Phrase paperwork. A high-quality exterior SSD makes extra sense and can prevent cash.
OWC has been promoting Mac-specific storage options and different Apple-friendly equipment for a few years and it’s one of many few manufacturers that makes merchandise specifically designed for Mac house owners.
One in all OWC’s newer SSDs is the compact and sturdy OWC Envoy Professional Elektron. This cute little exterior drive is constructed for onerous life on the highway and is designed to maintain valuable knowledge protected and obtainable wherever wanted.
Larry O’Connor is OWC’s CEO and says the Envoy Professional Elektron is one among his favourite SSDs within the firm’s product line-up. The Elektron was designed and constructed to withstand rain, swimming swimming pools, beer, bodily drops and unplanned slips. It may possibly even survive being run over by an SUV. This rugged little SSD is sufficiently small to slide right into a pocket, however robust sufficient to outlive virtually any mistreatment and maintain the info saved on it intact.
The Elektron is wrought from a strong block of aluminum and has a water and dustproof ranking of IP67. Meaning you possibly can drop the drive in a glass of beer and it’ll nonetheless perform. The Elektron is offered in capacities beginning at 240GB and topping out at a most of 2TB.
I believe 1TB SSD is the candy spot for many of us and ample for most individuals’s storage wants whereas nonetheless being inexpensive. OWC claims the 1TB Elektron is giant sufficient for storing one of many following: 200,000 photographs, 250,000 MP3s, 24 PS4/Xbox video games, 4.3 million Phrase paperwork or a few hundred hi-res motion pictures. A 1TB SSD is the candy spot for many of us and ample for most individuals’s storage wants whereas nonetheless being inexpensive.
With learn and write speeds topping out round 1,000Mbps, the Elektron is a tricky little performer and is powered by OWC’s Aura NVMe SSD. It’s universally suitable to be used between Thunderbolt and USB Macs or PCs, relying on the way you format it, plus it could possibly additionally work with different computing units like iPads, Chromebooks and Android tablets.
Constructed just like the proverbial tank, the OWC Envoy Professional Elektron suits within the palm and it may be bootable, making it a perfect rescue or backup disk for nearly any Mac. A blue LED strip on the entrance of the casing flashes blue with exercise when knowledge is being learn or written.
The Elektron case is created from aircraft-grade aluminum, which is very good at dissipating any warmth generated by the NVMe SSD inside. Though SSDs normally run colder than conventional spinning onerous drives, the chips utilized in SSDs can run fairly sizzling if positioned below strain when studying and writing giant quantities of knowledge.
O’Connor clarifies the warmth challenge: “A quick drive that overheats and throttles isn’t quick. We perceive each the workloads our prospects anticipate and the environments they could be utilizing the Elektron drive. The efficient thermal design of the aluminum case ensures the drive stays cool and stops it from throttling or slowing down.”
So, though SSDs in the marketplace have sooner learn and write speeds, it’s important to think about the sustainable charges achievable and the impact that throttling because of overheating has on an SSD’s general efficiency and reliability. I properly bear in mind testing one SSD touted because the world’s quickest. That SSD froze due to overheating midway by means of transferring 50GB of RAW picture information.
Information loss is one other challenge that must be thought of when selecting an SSD. A storage gadget with correctly designed firmware and modest energy utilization could make a variety of distinction to the reliability of an SSD. There’s not a lot level in having an SSD with blisteringly quick learn and write pace if it drops offline because of overheating. In contrast to conventional onerous drives, which may lose knowledge because of mechanical failure, the Achille’s heel with SSDs is overheating and that’s when knowledge is almost certainly to be misplaced, provides O’Connor.
The information port on the rear of this little SSD is USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 with as much as 10GB/s of headroom, though, in observe, OWC claims the Elektron will prime out at 1011MB/s. I used the Blackmagic Disk Velocity instrument and received readings of 897.6 MB/s for writing and a barely extra pedestrian 694.0 MB/s learn pace. OWC ships the SSD with a high-speed knowledge cable with a USB-C and a USB-A adapter, enabling it to work with virtually any computing gadget. Lastly, the Elektron has a three-year guarantee for peace of thoughts.
Verdict: The lovable and compact OWC Envoy Professional Elektron is a dependable SSD that’s significantly good at dissipating warmth. The speeds will differ relying in your host laptop however don’t anticipate speeds a lot past 1,000MB/s. In real-world use, I discovered the Elektron dependable and sturdy. There are a lot of SSDs with plastic casings in the marketplace, however only a few are constructed to the identical customary because the Elektron. When you don’t want the heavy-duty construct high quality of the Elektro,n you would possibly contemplate the marginally sooner however much less sturdy PNY Professional Elite And EliteX-PRO SSDs I reviewed final month.
Pricing & Availability: The OWC Envoy Professional Elektron is offered in capacities starting from 240GH to 2TB, with costs beginning at $84.99.
Extra information: owc.com
Tech Specs:
- No of bays: 1
- Capacities: 240GB / 1TB / 2TB.
- Normal mechanism: 240GB OWC Aura P13 Professional PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 2242 SSD.
- Plug and play: Sure.
- Boot help: Mac solely.
- Drive interface: NVMe M.2.
- Machine ports: USB 3.2 Gen 2 Kind-C as much as 10Gb/s (1250MB/s) – USB 2.0/3.0 backward suitable.
- Information switch charge (Max): USB 3.2 Gen 2: As much as 10 Gb/s (or 1250 MB/s).
- Chipset: Asmedia ASM-2362.
- Host port necessities: USB (USB-C or USB-A) or Thunderbolt (USB-C) port.
- Mac OS compatibility: 10.12 Sierra to 14.x Sonoma.
- PC OS compatibility: Home windows 11, Home windows 10 64-bit Version, Home windows Server 2016.
- Linux OS compatibility: Sure.
- Cellular OS compatibility: iPadOS 13 to iPadOS 17.
- Different OS compatibility: Chrome OS, Android 10 or later.
- Energy provide: Bus-powered.
- Safety slot: No.
- Energy/Exercise LED
- Casing: Plane-grade aluminum.
- Dimensions (HxLxW): 12 x 76 x 52mm.
- Weight: 85g.
- IP ranking: IP67.
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