
With an NVMe M.2 solid-state added to the interior, OWC boasts that the Envoy Express can deliver up to 300% faster speeds than the fastest USB 3.0 options.Īvailable in a compact all-aluminum package that is shorter than a ballpoint pen and weighs just 3.3 ounces with a hard drive mounted inside, the Envoy Express is a versatile travel companion designed for road warriors to augment their storage needs. It's still not as good as newer Thunderbolt 4 drives, but it gets the job done.
#Disk warrior vs drive genius portable
Who’s it for: Any Mac or PC user with a Thunderbolt 3 port.īilled as the world's first Thunderbolt certified bus-powered portable hard drive enclosure, OWC's Envoy Express relies on a Thunderbolt 3 connection to deliver blazing fast speeds. Why you should buy this: The OWC Envoy Express is the world's first external Thunderbolt 3 drive enclosure designed for mobile. When the dock goes to sleep after a period without use, it switches to a slow "breathing" effect instead. When a drive is busy, the lights will use a flash effect to show data is being transferred. The Inateck docking station also has RGB LEDs to add a little color to the proceedings.

#Disk warrior vs drive genius Offline
It supports the UASP transfer protocol and enables offline cloning for rapid backups (with LED indicators to help chart progress). This Inateck dock is an ideal solution, with slots for 2.5- and 3.5-inch SSDs or HDDs. If you have a home battlestation, something like the Mediasonic bay is probably too complex for your needs, but you may still want to juggle multiple hard drives, especially if you are in the process of upgrading or just have a lot of data to handle. Why we picked the Inatech RGB Hard Drive Docking Station: Who’s it for: Advanced PC users and SMB IT managers who need to clone drives. Why you should buy this: The Inatech RGB Hard Drive Docking Station is a hub designed to transfer data or back up information between various internal drives without requiring a drive enclosure for each drive.

A quiet fan keeps everything running smoothly inside, and the metal construction not only looks premium but also helps to dissipate heat. Everything is housed in a simple black aluminum housing to keep things professional. The drives are hot-swappable, and you can mix and match a variety of drives and formats for even greater versatility. This is a great storage solution for videographers, photographers, or those wishing to run their own media server.Įach drive slot on the ThunderBay 4 can accommodate either a 2.5- or 3.5-inch HDD or SSD, and the unit is RAID compatible. When maxed out, that means you can max out your storage needs with up to 24 drives spread across six ThunderBay 4 units. Even though each unit supports up to four hard drives, the inclusion of dual Thunderbolt 3 ports on each ThunderBay 4 means that you can daisy-chain multiple enclosures today for massive amounts of storage. OWC's ThunderBay 4 is designed to house your biggest data files. Who’s it for: Videographers, photographers, and creative professionals with robust storage needs. Why you should buy this: The OWC ThunderBay 4 can accommodate four drives, but the Thunderbolt connection allows up to six ThunderBay 4 enclosures to be daisy-chained together to house a total of 24 SSDs or HDDs! However, we must point out that the process is a tad more involved than the standard PC build's method - and it's also higher-priced. Each of these valuable features makes it an excellent option for those with a modestly-sized office or a bustling studio. Installation is simple and almost effortless, all because of a quick-slot device at the Mediasonic’s back, with synchronization between your PC and the enclosure, ensuring that the drives never operate longer than needed. This helps to ensure that it only starts when it’s essential to cool the drives down if they start to get too hot. Moreover, it comes with an active cooling fan with SMART temperature tracking. It also features complete support for UASP for an accelerated transfer between the SATA and USB mediums. Both USB-C and USB-A 3.1 will operate well with this enclosure, making it great for a wide selection of drives. It also includes a built-in Raid controller that provides six configuration variations. This model can support a maximum of four 3.5-inch SATA drives, up to 16TB per drive, or 2.5-inch SSDs up to 12TB per drive. Whenever that’s the case, it makes sense to get one large external drive for all of them.

You might run into a situation where you're working with more than one hard drive that you’d like to put into external drives. Who’s it for: Office users and creative professionals needing a robust data archiving solution. Why you should buy this: The Mediasonic Raid 4-bay is a network drive that supports a maximum of four drives for all your storage needs.
