ThunderBay 4 mini RAID Four-Bay External Thunderbolt 3 Storage Enclosure

author
OWC

Big RAID System Performance in a Compact Design

The ThunderBay 4 mini is a compact data storage enclosure that you can populate with new or existing 2.5-inch HDDs or SSDs. It’s big on performance and flexibility, yet ThunderBay 4 mini is about the length of a pencil and can weigh as little as 3.1 pounds with drives.

The rugged heat-dissipating aluminum enclosure features two Thunderbolt 3 (Thunderbolt 2/Thunderbolt backward compatible) ports for up to 1556MB/s speeds, so you have more than enough bandwidth to handle personal and business backups — all the way up to today’s highest resolution audio, photo, and video formats. If you are seeking big RAID performance that’s small enough to fit on a desk, in a rack, or on a DIT cart, your wish is now a reality.

A New World of Drive Use Flexibility

With four drive bays, you can mix or match different brand and capacity 2.5-inch SSDs and HDDs. Use mixed drives independently or combine drives as a RAID with the included SoftRAID setup and management software. You can populate this empty enclosure with your own drives, or choose a pre-configured capacity solution to achieve your desired balance of storage, performance, and data redundancy.

Expand production capabilities in industry-leading creative platforms like Final Cut X, Avid Pro Tools, Apple Pro Logic, and Adobe Lightroom, edit large images, manage massive photo and audio libraries, store drone videos, use it as a transport drive…whatever the day or project demands, the ThunderBay 4 mini is the perfect workflow solution.

Install or Swap in Minutes

Want to access a drive or expand your storage capacity? Simply open the front panel security lock to access the four individual bays. Drives mount to a tray that slides back in and automatically plugs into a drive connector so you can get back to work in minutes.

Store More, Go Faster

With the ability to daisy-chain you can add up to five additional ThunderBay 4 mini solutions to create massive storage capacities. Merge them with SoftRAID for even more flexibility, capacity, and capability. Or if speed is what you’re after, connect multiple ThunderBay 4 mini solutions to multiple Thunderbolt 3 ports on your Mac or PC to achieve exponential speed capabilities.

Includes SoftRAID: Easy and Complete Drive Management

Now you can quickly access and robustly protect your data with SoftRAID XT. SoftRAID easy setup makes it a breeze to create RAID volumes by helping you through the entire process. With multiple RAID options, you decide what you’re using your RAID volume for and how much space to allocate to it. It’s that simple to create your preference of speed and/or redundancy for your data volume.

SoftRAID Highlights

  • Up to 86% faster versus AppleRAID
  • Create advanced RAID 0, 1, 4, 5, 1+0 (10) volumes for higher performance and/or redundancy.
  • Enterprise-class monitoring for drive and RAID volume health with email notifications
  • Volume validation to ensure sectors can be read, parity is correct, and minimization of volume failure
  • Drive certification checks that your drives are safe to store data before use
  • Drive failure prediction with early warning helps protect you from sudden drive failure

Professional Grade = Ready to Work

We understand having confidence in gear reliability is paramount to creative professionals. That’s why every ThunderBay 4 mini enclosure undergoes a multi-step performance certification prior to shipping. This ensures your ThunderBay 4 mini enclosure arrives ready for demanding use.

Product Specs

Product Specifications:

OWC Part Number

  • TB3QMSR00GB

Mac OS Compatibility

  • Mac OS X 10.13 and later

PC OS Compatibility

  • Windows 10 and later

Other Requirements

  • Thunderbolt 3 Port

Ports

  • (2) Thunderbolt 3 Ports

Number of Bays

  • (4) 2.5″ SATA

Housing Color

  • Black

Housing Material

  • Aluminum

Security Slot

  • Yes

Cooling Fan

  • (1) 60mm cooling fan

Chipset

  • Thunderbolt: Intel JHL6540
  • SATA Controller: ASMedia ASM-1062

Data Transfer Rate (Max)

  • Thunderbolt 3 : 40 Gb/s (or 5000 MB/s

Bootable

  • Independent volumes bootable in macOS

Power Supply

  • External UL-listed universal auto-switching power supply

AC Input

  • 100-240V, 50-60Hz, 2.0A

DC Output

  • +12V, 6A

Wattage

  • 72

Certifications

  • CE
  • FCC
  • VCCI
  • RCM
  • BSMI

Environment

  • Environmental (Operating)
  • Temperature 41°F to 95°F (5°C to 35°C)
  • Altitude -304.8 m to 3,048.0 m (-1,000 ft to 10,000 ft)
  • Shock Varies depending on drive mechanism installed
  • Environmental (Non-Operating)
  • Temperature  -4°F to 140°F (-20°C to 60°C)
  • Altitude -304.8 m to 12,192.0 m (-1,000 ft to 40,000 ft)
  • Shock Varies depending on drive mechanism installed

Dimensions

  • Height: 11.7 cm (4.6 in)
  • Width: 9.6 cm (3.8 in)
  • Length: 19.1 cm (7.5 in)

Weight

  • 1.1 kg (2.51 lbs)

Acoustics

  • Varies depending on drive mechanism installed
Learn more