NVMe technology has been exploding as it completely shadows the performance of anything that has ever come before it. PCIe 4.0 has taken this so much further for internal drives, while external drives continue to catch up at an amazing pace as well, thanks to companies like OWC through the modern versions of Thunderbolt and USB. These variables combine to give birth to OWC’s latest external line, the OWC Envoy Pro FX series.
These external drives take advantage of the power of both USB 3.2 (Gen 2) and Thunderbolt. Putting your Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) ports to a test while also acting as a perfect option for the new TB4/USB4 as it continues to become available to the masses this year (with a number of new TB4 supported motherboards that have recently launched for the new Intel Rocket Lake processors).
The new Envoy Pro FX series offers speeds that take care of anyone looking to get the most out of their external storage. Especially professionals looking to be able to capture 4K+ footage and edit it while being able to quickly take the data mobile as it transfers between machines or users.
The line features four different options to pick from, ranging from 240GB to 2TB with an MSRP between $199 and $499. All of which are currently available and ready for order (just freshly launched into the market this month).
They feature a wonderfully rugged design, including a thick aluminum shell. I mean, these have some weight to them. We weighed the unit we have been testing (1TB model) in at 8.4oz–and you know a very small fraction of this is the drive itself, neatly nested inside of its guardian of a shell.
The enclosure can take a pretty good impact. Of course, we weren’t going to put that to the test (we’ll let someone else brutally attack their perfectly working drive). Not only that, but it is IP67 rated, protecting it from dirt and water. In fact, per the rating, this means you could accidentally drop this in up to 3 ft of water and leave it there for up to 30 minutes without failure.
We wouldn’t recommend purposely dropping your drive into a body of water, of course. However, we did place it on the ground and hit it slowly with a 5-gallon bucket of water, pouring over the top of it. We dried it off and let it sit for a bit (just to be safe). When we plugged it in, the drive popped right up. Always a good sign. And, it was a lot of fun.
In fact, they have been bragging about the fact that the drive briefly visited space aboard a Blue Origin New Shepard rocket. Not that this “should” have any threat to an NVMe solution since the design of the rocket itself should be protecting the cargo inside from the rough radiation of space. However, how many companies can say that their new drive was shot into space? Plus, you can let it float around without any fear of it receiving damage as it bumps into things.
The drives come with a TB/USB-C cable that has a simple USB-C to USB-A adapter attached for systems that don’t have the USB Type-C connection. In these situations, it’s good to make sure you use it with a USB-A port that is USB 3.2 Gen 2 compatible for the best speeds. However, it is backward compatible, like any other USB device. Your speed will simply drop to match the port it is plugged into.
What is nice is that the length of the cable is just over 2ft, providing plenty of length to be able to carefully find a place for the drive to rest. Unlike some of these external solutions, which only offer a 6″ tail/cable (and lack this extended flexibility of placement).
When it comes to performance, we have covered that these drives are fast. Lightning-fast for an external solution (well, Thunderbolt-fast). We put it against what we referred to as a “best-case worst-case scenario” to see what speeds we would get. This was being connected to a USB 3.2 Gen 1 port (previously known as 3.1), which limits its capabilities to 5gbps. With this, it was pushing 456-580MBps (read/write) depending on the system we put it up against.
We then moved it over to a system with USB 3.2 Gen 2. With this, we got 744.6 MBps (read) and 647.8 MBps (write) via our test. It has already beat out a few of the external options we have lying around. However, some of the PCIe 4.0 drives placed into a USB 3.2 Gen 2 enclosure can compete pretty easily with this. Not so much the PCIe 3.0 options.
Then we moved it over to some of our TB connections. This is when the drive put on a performance worth bragging about. Good news for TB3 power-users sitting behind a Mac (although Windows didn’t see the same speeds with TB3). This is where the drive can suddenly reach speeds of up to 2800MBps. Moving over to TB4 for Windows users helps to bring things neck to neck with these results. We’ll be able to test the latter even more as we have additional TB4 supported boards and resources come in.
We did run into some issues with S.M.A.R.T. readouts with one Windows system. Windows reported temperatures ranging from -142F to 1,190F and health scores (drive life) of being anywhere between 8% and 70%. Clearly, this information was not accurate. Every other system we plugged the drive into resulted in 100% and an average temperature of around 77-82F. One of the coolest external NVMe solutions we’ve worked with so far. This is mostly thanks to its fantastic enclosure.
Our Conclusion
So far, this is one of our favorite external NVMe picks and is a great option for TB4 supported systems. The fact that it supports USB 3.2 Gen 2 while being able to tap into the potential of TB (natively) as well, is a big selling point for the product. The temperature of the drive is also a big win for users that plan to put the drive through its tests. Then, of course, you have the incredibly rugged design that allows you to take the drive just about anywhere. Even if you are editing on a boat, on a train, on a plane, in space, or in the middle of the desert. They are expensive. This is no surprise as OWC-quality does come with a bit of a price to go with it. However, peace of mind usually comes with an added price as well. Some data is worth the protection.
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Our Rating | Average Price* $199 – $499 | ||
*Average price is based on the time this article was published
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2 Comments
Really sad that you didn’t open the drive and give us some pics of the internals.
Hello Richard. Unfortunately, this story is a review and not a disassembly/breakdown of the product. We don’t do a lot of disassemblies since it can sometimes damage the product they are are quite frequently used with future benchmarks (and need to be working for that to happen).