YourNextApp might earn an affiliate fee on purchases made by way of hyperlinks on our website.

One of many core issues of proudly owning a MacBook Air or Professional is guaranteeing you may have sufficient storage. Upgrades at preliminary buy are costly, and except you have received a Mac Professional, you may’t do something about inner storage additional down the road.

Whereas all Macs can profit from having a quick exterior drive related, ideally, transportable {hardware} just like the MacBook Professional additionally wants the drive to be compact, mild, and simple to maneuver round. The OWC Envoy Professional SX makes an attempt to reply the decision, with quick information transfers in a fairly small and safe bundle.

The Envoy Professional SX is mainly NVMe storage in a pocketable and resilient enclosure.

OWC’s Envoy Professional SX – Key Specs

• 4.5 inches by 2.8 inches by 0.6 inches.
• 8 ounces.
• 1 x Thunderbolt 3 port.
• Holds 1 NVMe M.2 SSD.
• 2,847MB/s learn and write speeds claimed

OWC Envoy Professional SX – Small however rugged

Externally, the Envoy Professional SX is a follow-up to the Envoy Professional EX, one other transportable SSD from OWC, and shares plenty of the identical lineage. Each drives are constructed to be robust whereas nonetheless offering as a lot pace as potential in a small bundle.

For the Envoy Professional SX, OWC saved the identical theme, however went smaller. Roughly a 3rd smaller than its stablemate, the 4.5-inch by 2.8-inch drive is 1.6 inches thick and simply carried in a pocket, and at 8.14 ounces, moderately light-weight.

Its chassis is made out of aluminum with a few aspect fins on the sides, appearing as a warmth sink for the drive held inside. That cooling can be executed with no fan, so it runs silent and with no transferring components to go unsuitable.

Sporting a matte black coating, the drive has moderately discrete OWC branding on the highest, together with a single blue LED stripe on the entrance.

The drive retains its rugged credentials with claims of being licensed dust-proof, drop-proof, and waterproof. Although there is no IP ranking for this, OWC says it was examined by way of repeated dropping and being submerged for as much as half-hour at a depth of three ft.

Across the again is a single Thunderbolt port, which can be utilized with the provided 0.7m (2.3 foot) cable. If extra size is required, you may simply exchange the provided cable with one other one.

The bus-powered nature of the drive additionally means you solely want one cable to run each energy and information to it, saving you from having to hold round an additional one only for electrical energy.

On the bottom, there are a pair of rubber ft for conserving it on a floor, even when watery accidents happen close by.

OWC Envoy Professional SX – Storage and Efficiency

OWC sells the Envoy Professional SX in a alternative of 4 completely different capacities. The vary begins at 240GB for $179, rising to $229 for 480GB.

In order for you 1TB, it is $299, with 2TB priced at $499, and 4TB at $899. We’re reviewing the 4TB mannequin right here.

Inside is an Aura P12 Professional NVMe M.2 SSD, one which can be produced by OWC. The drive interacts with Intel’s JHL6340 chipset throughout the enclosure.

The pace of the drive is alleged by OWC to be extraordinarily quick, with claimed learn and write speeds of as much as 2,847MB/s. That is excessive, simply over half the utmost information switch charge of Thunderbolt 3.

We ran an assortment of checks with numerous file sizes and block sizes, and noticed about what OWC mentioned that it may hit. It may persistently hit 2.8 gigabytes per second learn and a pair of.7 gigabytes per second write — for some time.

After a future, leading to a crammed cache after about two minutes, the drive nonetheless maintained about 1650 megabytes per second write pace by way of the top of the run. Learn speeds have been unaffected all through the run, that means the slower pace wasn’t about warmth.

On the finish of the switch, the outside of the drive enclosure was about 33C, in a 20C room, as measured with a Fischer Scientific non-contact thermometer.

The general pace of the drive is greater than sufficient to fulfill the excessive calls for of some inventive industries, reminiscent of video enhancing, which require massive quantities of knowledge to be written and pulled from the drives over a brief time period.

There’s adequate capability for movies to be edited instantly on the bigger drive, which is definitely a plus for initiatives that see the drive handed between completely different individuals quite than over a community.

OWC Envoy Professional SX – Compatibility

Connecting over Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C, the OWC Envoy Professional SX is appropriate with virtually all Mac and MacBook fashions launched since 2016 which have shipped. Assuming you have received the OS necessities down, it’s going to work with Apple’s Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter as effectively assuming you are going from a Thunderbolt 2 system to a Thunderbolt 3 powered dock.

OWC does say that it requires macOS 10.13.4 or later to operate on a Mac. It additionally helps PC connectivity with the 64-bit model of Home windows 10, in addition to Home windows Server 2016, assuming a correct format.

The drive is plug-and-play succesful, with none want for a specialised driver in an effort to run with system necessities met. For the security-minded. It’s also totally appropriate with encryption programs constructed into macOS and Home windows.

OWC Envoy Professional SX – Tiny workhorse

In producing the Envoy Professional SX, OWC created a really good exterior drive for MacBook Professional customers. Constructed to be compact, moderately light-weight, and nondescript, it’s a drive that would not look misplaced in anybody’s setup.

The excessive studying and writing speeds definitely make it a drive that could possibly be employed by these in inventive fields, the place time is of the essence for initiatives.

So far as pricing goes, the 4TB model retails for $899, and is typically obtainable for a cheaper price by way of OWC, however we’ll use full retail for comparisons. On the 14-inch MacBook Professional, a storage improve to 4TB prices a further $1000, however will likely be a bit sooner general than the OWC drive. A consumer buying this drive will save $100 — and have the core 1TB inner storage as well.

The equation is comparable for different laptop fashions, and is greatest left as an train to the reader. We do not suppose that almost all customers will pair a $1400 MacBook Air with a $899 Thunderbolt SSD, however stranger issues have occurred.

With the Envoy SX line, OWC has constructed an excellent transportable storage answer for MacBook Professional street warriors and creatives in search of excessive efficiency. The truth that additionally it is equally at dwelling for extra pedestrian information wants, reminiscent of Time Machine backups, can be a bonus.

However, if in case you have these pedestrian wants, think about a non-Thunderbolt drive, or a tough drive RAID as an alternative. The previous provides you with extra storage for a similar cash, and the latter provides you with a tremendously bigger quantity of storage albeit slower speeds and the shortage of portability.

Envoy Professional SX execs

• Compact and muted design
• Value efficient versus Apple storage
• Rugged sufficient for knocks and water

Envoy Professional SX cons

• Comparatively quick included Thunderbolt cable.
• Thunderbolt SSDs do not have one of the best capability to value ratio

Score: 4 out of 5

The place to purchase the Envoy Professional SX

OWC sells the Envoy Professional SX from its on-line retailer, with the 240GB priced at $179, the 480GB for $229, 1TB for $299, 2TB for $469, and 4TB for $869.