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The OWC Gemini is a dock that provides not solely grants a number of extra port choices in your Thunderbolt 3-equipped Mac, but additionally native storage.
There are a number of “issues” that we hear about because it pertains to Apple’s trendy Mac lineup. Extra connectivity choices than Apple provides has traditionally been one, which is solvable with a dock or a hub. The opposite frequent grievance difficulty is storage. The primary resolution to that is exterior enclosures, both networked, or out there regionally.
For folk that want each, the OWC Gemini could also be an honest bundle to assist with each issues on the similar time.
The OWC Gemini is a Thunderbolt 3 dock that gives expanded connectivity to a related Mac. On the similar time, the enclosure is ready to include a pair of arduous drives or SATA SSDs, offering expanded storage capability for the person.
OWC Gemini
Key Specs
- 5.8 inches by 9.4 inches by 8.5 inches.
- 3.53 kilos.
- 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports.
- 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1 Sort-A ports.
- DisplayPort.
- Gigabit Ethernet.
- SD card slot.
- Holds 2 2.5 or 3.5-inch SATA arduous drives or SSDs.
- Holds as much as 32TB in capability.
- 773MB/s claimed switch speeds.
OWC Gemini – Bodily Dimensions
The Gemini is nondescript, consisting of a black aluminum enclosure with vent holes, standing indicators, and an SD card slot on the entrance. A fan exhaust and many of the primary connectivity is on the again.
It is not likely supposed to be a conveyable dock, with its unloaded weight of three.53 kilos making it not preferrred for moveable computing. That stated, it is also pretty lengthy and tall for a dock or arduous drive enclosure, at 9.4 inches lengthy, 5.8 inches tall, and three.3 inches broad.
Cooling is supplied each by the warmth dissipation properties of the case itself and from the 60mm fan on the again, which runs at as much as 3,000RPM.
The Gemini will in all probability be louder than an Apple Silicon pc it’s related to. We had a baseline of 36 dBa of ambient noise measured with a Kanomax mannequin 4431 audiometer, with the take a look at gear on the desk at hand-height, about at a distance of about three toes.
When chattering away underneath load, the Gemini with two arduous drives hit 44 dBa. With two SSDs, it ran at 40 dBA. For reference, The M1 Extremely Mac Studio whereas idle hit 39 dBa idle and 42 dBa underneath load, with the 2018 Intel i9 MacBook Professional at idle operating at 40 dBa, and 45 dBa underneath heavy load.
OWC Gemini – Ports, Connectivity, and energy
The dock ingredient is pretty simple, because it provides a pair of Thunderbolt 3 ports, with one used to connect with the host Mac. The opposite is used for daisy-chaining with different Thunderbolt gadgets.
On the entrance is the SD 4.0 card reader, able to studying UHS-II playing cards at about 270 megabytes per second by our testing. On the again, the Thunderbolt 3 ports are accompanied by two 5 gbit/second USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, in addition to a DisplayPort 1.2 connection, Gigabit Ethernet, and a lock slot.
You should use each DisplayPort and Thunderbolt to connect with displays, with it in a position to deal with one 5K-resolution show at 60Hz, or two 4K shows at 60Hz at most. The Thunderbolt 3 connection could possibly be used for a 5K-resolution Thunderbolt 3 show, although this does drop right down to 4K 60Hz with a USB-C show or adapter.
OWC does add that the DisplayPort would not help DP++, and it is not suitable with Apple Cinema Shows that use a Mini DisplayPort connection. Even when such a show is related utilizing a DisplayPort to Mini DisplayPort adapter, it will not work, which OWC says is because of a limitation of the chipset it makes use of.
Whereas this does appear to be an excellent dock for a limited-storage MacBook Professional, for instance, it is not going to be a single-cable resolution that many would need.
There’s energy supply over Thunderbolt 3, however solely at as much as 27 watts, which is not sufficient to adequately recharge an in-use MacBook Professional, for instance. It is just a bit bit lower than the 30W supplied by the charger with an M1 MacBook Air.
How a lot of an issue that is, varies. It is superb for the MacBook Air, clearly. For those who’ve received a 2021 MagSafe MacBook Professional, then you could possibly use that for energy with out giving up one other port. You are not going to recharge a MacBook Professional at any type of pace, or whereas in use, with out utilizing a separate energy cable.
Apart from the 27 watts to the host, the dock does present 15W of energy to the opposite Thunderbolt port, and regular energy to USB-A.
Compatibility with Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt as nicely, when used with an authorized adapter and cable. Connection speeds decelerate to 20Gbps for Thunderbolt 2, although you additionally lose help for pocket book charging.
OWC Gemini – Storage
Contained in the OWC Gemini is area for a pair of three.5-inch SATA arduous drives, although it’s also possible to use 2.5-inch SSDs for those who desire. The chassis of the dock slides out the entrance of the enclosure, permitting you to slip and screw in a drive to both aspect of the central divider.
When you might have the drives showing independently in macOS with the dock related, you even have the choice of utilizing its three RAID modes. That is configured by a dial on the lower-right nook of the again aspect.
Strictly talking, there are two RAID modes, with the RAID 0 offering pace however no redundancy by way of drive striping, whereas RAID 1 offers customers knowledge security with its drive mirroring.
The third possibility is “Span mode,” which is able to present up each drives as a single massive disk in macOS. Nonetheless, whereas the RAID configurations require you to have similar mannequin and capability drives, Span mode can use drives of various capacities and sources.
Span mode remains to be an array, however one the place the information is written sequentially throughout the drives. If one drive fills up, all knowledge continues to be written to the remaining storage on the opposite drive.
With as much as 36TB of capability supported throughout the 2 drives, OWC says that the enclosure, correctly outfitted, can present as much as 773MB/s of “real-world” efficiency with the drives in RAID 0. As billed, that is definitely sufficient entry pace for high-bandwidth customers, resembling video editors, to make use of along side the Mac’s built-in storage.
In our testing, we noticed about 265 megabytes per second learn and write to arduous drives. We additionally received 725 megabytes per second of learn pace, and 700 megabytes per second when writing to a pair of 1TB SATA SSDs put in.
OWC Gemini – Pricing, Empty and Loaded
OWC provides the Gemini in quite a lot of configurations, relying on the way you wish to purchase your required configuration. For the enclosure by itself, you should buy it with none drives for $319.
There are alternatives for OWC to incorporate drives with the enclosure, for those who do not wish to go to the effort of buying them. The least costly mannequin with storage prices $479, and contains two 2TB WD Blue 7,200RPM arduous drives. For all different choices, ranging from the $629 8TB variant and rising to $1,199 for the 36TB configuration, OWC says it contains Toshiba arduous drives, with “Enterprise” variations used from 16TB and up.
Do you have to purchase the OWC Gemini?
We’re of a blended thoughts concerning the OWC Gemini. We just like the storage bays, and the ports that it brings to the desk.
However, as with another choices, it simply would not present sufficient host energy for a MacBook Professional. And, the MacBook Professional house owners are doubtless the oldsters most occupied with this type of mixed enclosure.
It is enticing, and works nicely. Speeds are good, and the additional connectivity is sweet. It is simply too unhealthy that if you’d like a one-cable resolution in your MacBook Professional, you’ll want to look elsewhere.
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
OWC Gemini Execs
- Video, networking, and a few USB-A in the identical area that an exterior arduous drive occupies
- Two inside 3.5-inch storage bays
OWC Gemini Cons
- Louder that the host pc
- Not sufficient host energy!
The place to purchase the OWC Gemini
The OWC Gemini begins at $319 and is offered for buy at OWC’s personal MacSales.com storefront, in addition to at B&H Photograph Video and Amazon.
Assessment