OWC Debuts New Thunderbolt 3 Products: SSDs, PCIe Expansion Chassis, Six-Bay RAID, and External GPU - MacRumors
Skip to Content

OWC Debuts New Thunderbolt 3 Products: SSDs, PCIe Expansion Chassis, Six-Bay RAID, and External GPU

by

OWC has announced that it will be debuting a range of new Thunderbolt 3 products at the 2017 NAB Show this weekend in Las Vegas.

Envoy Pro EX Thunderbolt 3

Envoy Pro EX with Thunderbolt 3

First up is the Envoy Pro EX, a pocket-sized, bus-powered SSD with Thunderbolt 3. Storage capacities will start at 240GB. As it remains a prototype, no release date was specified. OWC's existing Envoy Pro EX with USB 3.0 starts at $199.99.

Helios 3

Mercury Helios 3

OWC's new Mercury Helios 3 is a PCIe expansion chassis with a dedicated cooling fan and two Thunderbolt 3 ports. It can accommodate a half-length, full-height, double-width PCIe card. OWC said it will be available in the second quarter of 2017. Pricing was not disclosed.

Other products include the Helios FX external GPU powered by Thunderbolt 3, ThunderBay 6 six-bay RAID with Thunderbolt 3, and Mercury Viper portable Thunderbolt 3 SSD suitable for daisy chaining. OWC said the ThunderBay 6 is coming in late 2017, but no word on pricing or availability for the other products.

Helios FX
OWC's previously announced Thunderbolt 3 Dock and DEC for the 2016 MacBook Pro will also be on display at the show.

Top Rated Comments

H3LL5P4WN Avatar
120 months ago
"Other products include the Helios FX external GPU powered by Thunderbolt 3..."

Why is the most important announcement here barely a footnote?
Score: 13 Votes (Like | Disagree)
OldSchoolMacGuy Avatar
120 months ago
Love OWC and have been a friend of Larry for more than 20 years, but I feel like they do more announcing of products than actual releasing of them.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
justperry Avatar
120 months ago
Wow, SSDs with speeds up to 40GB/s. Thats almost twice the speed of the RAM. Not bad!
Gb/s, not GB/s.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
120 months ago
One thing I don't like about OWC is that they list the throughput of the connection to tell you what speeds you can get... which is total BS. Sure TB 3 can do 40 Gb/s but an SSD can't. Not even freaking close. At best its shady marketing, at worst its an out right lie. Stupid things like this have kept my money in my pocket when it comes to OWC.
While I agree with you that it is marketing BS on OCW side for their own SSDs and their SSDs aren't going to be doing 40GBps, you are incorrect that an SSD can't do it. Sure, it can. Kingston has an upcoming data center SSD that can push nearly ~7GBps. ('http://www.thessdreview.com/featured/kingston-dcp1000-nvme-ssd-reaches-7gbs-worlds-fastest/')

40Gbps TB3 is around ~5GBps but less than that due to overhead.

Last year's Samsung 960 Pro PCIe SSD can do about 2GBps. Put 2 of them in Mercury Helios 3 with two PCIe slots and you can get it close enough to the max TB3 speed.

Intel's Optane SSD today ('http://www.anandtech.com/show/11209/intel-optane-ssd-dc-p4800x-review-a-deep-dive-into-3d-xpoint-enterprise-performance/2') is already doing 2GBps at low depth and that's just the first-gen.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
justperry Avatar
120 months ago


First up is the Envoy Pro EX with Thunderbolt 3, a pocket-sized, bus-powered SSD with desktop-class performance and speeds up to 40 Gb/s. Storage capacities will start at 240GB. As it remains a prototype, no release date was specified. OWC's existing Envoy Pro EX with USB 3.0 ('https://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/ENVPROU3S240/') starts at $199.99.
I can tell you this, it won't be 40Gb/s, there are no SSD's with that speed, the bus (Thunderbolt 3) has the bandwidth but that's just it.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
120 months ago
I can't believe we haven't seen any Thunderbolt 3 docks with Thunderbolt 2 ports on them. The new stuff is great, but many of us still have TB2 products in use.

Yeah I know Apple made adapters, but I'm having to move away from OSX sadly.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Popular Stories

Apple Acquires Award Winning App Play Feature

Apple Acquires Award-Winning App 'Play'

Monday June 29, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
In February, Apple notified the European Commission that it would be acquiring certain assets from and have the right to hire certain employees from Rabbit 3 Times, the company behind the award-winning app design tool Play. The notification was published on the European Commission's website this week, following a four-month waiting period. Play was a Mac and iPhone app that allowed designers ...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

Apple 'Concerned' Over iPhone 18 Pro Data Leak From Supplier Tata

Monday June 29, 2026 11:46 am PDT by
Apple is "concerned" about a recent data leak from Tata Electronics, one of its manufacturing partners in India, reports Reuters. Tata Electronics was the target of a cyberattack, with confidential Apple documents stolen and shared on the dark web. Hackers were able to steal information about the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max, including a list of suppliers, parts, and images of the...
iphone 17 ceramic shield

2027 iPhone 18 and iPhone 18e to Get 9GB RAM and A20 Chip

Friday June 26, 2026 9:57 am PDT by
The lower-end iPhone 18 models set to launch in spring 2027 will feature 9GB DRAM, up from 8GB, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Kuo says the A20 chip Apple plans to use for the devices will have 1.5GB x 6 dies for a total of 9GB RAM, instead of 2GB x 4 dies as the current lower-end iPhone 17 models use. By lower-end iPhones, Kuo is likely referencing the iPhone 18 and the iPhone...