OWC ThunderBay IV Thunderbolt 0GB 4-Bay Profressional-Grade Enclosure

It is not the simplest task to find an affordable thunderbolt enclosure like this one but I'm glad I came across the ThunderBay IV. So far, it does what it's supposed to and has been 100% reliable.If you are looking for drive bays with easy access, this may not be the right product for you as it requires a key to open the front grate and each slot requires you to screw the drives into a tray. It is though very quiet and shuts off the drives when they are not in use. Speed wise, couldn't be happier.

The thunderbolt cable is defective when I received it. I contacted with the manufacture, which is listed on the warranty card, NO response about the replacement of the thunderbolt cable after 4 days.So I have to use my own thunderbolt II cable, which I bought from apple.The speed is not as high as expected. With 'cp' command on my new Mac Pro (2014, not macbook pro), it is about 50-60 Mb/s when I copy a single 4 G file. I honestly don't know if this low speed is caused by not using their own thunderbolt cable. Because their original cable is DOA. So I didn't have a change to give it a try. In any case, if the speed is cable-dependent, that would be also a problem to me. In other words, do I have to buy cables from OWC?The built of the enclosure itself, seems very solid, though.In summary I suggest looking for something else. The product is not as described to me. Their OWC customer service is not responding, so you may end up with a bad item with no help.

If you an newer Mac and new a lot of storage, this is the tool for you!I put 4 HGST 4TB (NAS) drives in this enclosure and used Softraid (V5 beta) to control them. In a Raid 5 configuration I can get nearly 600MB / Sec - 5x faster than I can get with a single Seagate external drive. Plus the Raid 5 configuration protects me from a single disk failure.I have a drobo but the drobo is so slow, it is painful. The OWC Thunderbay IV is blazing fast if configured with the correct software. Plus the Thunderbolt connector allows me to daisy devices together. A big win.VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

So far, very good. I haven't had a lot of good luck with thunderbolt connections, but this seems to be working great. I have it attached to a Mac Pro and have had no problems so far. I have a SSD drive in it (just inserted on the SATA connector - not attached to anything else) and some regular drives. The SSD appears to be seamless and comparable to the internal flash on the mac pro (no formal analysis). The other regular drives are fine too, but I only use them for backups.I'll post if I have any issues.

Super Fast!! This Thunderbolt drive works great! It is much faster than I expected. I copied an 80 GB file to it in just a few minutes. Automatically goes to sleep when I shut down the computer so I don't have to manually hit the switch every time like some others I've had. Put four 2 and 3 TB drives in this thing and now I have so much storage...it's great!

I would have given this item a five star review, only it completely died within four months of purchase. Only the power light, no fan, no disk power, no response from the thunderbolt chip. OWC customer service had no idea what was wrong, and wanted me to send the enclosure back before sending me a replacement, which would normally be fine, but they refused to expedite the return unit to me unless I BOUGHT a new unit, and then refunded me THE NEW purchase. Try again OWC. You suck. I'll be buying elsewhere in the future.

I just LOVE THIS…I bought 2.great case. a bit loud, but what to do right?goes to sleep, and wakes up when you need. is fast.well build.

Excellent enclosure... I keep it on the floor, and hardly notice when it's running. Basically plug and play. I'm thinking of picking up another one.

Ich war lange auf der Suche nach einer Lösung, um meine externen Festplatten mit hoher Performance an meinen Mac anzubinden. Mangels eSATA Schnittstelle scheiden viel externe Festplatten Gehäuse für den Mac aus. Firewire Gehäuse gibt es kaum mehr und USB Lösungen haben zuwenig Durchsatz. Zudem hatte das Sharkoon QuickDock Duo USB 2.0 Festplattendock, das ich vorher benutzt hatte, Qualitätsprobleme; zwei defekte Geräte in zwei Jahren.Das OWC ThunderBay IV Gehäuse ist zwar eine etwas teure Lösung, bietet aber eine gute Performance. Ich war explizit auf der Suche nach einem Gehäuse, das keine RAID Funktionalität und keine NAS Funktionen bietet, sondern die Platten einfach als Just a Bunch of Disks (JBOD) via Thunderbolt exportiert. In diesem Segment gibt es zur OWC Thunderbay kaum Alternativen.Bezüglich der Qualität des Gerätes bin ich nicht völlig überzeugt. Ich hatte erst ein Gerät erhalten, bei dem die Thunderbolt mehrmals täglich abgebrochen ist, was zur Folge hatte, dass die Disks nicht korrekt ungemounted wurden. Der Händler hat das Gerät daraufhin ausgetauscht, das Ersatzgerät funktioniert tadellos. Ein weiterer Qualitätsmangel sind die Laufwerksschächte. Jede Hardisk muss zum Einbau in einen Halterungsschlitten eingebaut werden, der dann in einen von 4 Schächten eingesetzt werden kann. Die Passgenauigkeit dieser Schlitten und die mechanische Verarbeitung, vor allem die Konstruktion Kontaktschleifbleche und der Schrauben, ist mittelmässig. Ein schlittenloses System, so wie es zum Beispiel von Drobo angeboten wird, wäre viel praktischer. Hier erwarte ich von einem Gerät in dieser Preisklasse wesentlich mehr. Aber wenn man die Festplatten im Gerät belässt, ist das kein grosser Nachteil. Zum regelmässigen Aus- und Einbau ist die Konstruktion des Festplattenschlittens aber viel zu fragil.Alles in allem kann ich das Gerät aufgrund seiner Leistungsdaten – trotz der genannten mechanischen Mängel – empfehlen.

Easy to use and it runs quietly. Doesn't randomly eject disks. Love it. You can put 4 disks in it, and they work well. I've had no issues with this.

Great