OWC adds software RAID option for ThunderBay external storage


Other World Computing announced a bundle solution of its ThunderBay 4 RAID 5 enclosure with SoftRAID. OWC says the software RAID solution offers greater performance for the money vs hardware solutions.

"Going this route offers an extremely competitive price point with exceptional flexibility, advanced RAID / drive health monitoring features, and up to 35% higher performance compared to other RAID 5 hardware solutions that typically cost twice as much," said Larry O'Connor, Founder and CEO, OWC.

The software solution promises performance of up to 675 MB/sec sustain read/write speeds in a RAID 5 configuration. RAID 5 offers redundancy with a spare drive. If one drive goes down, the RAID will continue to perform. Once the failed drive is replaced, the RAID will rebuild itself.

In addition to flexibility and performance, SoftRAID offers unique tools for Mac users with drive monitoring and email notifications.

The ThunderBay 4 features dual Thunderbolt 2 ports, which allow daisy chaining other Thunderbolt devices. The ThunderBay 4 supports a 4K display or up to six additional ThunderBay enclosures.

Pricing starts out at $689.99 for 4 TB model and options go up to 20 TB. A bare kit is also available for adding your own drives.