What you need to know
- OWC has announced the Flex 1U4 with Thunderbolt connectivity.
- The new rackmount chassis supports up to 128TB of capacity.
- A combination of HDD and NVMe storage can be used.
OWC has today announced the Flex 1U4, a new rackmount solution that offers four bays of storage, PCIe expansion, and more via Thunderbolt.
The new device can house traditional hard disks, NVMe SSDs, or a combination of the two with prices starting at $1,899 with 16TB of capacity via four 4TB 7200RPM drives. Things increase in price from there — going all the way to $9,499 if you spec 32TB of NVMe and 54TB of HDD storage.
All of that connects to devices via Thunderbolt and there is an additional Thunderbolt port for daisy-chaining capabilities. There are advanced RAID features, as you'd expect, as well as a PCIe expansion slot that can be used for various duties.
OWC says that the Flex 1U4 is designed to live in all kinds of business and education environments, whether that's on a film set or in a server room.
The full rundown of features includes:
- Drive diversity: Use SATA/SAS2 and U.2/M.23 NVMe drives for up to 128TB1 of capacity and real-world Thunderbolt speeds up to 2750MB/s
- Drive flexibility: swap drives quickly and easily if/when needed
- Future ready: use U.2 SSDs – an emerging storage standard - in all four bays
- Get Maximum: utilize U.2 NVMe SSDs as well as the OWC ecosystem of U.2 drives and adapters for incredible speed and flash density per bay
- Powerfully easy RAID: create, manage, and monitor advanced RAID sets with OWC SoftRAID
- Use it all: connect keyboards, mixers, cameras, displays, and mobile devices such as tablets with (2) USB-C 10Gb/s and (3) USB-A 10Gb/s ports
- See more: connect up to an 8K display to the DisplayPort 1.4 port4
- Charge: keep your notebook powered with 85W via the upstream Thunderbolt port5
- Do more: add an audio/video capture, 10Gb Ethernet networking, SSD storage, hardware RAID, or I/O card to the PCIe slot.
- Configurable: daisy chain up to five devices or add an additional display with the second Thunderbolt (USB-C) port
- Worry-free: Up to 5 Year OWC Limited Warranty
It's safe to say that the OWC Flex 1U4 won't be for everyone. But if it sounds like something you or your business can use you can place an order today. Depending on who you are and what you do, this could well be the best Mac purchase you make this year.
