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The OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini is an excellent storage solution for professionals who need to work with very large files that they can’t store on their Macs.
The four solid state drives in RAID 0 configuration, along with the Thunderbolt 2 ports, means you can place files on the drive and access and alter them as if they were stored locally.
However, the OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini’s expertise in a very focused use case scenario means that it’s not suitable for everyone.
We liked
The build quality is excellent, and the sound proofing and air flow design means it runs quiet and cool even when under heavy load.
The speed of the OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini means it’s excellent for storing very large files – as long as you have the appropriate equipment.
We didn’t like
If you don’t have a Thunderbolt connection, then this device is of no use to you. If you do, but you’re looking for something to store backups of irreplaceable files, then we’d recommend going with a NAS device that’s more suited to backing up and keeping additional copies of your files.
Final verdict
The OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini is easy to recommend to certain people. If you often work with very large files (such as video files) that you can’t store on your main PC or laptop, then this is a great solution as it means you can store your files on the OWC ThunderBay 4 Mini and access and edit them quickly as if they were stored locally.
However, if you’re just looking for an external solution to back up your files to, we’d recommend getting a multi-bay NAS device, such as the Seagate Personal Cloud 2-Bay NAS, which will come with more back-up specific features.
