OWC Flex 1U4 4-Bay Thunderbolt Rackmount Storage and Docking Solution

Other World Computing, Inc (OWC) announces the Flex 1U4 4-bay Thunderbolt rackmount storage and docking solution.

It is a flexible professional-grade 4-bay Thunderbolt storage and docking solution for gaining rackmount workflow possibilities. Use a mix of 2.5 or 3.5-inch SATA/SAS and U.2/M.2 NVMe drives in the hot swappable drive bays. Connect gear and charge mobile devices with Thunderbolt and USB ports. Add an audio/video capture, 10GbE networking, SSD storage, hardware RAID card, or I/O card to the PCIe slot.

ThunderBay desktop storage line was launch in 2014. They embrace its RAID capacity and intense performance fueled by time-tested firm’s reliability. Its appeal skyrocketed when it was infused with industry-first FLEXibility to create ThunderBay Flex 8.

Now businesses, institutions, studios, and creatives can go beyond the desktop with the Flex 1U4. This 4-bay rackmount solution is ready to fuel your endeavors with the combination of storage capacity, Thunderbolt transfer performance, drive flexibility, and device expandability. With FLEX in its name, you can count on the Flex 1U4 to be a rackmount workflow game-changer.

Future ready
The Flex 1U4 extends its useful life and maximizes investment into the future by not locking you into an inflexible single-task design. When workflow needs change, the ‘FLEXpandability’ of the Flex 1U4 adapts. Add new drives, connect different devices, and install a PCIe card of your choice, like a 10GbE networking card or the fast Accelsior 4M2 SSD for expanded performance storage capacity.

For all rackmount environments
The Flex 1U4 is like a bolt-in productivity supercharger for new or existing rack environments powered by a rack Mac Pro, rack PC, MacBook Pro, PC notebook, or Mac mini.

Whether you build your custom drive and card configuration or select one of these convenient ready-to-run solutions, it is in a wide variety of settings:

• In-School: For taming ever-growing collections of digital files with integration and future drive capacity and performance scalability.

• At Work: Add Thunderbolt speed and swappable drives to server closets, server rooms, or colocation center backup capabilities.

• On Stage: Handle all the storage and peripheral connectivity needs ‘front of house’ pros require for live performances.

• On Set: Fits into mobile DIT carts to capture multi-stream, hi-res footage at full framerate while daisy-chaining up to 5 additional Thunderbolt devices.

• In Studio: Expand storage and connectivity options of fixed racks.

• At Home: For installers creating a high-performance home entertainment server closet.

Built For U.2
A hallmark of FLEX technology is the ability to use U.2 NVMe SSDs and the firm’s ecosystem of U.2 drives and adapters. U.2 NVMe drives are designed to maximize the PCIe bus, and when combined with Thunderbolt, you’ll blast past fast with up to 2,750MB/s transfer speed. Whether you use your rackmount setup for complete massive backups, streaming content during a live performance, editing large format video, or running high transactional and complex calculation applications, you can use U.2 drives with the Flex 1U4.

Complete swap and share ecosystem
It goes with the flow when moving data outside or beyond the local network. With the company’s U.2 ecosystem, moving and sharing data is fast and easy. Swap out and ship a project from field to post in video production workflows. Move back up data to an offline colocation for backup workflows. The combination of Flex 1U4 and the firm’s U.2 ecosystem opens a new dimension to data transfer possibilities.

• U2 ShuttleOne: Convert an NVMe M.2 ‘blade’ style SSD into a swappable 2.5-inch U.2 SSD as your drive – and its content – are protected by the full metal, heat-dissipating adapter.

• U2 Shuttle: Combine 4 NVMe M.2 SSDs into 3.5-inch U.2 carrier shuttle to create a swappable capacity RAID solution.

• Helios 3S with interchange system: Create an external Thunderbolt powered set to post U.2 solution that safeguards data while lowering shipping costs.

• Mercury Pro U.2 Dual: Put fast Thunderbolt-powered storage and backup on a desktop with a compact 2-bay footprint that can use U2 ShuttleOne and U2 Shuttles.

• ThunderBay Flex 8: Take control of your media workflow with 3-in-1 Thunderbolt storage, docking, and PCIe expansion desktop solution. Easily swaps U2 ShuttleOne and U2 Shuttles to/from the Flex 1U4.

RAID made easy
Harness the full capability of your OWC Flex 1U4 drive array with the included SoftRAID XT, RAID management software on the market for macOS and Windows. SoftRAID’s RAID creation and management technology have been tune with over 20 years of development to provide solid protection of data and optimize drive performance. It is packed with features like multiple RAID options, validation and verification of drives, and predictive disk failure with SoftRAID Monitor. The software provides a level of storage performance that you can’t get with hardware RAID and is for anyone who needs to store safely and massive backup amounts of data, including educational institutions, government agencies, businesses, content creators, and M&E professionals. If you need even more power and flexibility, you can upgrade to SoftRAID Pro to spread volumes over 2 or more disk enclosures – impossible with hardware RAID – for performance.

Flex 1U4 highlights:

• Drive diversity: Use SATA/SAS ⁽²⁾ and U.2/M.2 ⁽³⁾ NVMe drives for up to 128TB ⁽¹⁾ of capacity and real-world Thunderbolt speeds up to 2,750MB/s

• Drive flexibility: swap drives if/when needed

• Future ready: use U.2 SSDs – an emerging storage standard – in all 4 bays

• Get Maximum: utilize U.2 NVMe SSDs as well as the company’s ecosystem of U.2 drives and adapters for speed and flash density per bay

• Easy RAID: create, manage, and monitor advanced RAID sets with SoftRAID software

• 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 port ⁽⁴⁾

• Charge: keep your notebook powered with 85W via the upstream Thunderbolt port (5)

• Do more: add an AV capture, 10GbE networking, SSD storage, hardware RAID, or I/O card to the PCIe slot

• Configurable: daisy chain up to 5 devices or add an additional display with the second Thunderbolt (USB-C) port

• Worry-free: Up to 5 year company’s limited warranty

Availability The Flex 1U4 is available on Macsales.com with solutions starting at $1,899.

⁽¹⁾ Up to 128TB supported via 4xU2 Shuttles (16x8TB NVMe M.2 SSDs) available soon.
⁽²⁾ SAS drives are supported with SAS drive controller card (available separately).
⁽³⁾ Up to 4 U.2 drives are supported. M.2 drives are also supported with M.2 to U.2 adapter such as the U2 Shuttle and U2 ShuttleOne (available separately).
⁽⁴⁾ Full DisplayPort 1.4 capabilities depends on host computer support of DisplayPort 1.4 specification through its Thunderbolt 3 connection, host computer GPU capabilities, and connecting cable capabilities.
⁽⁵⁾ Apple Mac models with Thunderbolt 2/Thunderbolt ports can be connected using an Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter (available separately). This configuration provides data transfer at up to 20Gb/s but does not support notebook charging.