OWC’s New 8TB Thunderbolt 5 Portable SSD

credits: OWC

Other World Computing has added an 8TB option to its Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 SSD lineup, and the main point is that it remains fully bus-powered. OWC says this makes it the first Thunderbolt 5 external drive in the world to offer that much capacity without requiring an external power adapter.

In terms of design, the 8TB model is identical to the existing Envoy Ultra drives. It uses the same compact enclosure with integrated heatsinking, rubber feet, and a permanently attached Thunderbolt 5 cable. That fixed cable limits flexibility of course, but helps with durability and contributes to the drive’s IP67 rating. Performance expectations are also unchanged, with OWC quoting read and write speeds above 6,000 MB/s. Independent testing hasn’t always reached those figures exactly, but the Envoy Ultra series has shown strong sustained performance and stable thermal behaviour during long transfers.

The main difference here, OWC says, is capacity. Moving to 8TB allows a single portable drive to hold large photo libraries, multi-camera video projects, or full backups without splitting data across multiple SSDs. Pricing for the 2TB model starts at $449.99, the 4TB version is $699.99, and the new 8TB drive is listed at $1,699.99.