OWC Second Gen of ThunderBlade External Up 8TB SSD

OWC (Other World Computing, Inc.) has released the second generation of their ThunderBlade SSD, with a lower price point and improved performance.

For creative professionals and prosumers who work to capture and process 4K or 8K video, the updated ThunderBlade Gen 2 can be the difference between staying under budget and on-schedule on a project – or not.

This ThunderBlade is stackable and runs cooler than the previous iteration, while still maintaining a near-silent environment with its fanless operation, all factors that can be critical in an operation on the go or in a tight space. With dual Thunderbolt 3 ports users can daisy-chain up to five additional ThunderBlades, and by connecting more than one drive with SoftRAID, speeds can be increased up to 3,800MB/s. This ThunderBlade can complete a 1TB content transfer in under four-and-a-half minutes.

Wyatt Cagle, Digital Imaging Technician (DIT) for the upcoming feature film Playing God had this to say regarding the ThunderBlade’s role in production: “The [two] ThunderBlades are our transfer drives because they’re so fast. Within minutes I’ve gt everything logged and ready for the editor. We’re shooting stuff in the morning, the editor is editing it in the afternoon, and the director is seeing something sometimes that night. Without that speed, without the ThunderBlades, we couldn’t do that.“

ThunderBlade rear
Click to enlarge

Whether using a single ThunderBlade on the road or daisy-chaining up to six units in production space for up to 48TB of the fastest transfer speeds the company has ever produced, users can count on ThunderBlade to help them get their dailies daily, providing safe, creative content management and huge time and money savings in production budgets.

The ThunderBlade comes with a Thunderbolt 3 cable included and is backed by’s 3-year warranty. It is available at MacSales.com and other online and storefront retailers:

• 1TB OWC SKU: OWCTB3TBV4T01 $799

• 2TB OWC SKU: OWCTB3TBV4T02 $1,199

• 4TB OWC SKU: OWCTB3TBV4T04 $1,899

• 8TB OWC SKU: OWCTB3TBV4T08 $3,499