Name: OWC / Other World Computing Express 4M2 USB4 NVMe M.2 External Desktop SSD Enclosure, Silver
Brand: OWC / Other World Computing
SKU: OWCUS4EXP4M
Price: 239.99 USD
Availability: BackOrder
Rating: 4 (2 reviews)

OWC / Other World Computing Express 4M2 USB4 NVMe M.2 External Desktop SSD Enclosure, Silver

OWC / Other World Computing Express 4M2

OWC / Other World Computing

<a rel="nofollow" class="promo-financing short trackEvent popup" data-track-data="financing apply,suggested minimum payment credit,pdp" data-callback-context="adrma" data-callback-arguments='{"financeMonth":"6","financePrice":"40","TotalPrice":"239.99","financeDateEnd":"12/31/9999"}' data-callback="renderFinancingPromoPopup" data-href="/api/getContent?ContentName=CAFinancingPromo&Output=Desktop" data-popup-class="popup800 popupFinancing">$40/mo suggested payments with 6&#8209;month special financing. Learn&nbsp;how.</a>

OWC Express 4M2 USB4 NVMe M.2 External Desktop SSD Enclosure, Silver

Although this item is temporarily on Backorder, you can order it now and it will ship as soon as it arrives. Your card will only be charged once item is shipped.

Temporarily On Backorder

Although this item is temporarily on Backorder, you can order it now and it will ship as soon as it arrives. Your card will only be charged once item is shipped. Estimated to Ship: 09/2025.

Adorama Protect 1-Year Protection Plan

Adorama Protect 2-Year Protection Plan

Adorama Protect 3-Year Protection Plan

Adorama Protect powered by Extend is available for purchases to customers in the United States only. Not available for international or U.S. territories purchases. Adorama Protect plans are available for ABS clients.

<a class="percent-off-everyday-promo popup promo-financing trackEvent" data-href="/api/getContent?ContentName=CAFinancingGenericPopup&amp;Output=Desktop" data-popup-class="popupFinancing popup800" rel="nofollow" data-track-data="financing apply,ways to save every day savings,pdp" 
		data-callback-context="adrma" data-callback-arguments="{&quot;financeMonth&quot;:&quot;{1}&quot;,&quot;financePrice&quot;:&quot;{0}&quot;,&quot;TotalPrice&quot;:&quot;{2}&quot;}" data-callback="renderFinancingPromoPopup"><img alt="edge-creditcard" src="/col/assets/edge-creditcard.png">
 <h3>Save 5% Every Day†</h3>with the Adorama Edge Credit Card.Learn More</a>

Adorama

Computers

Drives, SSD & Storage

Hard Drive Arrays & RAID

OWC / Other World Computing Hard Drive Arrays & RAID

OWC / Other World Computing Express 4M2 

Shop the OWC Express 4M2 USB4 enclosure. Supports RAID 0/1/4/5/10/JBOD. Up to 5000MB/s. Compatible with Mac & Windows. Order yours today!

The Best DIY RAID You WantedWe heard you loud and clear (pun intended) when you said you loved everything about the Express 4M2 but wanted it quieter. After adding smart adaptive fans that only turn on when needed for near silent operation, we decided to give it USB4 connectivity for the optimum blend of compatibility, performance, and affordability. Now you can build a desktop/shuttle high-performance RAID with your choice of NVMe M.2 SSDs and get up to 3200MB/s performance with USB4, Thunderbolt, and USB-C Macs and PCs.Maximum Speed from Your MachineThe Express 4M2 is the fastest multiple NVMe SSD enclosure we offer and was purposefully built so you can utilize the maximum performance capability of your Mac or PC with full compatibility.The Power of Choice is YoursEngineered to support any NVMe M.2 2230, 2242, or 2280 SSD, this compact powerhouse gives you the ultimate flexibility to choose the drive you want today including OWC Aura SSDs with up to a massive 8TB capacity each. When tomorrow's 16TB and larger drives hit the scene, you can easily boost your Express 4M2's capacity.One Cool RAID for Diverse WorkflowsHigh speed backups, multiple media card offloads, and intense RAW photo and 8K video editing sessions mean one thing... Heat. You can put aside any thermal throttling and noise concerns because the Express 4M2 utilizes a heat dissipating solid aluminum body along with smart, adaptive fans that activate only when needed or under heavy load. Diversity of use also means being able to easily work cross-platform with Macs and PCs. We help you keep your cool in mixed environments with our MacDrive software (available separately).Express 4M2 is Ideal for:DITs and Filmmakers wanting to build an affordable yet high-performance NVMe SSD RAID with up to 32TB of capacity, RAID 5 capabilities, and the ability to deliver maximum offload speeds and thermal stability when backing up media cards from multiple cameras on set.Professional Video Editors, VFX Artists, Colorists, and High-Volume Photographers seeking an easy DIY assemble high-performance NVMe SSD RAID to handle demanding post-production and editing workflows including 8K RAW video, VFX compositing work, multicam sequences in 4K RAW or ProRes video, and batch editing ultra-high-resolution pictures.Anyone looking for a lower cost RAID option to the award-winning four NVMe M.2 based OWC ThunderBlade and are willing to accept the Express 4M2's larger form factor, fan cooling, no additional connectivity ports, and no ballistic shipping case for shuttle use.Your Data's Reliability is Our no.1 PriorityAnyone can put a bunch of components in a housing and call it an enclosure or a drive. OWC is not just anyone. We're a group of filmmakers, musicians, designers, content creators, and parents just like you wanting to capture and preserve that irreplaceable moment. Our data storage products go through countless hours of ongoing development testing and certification processes. We then subject them to extreme real-world abuses. The priority for some storage devices is to be a mass-produced, lowest price commodity. We do it differently because the reliability of your data and the longevity of an OWC product is priority no.1.OWC USB-C (40Gb/s) Cable IncludedOWC Express 4M2 comes with a 0.7M (28") OWC USB-C (40Gb/s) Cable. But if your workflow demands a different length to make the connection, OWC USB4 Active Optical Cables are the perfect choice.

OWC / Other World Computing Express 4M2 Thunderbolt 3 4-Slot M.2 NVMe

So let’s say you want really fast external storage. You’ve got the TB3 ports, you want to connect multiple ultra-fast M.2 SSDs to it, and you’d like to pick the SSDs yourself or be able to upgrade when TBs are cheaper down the line.

Currently, this thing is basically your only option on the market, which puts it in a league of its own.

Plusses:
- It holds up to four PCIe M.2 SSDs of your choice
- You can address the drives however you want (RAID, JBOD)
- Speeds rated to 2800MB/s
- Chainable TB3 ports
- There’s a big fan pointed right at the drives, reducing throttling
- Pretty compact
- Built like a tank (you could seriously probably stand on top of it)
- Includes a DisplayPort connection, so you can use it to chain a monitor
- Comes with the fantastic SoftRAID

The fan is particularly great, as M.2 drives are known for thermal throttling if you push them hard, and this is blowing a lot of air right at the top of all four drives. There’s even enough room there to squeeze in a heat sink for each, if you were so inclined and worried ti was still going to throttle.

That’s a pretty awesome list of plusses. It’s a little disappointing that rather than one 10Gbit channel per drive (on paper, 1.25GB/s, realistically somewhat less) you only really get 5.6Gbit per drive (700MB/s), but that could be protocol overhead or how M.2 drives work rather than the fault of the case (actually not sure about this), so I won’t count it against it.

It’s quite a ways from perfect, though:

- The fan is surprisingly loud. It’s FAR louder than the 2.5” 4-drive OWC case fan, and has an annoying sort of buzzing sound in addition to the hum or whoosh you’d expect. Honestly, for $I would expect a much quieter fan.

- The bandwidth is split up equally per-drive, which is not made clear on the documentation and I didn’t think through enough to realize would probably be expected. What this means is that if you’ve got less than 4 drives in it you will get much less than the rated 2800MB/s regardless of the individual drive speed. Mine clocked pretty solidly at 700MB/s/drive.

- It’s actually kind of large given what’s in it. The drives themselves are microscopic, and while I get that it needs room for electronics and the fan, it seems like there’s a lot of wasted space.

- Regardless of whose fault it is, it maxes out at 2800MB/s instead of the 5000MB/s you’d theoretically hope to get from a 40Gbit TB3 port.

Additional nitpicks:

- While you can easily open the case without any tools using the knurled knobs on the back, to actually install a drive you need to remove two screws and lift the fan out of the way. With that much empty space it seems like there was plenty of room to make it completely tool-less.

- It ships with a short 1’ TB3 cable, which feels kinda skimpy.

- The external power brick is quite large. For as bit as the case is already, I’d probably rather it was a little bigger and had an internal power supply; it doesn’t matter on the desktop, but as a portable drive lugging the big brick and cord around is messy and unwieldy.

Bottom line:

Does it do what it says it does? Yes. Do you actually want what it says it does over the alternatives? Depends.

If you’re all about speed, you’re probably better off getting multiple “single” TB3 SSDs. With a high-end SSD a single one can probably approach the sequential throughput of this thing fully populated, and with multiple RAIDed together and you’ll get WAY faster speeds even with just two.

If you’re all about compactness or portability, again probably better off with multiple non-multi-drive externals, since they don’t have all the empty space and the big brick to lug around. They’re more likely to thermally throttle, I suppose, if the case isn’t a good heatsink.

If you’re noise sensitive, this thing is not even an option unless you replace the fan with something better. Get a different external.

Which is all to say that it’s a good device, but not nearly as good as I was expecting given my past experience with OWC, and is probably not the best option for a lot of demanding professionals. It’s main plus is future expandability when prices come down.

OWC / Other World Computing Express 4M2 USB4 NVMe M.2 External Desktop SSD Enclosure, Silver

Key Features

Protect your gear with Adorama Protect.* Learn more