{"id":89210,"date":"2024-01-23T18:30:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-24T00:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/?p=89210"},"modified":"2025-04-11T10:18:22","modified_gmt":"2025-04-11T15:18:22","slug":"owc-thunderblade-x8-review-performance-figures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eshop.macsales.com\/blog\/89210-owc-thunderblade-x8-review-performance-figures\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the OWC ThunderBlade X8 the Ultimate SSD? A Pro’s Review and Performance Breakdown"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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It doesn\u2019t get<\/em> any better for an external SSD<\/strong>: Silent. Up to 32TB of capacity. Hyper-fast reading and writing. Fault tolerance. Professional build quality. Daisy-chainable. Compatible with Mac and PC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here in early 2024, the OWC ThunderBlade X8<\/a> arrives<\/a> with 8 internal SSD blades and faster performance* along with capacity options of 8\/16\/32TB. The venerable OWC Thunderblade<\/a> (“ThunderBlade X4”) used 4 internal SSD blades up to 32TB, but the X8 is significantly better in every way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OWC ThunderBlade X4 vs OWC ThunderBlade X8<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Main store on OWC ThunderBlade X8, backup to OWC Thunderbay 4<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Having ~3 GB\/sec performance across 8\/16\/32TB of capacity is pretty darn awesome, a pleasantry I was reminded-of when recently testing 22TB hard drives<\/a> which are slow as molasses\u2014not to mention the annoying noise and far higher power consumption. ThunderBlade X8 is silent<\/em>, having no moving parts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the images shot in my life as a pro photographer fit onto a 16TB ThunderBlade. Consider this: 100-megapixel 16-bit Fujifilm GFX100 II<\/a> raw files average 124MB each. Rounding the 15.36TB capacity to 15TB, the 16TB ThunderBlade can hold ~121,000 raw files. For Sony A7R V<\/a> files, that figure rises to ~242,000 raw files at ~62MB each. That means you can double the amount of previously stated A7R V FAW files or<\/em> GFX100 II RAW files and the 32TB X8 would hold them all\u2014wow!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the 16TB or 32TB OWC ThunderBlade X8 main store,<\/strong> along with clone backups<\/a> onto separate\/single hard drives enclosed in an OWC Thunderbay 4<\/a> make for a phenomenal setup professionals<\/strong>\u2014simple as it gets and those noisy hard drives need only be turned on for backups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Best ThunderBlade X8 Setup<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The ThunderBlade X8 ships preformatted as a RAID-0 stripe, which delivers its maximum capacity and performance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Should you wish for a fault-tolerant<\/a> setup, you\u2019ll give up 1\/8 of the capacity and 1\/8 of the peak speed with a RAID-4\/5 configuration (parity information occupies one of the blades). By doing so, one of the blades can fail without any loss of data\/functionality<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To convert to the drive to fault tolerance, you’ll need to delete the RAID-0 stripe volume and create a new one as RAID-4 with the included SoftRAID software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SoftRAID setup showing ThunderBlade X8 with RAID-0 stripe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Below, a RAID-4 fault tolerant setup. Capacity is 12.5% less, since 1 of 8 blades is used for parity information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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SoftRAID setup showing ThunderBlade X8 with RAID-4 stripe<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Testing ThunderBlade X8 Performance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In my testing of the ThunderBlade X8, speed actually outperforms the specifications<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performance is limited to the maximum bandwidth of the Thunderbolt bus. With Thunderbolt 5 arriving in 2024 with double the bandwidth, presumably OWC will deliver a Thunderbolt 5 version of the X8 at some point, with up to twice this speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A RAID-4 (same functionality as RAID-5) fault tolerant configuration sees a 12.5% performance decline (1\/8) from RAID-0. This is expected<\/em> and unavoidable since the parity information (1 blade of 8) drops the data throughput to 7\/8 that of RAID-0. And mighty impressive in performing as good as it possibly could\u2014kudos to the configuration done by the included SoftRAID<\/a> software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RAID-0  write: 2822 MiB\/sec = 2890 MB\/sec
RAID-0   read: 2917 MiB\/sec = 2987 MB\/sec
RAID-4  write: 2468 MiB\/sec = 2527 MB\/sec
RAID-4   read: 2617 MiB\/sec = 2617 MB\/sec<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OWC ThunderBlade X8: RAID-0 vs RAID-4 performance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Below, you’ll see results indicating superb performance for all transfer sizes. In terms of performance, RAID-4 has minimal downside. A fault tolerant setup is nearly as fast in performance for all tasks; there is no meaningful performance difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figures in MiB\/sec (1024*1024\/sec); multiple by 1.048 for MB\/sec (1000<\/em>*1000\/sec).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OWC ThunderBlade X8: speed vs transfer size<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Real-World Performance: data integrity verification<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Here, the awesome USB4 OWC Express 1M2<\/a> (which you can read more about here<\/a> and here<\/a>) outperforms the ThunderBlade X8, because USB4 for single blades can use a slightly faster bus protocol. The difference amounts to 8.9% faster with the 8TB Express 1M2, which is not significant for most uses. When and if a Thunderbolt 5 ‘X8’ arrives, the picture will change radically in favor of the X8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Figures in MiB\/sec (10241024\/sec); multiple by 1.048 for MB\/sec (1000<\/em>1000\/sec).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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OWC ThunderBlade X8 vs OWC Express 1M2: real-world read-speed performance for data integrity validation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Conclusions<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The OWC ThunderBlade X8<\/a> is a professional-grade external SSD whose features and performance and capacity taken together are unrivaled**. I highly recommend it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n