Designed to take your digital capabilities to the next level, the Express 4M2 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure from OWC / Other World Computing lets users ingest and duplicate dailies, work with higher resolutions, smoothly scrub through demanding timelines, plow through thousands of photos with ease, and more. Equipped with four NVMe M.2 2280 SSD slots that operate using the PCIe 3.0 x1 bus, the Express 4M2 supports data transfer speeds of up to 2800 MB/s and connects to your host system using a 40 Gb/s Thunderbolt 3 port. There is a second Thunderbolt 3 port for connecting additional peripherals or creating a daisy chain, plus a DisplayPort 1.2 port. Using the Thunderbolt 3 and DisplayPort, up to two 4K / 60 Hz displays are supported.

The Express 4M2 may be formatted for use with macOS 10.12 and later, or Windows 10 (32- & 64-bit), Windows 11, and Windows Server 2016, 2019, and 2022. It is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt, although this will not support notebook charging. Its aluminum enclosure helps keep things cool, with additional cooling provided by a 2800 rpm fan. Included is a Thunderbolt 3 cable, a power supply, and a power cable.

For best performance and to avoid compatibility issues, please make sure your system is running macOS 13.5 or later.

4 x NVMe M.2 2280 SSD Slots    Supports up to 32TB (8TB per Slot)    2 x Thunderbolt 3 | 1 x DisplayPort 1.2    Data Transfer Speeds up to 2800 MB/s    Supports Two 4K Displays at 60 Hz    60mm Cooling Fan | Aluminum Construction    Works with SoftRAID XT (Sold Separately)    Includes Thunderbolt 3 Cable    Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt Compatible    Windows and Mac Compatible

Small in stature. Big on capability. The OWC Express 4M2 is ready to serve with four easy-to-access NVMe M.2 SSD slots customizable for any workflow with vibration damping feet that allow for vertical or horizontal orientation. Install up to 32TB of capacity and experience up to 2800 MB/s of mind-bending performance via Thunderbolt 3. The Express 4M2 is an amazingly small digital workhorse with world-renowned OWC quality and support built in. Ingest and duplicate dailies at breakneck speeds, work with higher resolutions, smoothly scrub through demanding timelines, and plow through thousands of photos with ease. The OWC Express 4M2 is one seriously fast drive to have by your side to take your digital capabilities to a new level.

The OWC Express 4M2 is designed with ease-of-use in mind. OWC worked with creatives and listened to the kudos they heaped onto the OWC ThunderBay mini, and they put all that shared knowledge to good use when building the next-gen Thunderbolt 3 multi-bay drive. The result is the 57% smaller and 2.5x faster OWC Express 4M2. It's smaller and easier to fit into your workflow, studio, and on stage. It's faster with four easy-access M.2 slots so you can swap, upgrade, or expand your Express 4M2 to configure and reconfigure it to serve any project need.

NVMe (Non-Volatile Memory Express) is a hyper-efficient communications interface protocol built from the ground up to properly take advantage of SSD technology and high-performance connection buses like PCIe. The result is exponentially faster and efficient SSD storage, and the OWC Express 4M2 has room for four NVMe SSDs.

Display connection flexibility is yours with a convenient DisplayPort located right on the rear of the OWC Express 4M2. There's no need to worry about adapters or extra-long cables. Just plug your display directly into the Express 4M2 and you're all set.

Configure and reconfigure your storage however you need by combining multiple OWC Express 4M2 drives together on Mac and Windows. Utilize the amazing capabilities of SoftRAID to RAID across multiple Express 4M2 drives, or add multiple Express 4M2 drives to your storage pool using Windows Storage Spaces.

Need more power and protection? Choose a solution that includes OWC's powerful SoftRAID RAID software. SoftRAID is a powerful, intuitive software RAID utility. Multiple RAID levels let you select the RAID level that fits you or your project's needs best. If you need maximum volume capacity, optimum drive performance, data protection, or a combination of attributes, SoftRAID has you covered.

Packed with features like drive validation, verification, and failure prediction, SoftRAID includes features you simply don't get with hardware RAID. It's like having a datacenter on your desktop! From home users looking to protect photos and documents to professionals needing to protect and quickly access projects, SoftRAID is a great solution.

Start protecting yourself and your data today. Get all of SoftRAID's great disk checking and monitoring features, plus fast and efficient RAID software.

The OWC Express 4M2 is fully backward compatible with Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt 2. Utilize Thunderbolt 3 performance to work at full speed and step back to Thunderbolt or Thunderbolt 2 whenever connectivity compatibility is needed for your workflow. Add a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter along with the appropriate Thunderbolt cable, and you're all set.

OWC Express 4M2 comes with an OWC Thunderbolt cable which is Thunderbolt certified for Mac and Windows, with additional 1.6 to 6.6' lengths available separately.

• One 4K display at 60 Hz
• One 4K display at 30 Hz
• Two 4K displays at 60 Hz

• When using the Express 4M2 with a Mac Studio (M2 Max or M2 Ultra) or Mac Pro (M2 Ultra), some drives may require macOS 13.5 or later for proper operation.
• When using one or more SSDs with 512 byte sectors, macOS 10.13 or later is required.

Related Questions and Answers

Q: 1. Is the OWC 4M2 comopatible with... the Intel 2TB 670p NVMe M.2 Internal SSD BH #INSSDPEKNU2T MFR #SSDPEKNU020TZX1 ?

A: The OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure BH #OWTB3EX4M2SL is compatible with the BH #INSSDPEKNU2T.

Q: 2. Do you need to populate all slots at the same time or can you slowly buy storage. Say 4tb card every time one is full and raid them as you buy them ?

A: Yes, you will need to populate all the drives a the same time. SoftRAID Lite XT comes with this unit, which lets you RAID 1 and 0 of your choice. SoftRAID 5 is the currently version of SoftRAID. Please note that SoftRAID is not currently compatible with MacOS Big Sur, but is being worked on for a future patch to allow that. If you are using that OS, you can use Disk Utility instead to form your RAID volume.

Q: 3. Can you use this with a USB-C card like the Sonnet Allegro card on an older Mac Pro 2012?

A: If your computer has Thunderbolt 3, then this will work with it. Not just a USB-C connection.

Q: 4. Is this compatible with samsung 980 evo plus?

A: Yes, the OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure is compatible with the Samsung 980 drives.

Q: 5. Can this be connected to 2 devices at once? A PC and a Mac?

A: The OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure can only be connected to one computer at a time. There are two Thunderbolt 3 ports so you can daisy-chain. Daisy-Chaining allows you to connect up to six Thunderbolt devices to your computer.

Q: 6. is this compatible with the newer 16inch macbook pro?

A: Yes, the OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure BH #OWTB3EX4M2SL is compatible with a 16'' Macbook Pro. It supports any device that has a Thunderbolt 3 port.

Q: 7. Can I set this up as RAID 10? if so, what would the maximum transfer speed be?

A: I can shed a little light on the RAID 10 speed. I setup a 69GB RAID 10 and ran AJA System Performance Tester LITE 16.2.3 and here are the results... Short Version: Write - 1178 MB/s and Read - 2589 MB/s Disk Test Resolution: 8K File Size : 64 GB Codec : ProRes 4444 Drive : /Volumes/4M2R10 Cache : Disabled Video file: Movie Disk Write Test Number of frames = 2600 Write rate = 46 frames/second Write rate = 1178 MB/second Minimum rate = 626 MB/Sec Maximum rate = 1263 MB/Sec

Q: 8. If I use only one M.2 drive. Do I still need to install softraid? (does currently not work on M1)

A: SoftRAID 6 now runs on the New M1 Macs. You do not need to use both drives being filled either.

Q: 9. Do all drives have to be same size / model?

A: You can have different memory size drives on this OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure, but keep in mind that would change the overall total of available storage. Any may change what type of RAID you may what to use.

Q: 10. Do the drives need heat sinks?

A: The OWC Express 4M2 4-Slot M.2 NVMe SSD Enclosure BH #OWTB3EX4M2SL does not need heatsinks for the SSD.