OWC Envoy Pro Elektron 1TB external SSD (storage review)

OWC Envoy Pro Elektron is a 1TB external SSD – its main features are data transfer speed (>1000MBps), and its IP67 rating makes it tough as nails. It is ideal for large backups.

It is one of the new breed of external SSD using USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 (theoretical speed 10Gbps or 1250MBps), so the drive is lightning fast if you have the right interface on your PC, Mac, Android or Linux device. But it is also backwards compatible with older USB standards – it will just slow to the best speed possible.

OWC Envoy Pro Elektron 1TB external SSD

Website	Product Page
Price	240/480GB and 1/2TB $199.99/269.99/359.99/649.99 plus shipping $9.90
Distributed by	Macfixit Australia
Warranty	3-year OWC and ACL warranty from Macfixit and authorised resellers
Country of origin	Taiwan
Company	OWC (Other World Computing Est 1988) is an American computer hardware company and online store for Mac upgrades and accessories.
More	Cybershack OWC news and reviews

Apple users will have heard of OWC for its storage, drives, memory, docks and cables. It was one of the first to support a Thunderbolt 3 dock for Mac that also had legacy Firewire 800 and Thunderbolt 2 support.

Its excellent quality and its warranty are second to none. Macfixit resellers are Epowermac, I Love Computers, RAM City, and Upgradable. If you don’t need USB-C 3.2, Gen 2, have a look at the range of Envoy products.

First impression

Small (76 x 52 x 13mm x 89g ) for what it is – a 1TB external SSD. It is about half the size of similar offerings from LaCie, WD, Samsung and more. Its edgy design – a monolithic block of CNC milled aluminium and IP67 rating made it my instant favourite.

It comes with a USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 cable with a USB-A adapter. It has 12 months complimentary Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office  (Windows or Mac) – formerly Acronis True Image for drive cloning, cybersecurity, backup and more.

It is exFAT formatted for maximum compatibility, but you can use any format you wish.

Speed

Using a Microsoft Surface Pro 8 (Thunderbolt 4), it achieves maximum USB-C 3.2 Geb 3 rates. It does an excellent job on larger files courtesy of the SSD cache and Phison E13T controller. Under the hood is an OWC M.242 Aura M-key PCIe 3.1 x 4 NVMe TLC SSD capable of nearly 3000MBps sequential read/write internal transfers.

Cybershack view – OWC Envoy Pro Elektron 1TB external SSD is for me

It has become my go-to for external backup despite having similar capacity external SSD  drives from other makers. Look, they are all good, and OWC is not the cheapest, but it is the most durable.