OWC Envoy Pro FX SSD, Hex Technical backpack
Your files are fragile – this drive isn’t
£212.99 (240GB) to £584.99 (2TB), £365.99 (1TB) model tested FROM OWC, owcdigital.com FEATURES Thunderbolt 3/USB-C port, USB-A (USB 3.0 Gen 2) adaptor, dust- and waterproof to IP67
Life is tough – especially on tech that gets casually thrown into bags, dropped and occasionally dunked in puddles and caramel macchiatos. And that means you need a tough drive for your important files.
Few come tougher than the OWC Pro Envoy FX. Finished in solid, charcoal grey aluminium with side-mounted cooling fins, a rear-mounted Thunderbolt 3 port and a blue read/right light on the front, it has a heft and solidity that belies its pack-ofcards sized dimensions. Dustand waterproof to IP67, it’s also rated to US military MIL-STD810G drop-test standards. It almost feels bombproof (but don’t try that at home, kids).
The drive inside is no less robust – it’s an NVMe M.2 SSD that promises blistering read speeds of up to 2,800MB/ sec, while the supplied cable is capable of transferring data at up to 5,000MB/sec over Thunderbolt and up to 1,250MB/sec via USB 3.2 (Gen 2). Storage capacities range from 240GB to 2TB, with 1TB being the sweet spot. This is the drive tested here.
As you’d expect, the Pro Envoy FX makes light work of data transfers, averaging 1,827MB/sec (write) and 2,394MB/sec (read) in our 5GB Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, peaking close to OWC’s theoretical maximum at 2,672MB/sec in our test benchmarks. It’s quick then. And ruggedly handsome to boot. Rob Mead-Green