The industry's first Thunderbolt 3 storage, docking, and PCIe expansion media workflow solution. Perfect for digital imaging, VFX, and video editing.

FLEXible Storage
- Eight drive bays: use a mix of U.2/M.2 [1] NVMe and SATA/SAS [2] drives for up to 172TB of capacity and real world speeds up to 2,750MB/s
- Future ready: top four bays can use U.2 SSDs…the emerging M&E industry storage standard
- Powerfully easy RAID: create, manage, and monitor advanced RAID sets with SoftRAID

Docking FLEXibility
- Do more: second Thunderbolt 3 port [3] for daisy chaining devices or additional display(s)
- Connect more: (1) USB-C and (2) USB-A 10Gb/s ports for peripherals and mobile devices
- See more: DisplayPort 1.4 for connecting up to an 8K display [4]
- Fast media ingest: front-side SD 4.0 and CFexpress card readers with up to 985MB/s speed

FLEXpandable for Unique Needs
Play your card: (1) PCIe slot for audio/video capture, networking, SSD storage, hardware RAID card, or I/O card

Flex Your Way Through Every Workflow
ThunderBay Flex 8 is a groundbreaking workflow solution from the world’s leading Thunderbolt accessory manufacturer. It offers eight drive bays that support a mix of SATA/SAS and U.2/M.2 NVMe drives for up to 172TB of storage capacity. Next, there’s a plethora of ports including (2) Thunderbolt 3, (1) USB-C, and (2) USB-A for device docking and charging.

See your work in greater detail by adding up to an 8K display via a built-in DisplayPort 1.4 connection. Ingest hi-res images and video via front-side SD 4.0 and CFexpress card readers. And when you want to expand your desktop capabilities, there’s a PCIe slot waiting for your specific project needs.

ThunderBay Flex 8 is the one Thunderbolt 3 desktop device that rules them all. With an irresistible economy of scale, this consolidated solution is ideal for anyone waiting for the right moment to invest in Thunderbolt technology.

At the heart of the ThunderBay Flex 8 capabilities are two cutting-edge technology standards: NVMe and PCIe. Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) optimizes the performance of modern flash technology over the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) standard. It enables significantly faster SSD performance with a more direct and optimized path to a computer’s processor.

Tying both of these technologies together is the Thunderbolt 3 interface which uses the PCIe bus. This interface offers the fastest data transfers possible on a single cable between computers and peripherals like storage solutions, docks, and expansion devices while also supplying charging power.

The Future Standard of Storage Available Today
Right out of the packaging, all eight bays can utilize SATA 6Gb/s 2.5-inch SSDs or 3.5-inch HDDs. To take advantage of 40Gb/s PCIe technology, the top four bays are NVMe U.2 SSD ready. These emerging super-fast SSDs enable ThunderBay Flex 8 to meet the future storage needs of content creators and video production pros.

A Protective, Economical Post-Production Solution
Sending a drive from set to post-production typically entails tedious and time-consuming drive enclosure disassembly to access the storage drive or costly shipping of the entire enclosure to the post lab. But ThunderBay Flex 8 offers yet another option.

By installing an OWC U.2 NVMe Interchange System carrier tray (sold separately) with a built-in U.2 connector into a ThunderBay Flex 8 drive tray, you can protect the U.2 SSD drive’s connector from repeated install/removal wear for improved drive longevity and investment. When done with your shoot, just ship the lightweight protective carrier and drive to the lab where the carrier can be installed into an OWC Helios 3S (sold separately) equipped with the OWC Interchange System. It’s a complete solution to safeguard your data while lowering shipping costs.

End-to-End Workflow Possibilities

On-Set
U.2 Interchange System Carrier Tray + ThunderBay Flex 8. Protects U.2 SSD drive connector from install/removal wear to improve drive longevity and investment

Transit to Post-Production
Interchange System Carrier Tray with U.2 SSD. Lightweight protective carrier safeguards data while lowering shipping costs vs shipping entire enclosure

Post-Production Lab
Interchange System Carrier Tray with U.2 SSD + Helios 3S + Interchange System. Desktop U.2 NVMe SSD sawappable storage for fast processing of footage

Muscle-Flexing Data Performance
Are you a video pro working with 4K/8K and even Phantom high-speed files? The ThunderBay Flex 8 offers a variety of drive configurations that deliver real-world read/write speeds of 2,750MB/s that saturate the Thunderbolt 3 speed threshold. Try any of these options:
1. Eight FLEXible drive bays with up to 2,750MB/s real world speed
2. Four top bays: install your choice of U.2 NVMe SSDs (one bay PCIe 3.0 x4, three bays PCIe 3.0 x1), 2.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s SSDs, or 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s HDDs.
3. Four bottom bays: install your choice of 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch SATA 6Gb/s drives. Removing the SATA drive controller and replacing with a SAS controller card enables use of faster SAS HDDs.
4. Swap out the built-in SATA drive controller card with a SATA/SAS hardware RAID card and configure 8 x SATA/SAS drives in hardware RAID 0

Docking Flexibility
A virtual buffet of productivity-enhancing possibilities awaits you with the docking connections built into ThunderBay Flex 8. Power your notebook with up to 85W power delivery while capturing multi-stream hi-res footage at full frame rate. Connect audio and video mixers, digital camera, keyboards, and other peripherals and charge mobile devices via one USB-C and two USB-A 10Gb/s ports. Ingest and work with 4/8K RAW video and RAW photo files immediately at speeds up to 985MB/s with frontside SD 4.0 and CFexpress card readers. Add more viewing space with up to an 8K monitor via the DisplayPort 1.4 interface. And if all that’s not enough to satisfy your project needs, daisy-chain up to five additional Thunderbolt 3 devices!

Disconnect In One Click
Safely disconnect multiple drives in a single click. OWC Dock Ejector was designed by OWC hardware and software engineers to ensure all data is written before disconnection, saving time and protecting against data loss. It makes losing your hard-earned work a thing of the past.

FLEXpandable for Unique Needs
By removing the enclosure’s side panel, you can expand your capabilities by installing a half-length, full-height, single-width expansion card in the PCIe x16 connector/x4 lanes slot. Add a 4K video capture card for direct ingest of multi-stream high-res footage. Record high-quality tracks with an audio card and then edit and archive tracks. Create a powerful file server with a high-speed networking card. By replacing the built-in SATA drive controller with a SATA or SAS RAID card, you can even turn ThunderBay Flex 8 into a hardware RAID storage solution while keeping a PCIe slot open for other cards.

A FLEXtraordinary Platform
ThunderBay Flex 8 is a user-configurable platform that you can use to launch into projects with a new realm of time and money-saving results. To get you started, we suggest three sample configurations that make the most of the extraordinary highlights that have made OWC solutions the choice of performance enthusiasts and cinematographers around the world:

Sample Configurations
1. An empty enclosure that lets you add your choice of drives and PCIe cards. You can remove the SATA drive controller card to add a RAID or SAS drive controller card
2. The bottom four bays populated with SATA drives and top four bays left empty for use with U.2 NVMe drives, M.2 NVMe drives with adapter, or SATA/SAS drives
3. All bays filled with SATA drives, one bay left as cold spare, the other seven preconfigured in RAID 0 or RAID 5 with SoftRAID

The Most Powerful RAID Tool on the Planet.
SoftRAID is the world’s fastest and most flexible application to configure, maintain, and protect your RAID volumes on Mac and PC. OWC enclosures include 3 Years of SoftRAID Premium.
- High-Performance RAID 0/1/4/5/1+0 (10) volumes
- Predictive Health Monitoring proactively notifies of Volume and Disk issues well before failure — provided on your computer and remotely
- Seamless Cross-Platform Sharing with support for Apple-formatted APFS and HFS+ SoftRAID volumes between Mac and Windows at no additional cost
- 35+ Years of Experience of Pro Support to provide peace-of-mind with setup help, ongoing questions, or urgent disk issues
- And many more unique features.
M1 Macs require macOS 11.3 or later. SoftRAID is licensed per computer.

Innergize Your Workflow with Highest Performance and Reliability
OWC Innergize™ is the first stage of the Capture to Completion™ ecosystem of OWC products designed to seamlessly propel professional photographers, videographers, and content creators to the highest level of workflow performance and reliability. This OWC custom-designed app is a complete health, performance, and field upgrade management tool when using OWC Atlas memory cards with OWC Atlas readers and reader equipped products.

Work with Maximum Confidence and Reliability

Health
Over time and use cycles, flash memory does wear out. Innergize verifies and reports the percentage of use life remaining. Now you can work with full confidence your OWC flash memory product will deliver the reliability you can trust.

Sanitize
Writes, deletes, and formatting all take their toll on memory cards. Innergize cleans and restores the flash memory performance of OWC memory cards so you can get the best results on every use.

Field Upgrade
When new cameras or firmware updates to existing cameras are introduced, they may not work properly with flash memory cards and drives. Innergize gives OWC memory card users the ability to quickly upgrade their firmware in the field for full compatibility, additional performance enhancements, and bug fixes for optimal reliability.

1. Requires M.2 to U.2 adapter.
2. Requires SAS drive controller.
3. Apple Mac models with Thunderbolt 2/Thunderbolt ports can be connected using an Apple Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 Adapter (sold separately). This configuration provides data transfer at up to 20Gb/s but does not support notebook charging.
4. Full DisplayPort 1.4 capabilities depends on host computer support of DisplayPort 1.4 specification through its Thunderbolt 3 connection, host computer GPU capabilities, and connecting cable capabilities.

Includes
(1) OWC ThunderBay Flex 8 External Storage Enclosure
(1) 0.7M Thunderbolt Cable
(1) US Power Cable
(2) Security Keys for Front Panel Lock
(1) Hex Key
(1) Quick Start Guide for OWC ThunderBay Flex 8
(1) Quick Start Guide for OWC ThunderBay Flex 8
(1) Assembly Manual & User Guide for OWC ThunderBay Flex 8
(1) 3 Years of SoftRAID Premium Access (License located on device)
(1) Quick Start Guide for OWC SoftRAID (Digital)
3 Year OWC Limited Warranty

Detailed Specs
Drive Bays:
- 4 bays supporting: 2.5-inch SATA drives, 3.5-inch SATA drives, 2.5-inch U.2 drives, M.2 drives (with M.2 to U.2 adapter), 2.5-inch SAS drives (with SAS drive controller card), 3.5-inch SAS drives (with SAS drive controller card)
- 4 bays supporting: 2.5-inch SATA drives, 3.5-inch SATA drives, 2.5-inch SAS drives (with SAS drive controller card), 3.5-inch SAS drives (with SAS drive controller card)
Hot Swap Support: Yes
Hot Plug Support: Yes
Boot Support: Dependent upon configuration. Independent Mac volumes should boot in most scenarios.. Boot Camp is not supported.
RAID Capable: Yes
RAID Levels Supported:
RAID 0
RAID 1
RAID 0+1
RAID 4
RAID 5
JBOD
RAID Features: Software RAID
Expansion Slots: (1) PCIe 3.0 x16 physical, x4 electrical, full-height, half-length, single-width
Device Ports:
(1) Host Port - Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) up to 40Gb/s (5000MB/s)
(1) Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) Port
(1) USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C Port up to 10Gb/s (1250MB/s) - USB 2.0/3.0 backwards compatible
(2) USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-A Ports up to 10Gb/s (1250MB/s) - USB 2.0/3.0 backwards compatible
(1) DisplayPort Port
Memory Card Slots: (1) CFexpress 2.0 Type B , (1) SD
Power Delivery: Thunderbolt 3 host port provides up to 85W of power to the host computer.1 , Thunderbolt 3 device port (for external drives and other devices) provides 15W of power.
Display Support by Port: DisplayPort 1.4: Up to 8K @ 60Hz or 4K @ 120Hz , Thunderbolt 3: Up to 5K @ 60Hz via a native Thunderbolt 3 display or 4K @ 60Hz via a Thunderbolt display or a USB-C display adapter
Data Rate: Thunderbolt 3: 40Gb/s (or 5000MB/s)
Data Transfer Rate (Maximum): Thunderbolt 3 : Up to 40Gb/s (or 5000MB/s)
Chipset / Controller:
Thunderbolt: Intel JHL7440
PCIe Switch: ASMedia ASM-2824
USB Controller: Genesys Logic GL-3590
Contact Start Stops: Varies depending on drive mechanism installed
Host Interface Requirements: Thunderbolt (USB-C) port (backward compatible with Thunderbolt 2/Thunderbolt1)
Mac OS Compatibility:
macOS 10.15 Catalina
macOS 11.x Big Sur
macOS 12.x Monterey
macOS 13.x Ventura
macOS 14.x Sonoma
macOS 15.x Sequoia
PC OS Compatibility:
Not compatible with Windows PCs
Driver Required:
SoftRAID Only
The SoftRAID driver is installed within the SoftRAID application.
For PCIe cards that require a driver, please check the manufacturer web site. Drivers for PCIe cards must be Thunderbolt-aware to function.
Supported PCIe Cards: Supports one full-height, half-length, single-width card (driverless or with Thunderbolt-aware driver). GPUs not supported.
Other Requirements: macOS 10.15.1 or later required.
External Power Adapter: No
Power Supply: Internal UL-listed universal auto-switching power supply
AC Input: 100-240V, 50-60Hz, 3.5A-7.0A
DC Output: +12V, 37A
Wattage: 450W
Cooling: (1) 120mm 1,600RPM cooling fan
Security Slot: Yes
Power Button: Yes
Power/Activity LED: Yes
Housing Color: Black
Housing Material: Aluminum
Dimensions:
Height: 34.9 cm (13.7 in)
Length: 39.0 cm (15.4 in)
Width: 14.9 cm (5.9 in)
Weight: 9.2 kg (20.26 lbs)
Certifications: BSMI, CE, FCC, RCM, VCCI
Ambient Temperature: Operating: 50°F to 95°F (10°C to 35°C) , Non-Operating: -40°F to 149°F (-40°C to 65°C)
Altitude: Operating: -304.8 m to 3,048.0 m (-1,000 ft to 10,000 ft), Non-Operating: -304.8 m to 12,192.0 m (-1,000 ft to 40,000 ft)
Humidity: Operating: 8% to 90% non-condensing, Non-Operating: 5% to 95% non-condensing
Shock: Operating: Varies depending on drive mechanism installed, Non-Operating: Varies depending on drive mechanism installed
Noise: Varies depending on drive mechanism installed

1. Thunderbolt 2/Thunderbolt compatibility requires a certified Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) to Thunderbolt 2 (mDP) adapter and a Thunderbolt 2 cable (available separately). This configuration provides data transfer at up to 20Gb/s but does not support notebook charging.
2. SoftRAID works with macOS 10.14+, Windows 10+, and Windows Server 2019/2022. M1 Macs require macOS 11.3 or later.
3. SoftRAID is licensed per computer.
4. GPUs are not supported.
5. While we do not bundle or recommend specific RAID/SAS card setups at this time, we do provide an unofficial guide as a courtesy, to customers who wish to attempt this workflow.
6. A firmware update is required to use OWC ThunderBay Flex 8 with OWC Innergize software. Please consult the "Innergize for PC: Firmware Update" or "Innergize for Mac: Firmware Update" guide for download and installation instructions.