Review: OWC Envoy Pro Elektron – Strong and Speedy

There are two kinds of people in the world – those who backup their data, and those who will backup their data. And if (when) you start backing up your data it’s super important to have a durable drive to do so on. In this day and age so much of our life and memories are stored using digital media. This makes all of this data, and the storage device it lives on, ever so important. And it also makes the devices that you choose to use to back this data up important as well. So make sure you choose a device like the OWC Envoy Pro Elektron.

First Impressions

The Envoy Pro Elektron is packaged in a very neat and tidy box. There is no unnecessary plastic wrap or plastic components – which is always a win for me.
In the box you’ll find: the drive itself, a product license card for Acronis True Image software, and a plug that can be plugged into either a USB C port or a USB 3.0 port. The plug that is included has an adapter attached to the end so that you can swap between USB C and USB 3.0 with ease. The connection on the drive itself is a standard USB C port, so it should be easy to find a spare cable if you end up losing the included one.

First Use

Upon fist plugging the device into your computer there are a few basic files on the drive. Instructions for how to properly format the drive – for both Windows & MacOS – and a ReadMe.txt file which helps explain the recommended setup instructions.
For my use case I ran the “OWC Drive Guide” for MacOS. I was pleasantly surprised at how hands off the software was. Basically all the software did was install an icon that made the drive image look like the Elektron itself. This is a really nice touch.

Features

The OWC Envoy Pro Elektron is a super sleek, and super tough external hard drive. While it is a bit pricier than other SSDs, the durability and speed definitely justifies that price. The drive comes in a number of different capacities depending on your needs. You can view current pricing using the following affiliate links:

• 240GB
• 480GB
• 1.0TB
• 2.0TB

Great Design & Life-proof

The design of the Envoy Pro Elektron is extremely sleek. The drive fits nicely in the palm of your hand or in your pocket to bring along with you wherever you might need it. It measures a mere 2.1in x 0.5in x 3in! One of the flagship features of this drive is its ability to withstand almost anything you can throw at it. It is crush proof, dust proof, and water resistant. This makes it the perfect device to take along with you wherever you might be headed.

Time is Money

This thing is FAST too! When it comes to creating whole device backups, the time it takes to do so can be a limiting factor. The advertised data transfer speeds of this drive is a whopping 10GB/s – we’ll dive into the speeds I was able to verify below.

Speed Tests

So in order to test the real world speed of this SSD I formatted it a number of different ways, and used a few different tools to test the read and write speeds. I tested speeds using two different machines – a 2020 M1 MacBook Air (running MacOS Monterey Beta) and a 2021 Lenovo ThinkBook G2 running Windows 10. Both of these devices are capable of 40gb/s Thunderbolt 3 speeds, and 10GB/s USB 3.1 speeds according to their specs.

APFS – Blackmagic Disk Speed Test – 2020 M1 MacBook Air

754 MB/s read speed, 611 MB/s write speed

APFS – Crystal Disk Mark – Windows 10 (Third Party Drivers)

153 MB/s read speed, 225 MB/s write speed

ExFAT – Blackmagic Disk Speed Test – 2020 M1 MacBook Air

703 MB/s read speed, 628 MB/s write speed

ExFAT – Crystal Disk Mark – Windows 10

963 MB/s read speed, 993 MB/s write speed

While the drive test results on my MacBook are a little lower than advertised, I’m sure a lot of that can be attributed to the fact that my MacBook is currently on beta software. As far as the Windows tests go though, the drive speed is absolutely on par with what was advertised!

Is this the right SSD for you?

The importance of backing up your data cannot be understated. Whether you’re looking to offload some of your photos or videos to an external location, or you need something to backup your whole device to, the OWC Envoy Pro Elektron is a great choice. The price tag may be a bit higher than other similar devices, but I can assure you that the speed and durability of this device certainly justify the cost.