Tiny SSD with big speed — Apple World Today

Did you pick up a new 2020 M1-powered MacBook Air? If you did, I have just the perfect accessory for it. The OWC Envoy Pro Elektron is a small, lightweight, and rugged USB-C bus-powered SSD that starts at just $99 (for 240GB). It’s quickly become my favorite accessory of 2020. Here’s my review:

Design

The OWC Envoy Pro Elektron is an amazing feat of storage engineering. In a tiny aluminum enclosure measuring 2 x 3 x 0.5 inches (5.1 x 7.6 x 1.3 cm), this drive currently comes in 240GB, 480GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities. Sure, it’s the perfect companion for your MacBook Air, but it’s also a handy accessory for your iPad Pro.

The drive is IP67 rated. That means that it is completely sealed against dust, and it can be submerged in one meter (3.3 feet) of water for up to 30 minutes. OWC says that you could run a car over it several times without compromising your data!

Use Cases

With its diminutive size and fast USB-C connectivity, the Envoy Pro Elektron is the perfect storage companion for a MacBook or iPad Pro. What can you use it for?

• Storing video or photos for editing with iPad Pro apps like Pixelmator Pro, Adobe Premiere Rush for Video, Adobe Photoshop, or LumaFusion

• Transferring large files from Mac or PC to iPad Pro

• Backing up music files created in apps like GarageBand, Drum Pad Machine – Beat Maker, and so on

• Making fast backups of anything stored locally on the iPad Pro; documents, photos, video, you name it!

Doing work in the field? The drive also adds water, dust and crush resistance to the mix.

Setup

OWC made setup of the Envoy Pro Elektron fast and simple. Just plug the drive into an open USB port with the included USB-C to USB-C/USB-A cable, and it appears on the macOS desktop as “OWC Setup”. Double-click the drive icon, then double-click the OWC Drive Guide app to launch it: