Envoy Pro Elektron, a no-risk disk that whisks

As a grown adult, you really shouldn’t get excited about a hard disk, but I managed to get my hands on a unit that could be the answer to my needs. 

To be clear, I need to work across about five different laptops.

I use a Chromebook for conference keynotes, a main laptop for my home desk, a separate large laptop for hotel room work, a Microsoft Surface for working in planes and a couple of other older machines for slinging into my bag depending on what I’m doing for the day.

That means I have an acute need to have ALL my files with me a lot of the time, fully backed up, rapidly accessible, packaged in a tough ruggedised case to withstand airport experiences and (ideally) with enough space to also hold space for movies & music and so on.

Now then, there are some nice products from datAshur and Lacie and I have been using a ruggedised Lacie 1 TB disk for some time now… but each has limitations. The datAshur line are great, but wow do they get hot after not much more than five minutes use and you’re always thinking that the disk is going to fry when you use it. The Lacie rugged disk with its fancy orange surround is lovely too, but it whirrs away and really lets you know it’s on when it’s on, plus it’s not small for its size.

OWC Envoy Pro Elektron 

Then there’s the OWC Envoy Pro Elektron which I got hold of this year for the first time. This is a fast, tough mini-sized SSD available that’s crushproof, dust-proof and “waterproof” for transferring gigabytes of data in seconds.

This disk is small, it’s no bigger than a credit card and no thicker than one of those RFID protective card-pop-up wallets that we all use now.

Set up, simples

Setting up the disk itself was super simple – and that’s despite the fact that it comes preformatted for Mac OS-X (because a lot of arty music types like to use this kind of disk it seems) initially. A quick download of the custom-built formatting app installs on Windows in less than a minute, which is about all it takes for the disk itself to show up on your operating system and start pushing out what is said to be up to 1011MB/s real world performance.

OWC stands for “Other World Computing” and the company says that this device is powered by OWC Aura SSD technology, this is advanced NVMe tech (NVMe is a storage access and transport protocol for flash and next-generation solid-state drives) designed to deliver up to 2x faster performance than other portable drives. Connection would have worked via Thunderbolt had I had a Mac, but USB to PC is faultless and connection via USB-C to Android smartphone also works without additional formatting.

How did they (OWC) make this disk so quiet?

The firm says it’s down to a heat-dissipating aircraft-grade aluminium housing for silent “throttle-free” performance. There’s a nice blue LED for and activity status… and the unit is Innergize™ enabled (that’s OWC software for health, performance and field upgrade management) and it all comes with a 3-year limited warranty.

According to OWC, “Big theoretical performance numbers are certainly eye-catchers… but they’re not always attainable in the field. That’s why we take the extra time to run OWC storage solutions through intensive performance testing. We truthfully list the Envoy Pro Elektron real-world test results as part of our commitment to the OWC difference. So, when we say that the Envoy Pro Elektron is 2x faster than other drives, IP67-rated and can work with files up to 1011MB/s, we’ve got the data to back it up.”

IP67, waterproof from water?

Does IP67 really mean waterproof from water in this case?

The 6 in IP67 means no possibility of ingress of dust and complete protection against contact (dust-tight). The 7 in IP67 means ingress of water in harmful quantity shall not be possible when the enclosure is immersed in water under defined conditions of pressure and time (up to 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) of submersion).

OWC notes that the Envoy Pro Elektron is IP67-rated, so users can work in the dirtiest and wettest environments. There is “no problem” if the user drops this drive onto a driveway or parking lot…the crushproof SSD can be rolled over multiple times without damaging data.

Then there’s that waterproofing and yes, the testers really did drop this disk in a pint of beer to show that it works, check out the YouTube video here.

For every 1TB of Envoy Pro Elektron drive capacity, you can store up to any one of the following: 200,00 Photos, 250,000 songs, 200 high-definition movies, 4.3 million MS Office Documents and more than two dozen average-sized PS4/Xbox games.

The 1TB unit comes in at around £140, it’s £240 for the 2TB unit and just over £350 for the 4TB from the OWC website.

Overall look & feel

Overall then, the fact that this device is so small, so speed-performant, so quiet (and without the heat build-up of so many other disks) and robust enough to drop in your pint of beer (arguably) puts it in a compelling place. It’s not sold at a budget price, but what do you expect for miniaturisation and precision engineering?  It would be nice to know what the anticipated “long-term life” of SSDs like this might be (is it enough years for your whole time on the planet?), but the manufacturers don’t normally tell us that kind of info. Is it out of this world? Well, compared to many it is.