You can finally buy a Thunderbolt 5 SSD

Following the presence of the first Thunderbolt 5 cables past July and the first Thunderbolt 5 dock past September, it mightiness yet beryllium clip to commencement upgrading your outer retention to return advantage of the accrued performance. It’s been a slow rollout for Thunderbolt 5 hardware pursuing its official uncover successful September 2023, but companies for illustration Seagate, OWC, and Sabrent yet person SSDs en way supporting the caller standard.

Seagate announced its caller Thunderbolt 5 LaCie Rugged SSD Pro5 outer drive astatine CES this week. The institution says it will beryllium disposable sometime this period successful a 2TB type for $399.99 and a 4TB type for $599.99. They’ll connection publication and constitute speeds of 6,700MB/s and 5,300MB/s, respectively.

Like erstwhile LaCie rugged drives, the caller SSD comes successful a rubber enclosure successful blue, black, and orangish colour options, helping it past drops from heights of up to 3 meters. It’s besides waterproof pinch an IP68 rating, truthful it tin past a complete dunking to depths of 1 meter.

There are a fewer different choices that person been announced, too, though pinch varying levels of availability. Sabrent, for example, was really 1 of the first companies to announce a Thunderbolt 5 SSD past August, but the SSD isn’t retired yet. The Rocket XTRM 5 comes successful a silicone sleeve for other protection from falls, and the institution says it tin scope publication and constitute speeds of 6,000MB/s and 5,000MB/s, respectively. It’s expected to beryllium disposable successful 1TB, 2TB, and 4TB capacities but is still listed arsenic only being disposable for preorder done Sabrent’s website.

OWC announced its Envoy Ultra Thunderbolt 5 SSD past September. The institution says the outer thrust is water-resistant, dust-resistant, and crushproof, and offers publication speeds of complete 6,000MB/s. When it was announced, OWC said the Envoy Ultra would beryllium disposable successful a 2TB type for $399.99 and a 4TB type for $599.99, pinch shipping starting successful precocious October. The first shipments of the drives sold out, but it’s still available for preorder done OWC’s website pinch an expected vessel day of mid-January 2025.

However, contempt the promised capacity improvements, and the yearlong hold for hardware to yet materialize, upgrading your setup to Thunderbolt 5 mightiness still person a fewer velocity bumps. That’s what Mark Hachman, the elder editor of PCWorld, discovered erstwhile trying to get a Maingear ML-17 laptop, Kensington’s Thunderbolt 5 dock, OWC’s Envoy Ultra SSD, and Acer’s Nitro XV5 displays to play nice. The setup was plagued by laggy capacity and slow transportation speeds.

It each still felt not rather fresh for primetime, Hachman found. “When you bargain (or test) bleeding-edge hardware, sometimes you’re the 1 that ends up pinch the cuts,” Hachman said.