OWC ThunderBlade
Introduction
1
1.1 Minimum System Requirements
• Operating System
:
• macOS 10.13 or later
• Windows 10 or later
• Hardware:
• Mac or Windows PC with Thunderbolt 3 port
1.2 Package Contents
• OWC ThunderBlade
• 0.5 m Thunderbolt 3 cable
• Power supply and cable
1.3 Getting Started
• To use the ThunderBlade, connect it to your computer via attached Thunderbolt
3 cable (macOS 10.13 or later, or Windows 10 or later required). Device drivers are
not required, however use of SoftRAID XT (macOS only at the time of this writing)
requires the SoftRAID driver and application.. See Section 2.1 for more information.
• The LED indicator on the front of the device (see Section 1.5) glows blue when
the device is receiving power and is connected to an active host. The LED glows
white when the device is connected to a host that is in Sleep or hibernation mode,
or when it has power but is not connected to a host. This LED is also connected
to a light sensor on the back of the device which enables automatic brightness
adjustments based on ambient light levels.
• The LED has four segments, one for each installed M.2 SSD. When one or more of
the SSDs are accessed, the corresponding segments will blink blue.
• While it is possible to connect a DisplayPort 1.2 display to the spare Thunderbolt 3
port on the device by using the appropriate cable or adapter, HDMI and other types
of displays require an
active display adapter
with a USB-C host connection.
• Software RAID volumes cannot be used as boot drives in macOS 10.13 and
later.
In order to boot to this device, do the folllowing: break the RAID, format one
of the drives as an independent volume, then install macOS on that drive. The
remaining drives can be reconfigured as a RAID 0 volume if necessary. For more
details, please see:
www.owcdigital.com/thunderblade-boot
1.4 About This Manual
The images and descriptions may vary slightly between this manual and the unit shipped.
Functions and features may change depending on the firmware version. Screenshot images
may vary slightly from the applications you seen on-screen. The latest product details and
warranty information can be found on the product web page. OWC’s Limited Warranty is
not transferable and subject to limitations.
INTRODUCTION
