Akitio has announced the release of the its Thunder3 Quad Mini, a 2.5" four-bay Thunderbolt 3 external storage solution for the latest MacBook Pro.

akitio-quad-thunderbolt-3
The aluminum storage device has removable trays designed to house up to four 2.5" SATA SSDs or hard drives purchased separately. The device is equipped with two Thunderbolt 3 ports—the first one connects to the MacBook Pro, and the second one can be used to connect or daisy chain Thunderbolt 3 or USB-C peripherals.

With Software RAID, Akitio said four striped SSDs can reach data transfer speeds of up to 1375 MB/s, while four striped hard drives max out at around 400 MB/s. Thunderbolt 3 provides sufficient bandwidth to connect dual 4K displays to the latest MacBook Pro and complete other data transfers simultaneously.

akitio-thunder3-quad-mini
A dedicated DisplayPort 1.2 video output provides connectivity to the 4K displays at 60Hz, while the device supports Power Delivery up to 15W to notebooks that support charging from a 5V/3A power source. 15W is hardly sufficient wattage for the latest MacBook Pro, which fully charges at up to 85W with Apple's own charger.

Akitio said the Thunder3 Quad Mini will be available in March for $329 alongside five other Thunderbolt 3 storage devices it sells.

Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Tag: Thunderbolt 3
Buyer's Guide: MacBook Pro (Neutral)
Related Forum: MacBook Pro

Top Rated Comments

Joe Rossignol Avatar
Joe Rossignol
107 months ago
what is raid mode in simple terms?
This Thunder3 Quad Mini uses RAID 0, which essentially combines the four drives into one, but there is a risk of data loss as there is no redundancy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xp2tl/eli5what_is_raid_and_what_does_it_do_for_your/

Imagine you are storing a song on your computer, but instead of bits and bytes, there are little people in there that sing it back to you. You don't want to lose your song (singers quit all the time), and let's also pretend you want it sung as fast as possible. What do you do? You configure RAID.


* RAID-0: 2 or more people sing alternate words in the song. This is faster because they can breathe, turn the page, etc. while they're waiting for their next turn. If one of them quits, the song will be ruined forever, though. Hopefully you have a backup band!
* RAID-1: 2 or more people sing the song at the same time. If one of them quits, the song will still be sung because everyone else knows all the words, too. You can hire a new singer who will quickly learn the song from everyone else.
* RAID-5: 3 or more people sing alternate words, like RAID-0. But this time, every word in the song has exactly one backup singer. So it's faster and if one quits, someone else can jump in and cover the missing parts. It will take some time to get a new singer up to speed, though, and until the new singer is caught up, if you lose another one you will lose the song!

Replace all references to "singers/bands" and "words" with "hard drives" and "blocks of data", respectively, and you've got RAID. There are more types of RAID but in the past 30 years or so these have been the most popular types. Why, you might ask, doesn't everyone just do RAID 5? Well, singers cost money, and it slows them down just a bit to learn each other's lines.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
hfg Avatar
hfg
107 months ago
what is raid mode in simple terms?


:D

Attachment Image
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Joe Rossignol Avatar
Joe Rossignol
107 months ago
any details on speeds WITHOUT being in a RAID mode for SSDs? assuming it does support JBOD and would show as 4 separate drives if setup for that.
Looks to be around 400-500 MB/s.


Attachment Image
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
lincolntran Avatar
lincolntran
107 months ago
The potentials of the new MacBook Pro are starting to show.

I predict "multiple cables" will be a thing of the past by the end of 2018.......



.....except for a few people on MR of course.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bsbeamer Avatar
bsbeamer
107 months ago
any details on speeds WITHOUT being in a RAID mode for SSDs? assuming it does support JBOD and would show as 4 separate drives if setup for that.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kwikdeth Avatar
kwikdeth
107 months ago
This Thunder3 Quad Mini uses RAID 0, which essentially combines the four drives into one, but there is a risk of data loss as there is no redundancy.

https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1xp2tl/eli5what_is_raid_and_what_does_it_do_for_your/
That is one of the best layman's explanations for RAID I have ever read.
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Read All Comments

Popular Stories

iPhone 17 Pro 34ths Perspective

iPhone 17 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 10 New Features

Sunday March 23, 2025 10:00 am PDT by
While the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are not expected to launch until September, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models as of March 2025: Aluminum frame: iPhone 17 Pro models are rumored to have an aluminum frame, whereas the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro models have a titanium frame, and the iPhone ...
Read Full Article • 242 comments
maxresdefault

Apple Releases iOS 18.4 With Priority Notifications, Ambient Music, New Emoji and More

Monday March 31, 2025 10:03 am PDT by
Apple today released iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4, the fourth major updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating system updates that came out last year. iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 come two months after Apple released iOS 18.3 and iPadOS 18.3. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to...
Read Full Article • 78 comments
top stories 2025 03 29

Top Stories: WWDC 2025 Announced, iPhone 17 Pro and iOS 19 Rumors, and More

Saturday March 29, 2025 6:00 am PDT by
Apple's big developer event is a little over two months away, and rumors about what we can expect to see in Apple's next major operating system updates are becoming increasingly frequent. A public release of iOS 18.4 is also imminent with a number of updates and improvements, although we won't be getting the major Apple Intelligence Siri upgrades that had reportedly been planned for this...
Read Full Article • 6 comments
Magic Mouse Green

What to Expect From the Magic Mouse 3

Saturday March 29, 2025 10:15 am PDT by
Apple is reportedly working on a new Magic Mouse. Below, we recap what to expect. The two key rumors for the Magic Mouse 3 so far include a relocated charging port, along with a more ergonomic design. It was briefly rumored that the Magic Mouse 3 would also feature voice control, but that was misinterpreted information. Relocated Charging Port While the Magic Mouse switched from...
Read Full Article • 296 comments
iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Expected Next Week - Here Are the Release Notes

Friday March 28, 2025 2:01 pm PDT by
With the second release candidate of iOS 18.4 that Apple seeded out today, the company finally provided us with release notes that give a full rundown on what to expect. There's an Apple Vision Pro app, new Apple Intelligence features for notifications and additional language support, plus an Apple News Food feature for Apple News+ subscribers, and several updates that should improve the...
Read Full Article • 51 comments
Foldable iPhone 2023 Feature Homescreen

Six Things to Know About Apple's Upcoming Foldable iPhone

Friday March 28, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We've been hearing rumors about a foldable iPhone for almost a decade now, but it looks like we might finally see the device come to fruition in 2026. We're going to be waiting many more months for the foldable iPhone, but so far we're hearing good things. Apple wants to make it creaseless. It's taken Apple multiple years to design a foldable iPhone that it's satisfied with because Apple ...
Read Full Article • 207 comments
iOS 19 visionOS UI Elements

Apple Codename Provides Clue About iOS 19's Rumored New Design

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:40 am PDT by
Multiple sources have claimed that iOS 19 will introduce a new design with more translucent buttons, menus, notification banners, and more, and there is now another clue that points towards this glass-like appearance. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman today said the new design project is codenamed "Solarium" internally. A solarium is a room with glass walls that allow in plenty of sunlight, so this...
Read Full Article • 120 comments
ipad pro 2024

Gurman: New iPad Pro and MacBook Pro Models With M5 Chips to Launch Later This Year

Sunday March 30, 2025 6:06 am PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPad Pro models with the M5 chip will "launch this year," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the new iPad Pro models have progressed to an "advanced testing" stage, and he expects mass production of the devices to begin in the second half of this year. If that timeframe is met, the new iPad Pro models could launch...
Read Full Article • 147 comments