Akitio, makers of premium, high quality external computer storage and PCIe expansion solutions will release a new four-bay, Thunderbolt™ 3 storage solution for Mac and PC at the upcoming BIRTV Show in Beijing, China. The Thunder3 Quad X, while similar to the Thunder3 Quad features an all-new design and is now compatible with both macOS and Windows computers. The Thunder3 Quad X also supplies 27 Watts of power (Power Delivery) to help charge a connected Thunderbolt 3 laptop.

The Thunder3 Quad X holds 4 drives and can accommodate either 3.5” hard drives, 2.5” hard drives or solid state drives (SSD’s). The Thunder3 Quad X was designed for use with the new 2016/2017 Apple MacBook Pro lineup (macOS) as well as Thunderbolt 3 Windows PCs. Developed to handle the data protection and performance requirements for today’s ever-growing media libraries, the Thunder3 Quad X offers fast transfers with the added flexibility of a DisplayPort video output and 27 Watts of power delivery. The built-in 200W power supply adds the convenience of portability and saves the space for the external power supply compared with its earlier version.

“New Apple MacBook Pro users have looked to Akitio for their external Thunderbolt 3 storage solution needs for quite some time now. The Thunder 3 Quad X is our third macOS compatible enclosure and will be especially useful for anyone dealing with large amounts of data such as 4K and 8K uncompressed video files”, said Richard Wright, VP of Sales & Marketing for Akitio. “The Thunder3 Quad X is extremely affordable and will allow users to better store, transfer, save, protect, and edit their creative content while also freeing up valuable space on their computers.”

The Thunder3 Quad X can deliver transfer speeds of up to 1480 MB/s while simultaneously providing two 4K video streams to connected displays, which is not feasible by other common interfaces such as USB due to the limitations of their features and bandwidth.

“Thunderbolt™ 3 delivers unparalled 40Gbps bandwidth through a single cable.” said Jason Ziller, General Manager, Client Connectivity Division at Intel. “Akitio’s Thunder3 Quad X delivers on performance, simplicity and flexibility only possible with Thunderbolt 3.”

The Thunder3 Quad X features two Thunderbolt 3 Ports and a DisplayPort video output to connect to the latest 4K 60Hz displays while also supporting Power Delivery (PD) up to 27W. The second Thunderbolt 3 port on the Thunder3 Quad X operates the same as a Thunderbolt 3 computer port by supporting Thunderbolt 3 (up to 5 daisy chained), as well as allowing users to connect USB Type-C devices (10Gb/s) such as external hard drives, and DisplayPort monitors.

Pricing and Availability

The Thunder3 Quad X will have a suggested MSRP of $379 USD and will be shipping in Q3 2017.