Oyen U34 Bolt Long-Term Review: Still the Best USB4 SSD in 2026?

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I originally reviewed the Oyen U34 Bolt about 18 months ago. Since then it has been my main edit drive, and I have tested a lot of other drives on macOS in the meantime. This one is still one of my favorite options you can buy. In this update I want to cover how it has held up, the speeds I have been getting, and why I would still pick this over almost anything else in 2026. Oyen Digital sent me this drive to review, but I have also bought and tested plenty of drives on my own and had others sent to me. This one stacks up better than the competition.

Intro: Who This Is For

This drive is for people who move a lot of large files and cannot afford to have the speed collapse halfway through a transfer. I primarily use it for editing Final Cut Pro projects on my Mac Studio, and I have used it plenty with the MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air too. It feels just like using the built-in drive. If you are a video editor, a photographer with big libraries, or anyone who shovels hundreds of gigabytes around on a regular basis, this is the class of drive you want.

Specs: USB4 at 40Gbps

The U34 Bolt is a USB4 drive that runs at 40 gigabits a second. That gives you top speeds on any computer with Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4. It is not quite as fast as the Thunderbolt 5 drives on the market, but a few things about it help it hold up even against those faster options.

Here is what you can expect and what comes with it:

• Read and write speeds around 2700 to 2800 MB/s, whether you run it on Thunderbolt 4 or Thunderbolt 5
• In the box you get the drive and a short USB4 cable that is the perfect length for use at a computer
• A rubber jacket on the outside with an aluminum center cooling core, so it is entirely passively cooled
• Pre-formatted APFS for Mac out of the box. If you are on Windows you need to reformat it
• A generous 3-year warranty that includes data recovery services

How I've Been Using It

I mostly use the U34 Bolt at my desk. I do not take it on the go very often, though it does feel sturdy. I started with the 8TB model and now have the 4TB as well, and after about 18 months both have held up great.

The 8TB has been my main edit drive. That means I can keep very large Final Cut libraries on it and go back to reference clips from previous projects without shovelling them around to other drives. I shoot open gate 6K footage on the Lumix S1H, usually with three cameras running at the same time, and I edit those multicam clips and play them back in the browser. It handles that without complaint. I never notice it slowing down over a long session, and it stays connected. I have never had this drive drop off the Mac by accident. No signs of file corruption either, even testing across different computers. The original cable it shipped with is still working fine, even though it is not as reinforced as some others on the market.

Speed Tests: Blackmagic and AJA

One of the standout things about this drive is how quickly it moves large amounts of data. In Blackmagic Disk Speed Test I was getting about 2700 MB/s on the write and 2900 MB/s on the read.

AJA Disk Test was more interesting. That software lets you measure the speed across a large file transfer, so I chose 500GB. The drive still held 2900 MB/s on the write and about 3000 MB/s on the read across the whole thing. That is the part that matters. A lot of drives that advertise 3200, 4000, or even 6000 MB/s use a smaller SLC cache. Once that cache fills up on a big transfer of 100GB to 500GB, the speed drops significantly. The U34 Bolt does not do that.

The real-world transfer times back it up. A 100GB file took 33 seconds. A 500GB file took 2 minutes and 49 seconds. That was faster than any other USB4 drive I have tested, and faster than some of the Thunderbolt 5 drives too.

Against the SanDisk Pro G40 and the Rest

Put it up against the SanDisk Pro G40 and the gap is clear. The SanDisk Pro G40 took 47 seconds to run the same 100GB transfer that the U34 Bolt did in 33. The Oyen is simply faster than any of the other USB4 or Thunderbolt 3 and 4 40Gbps drives I have used.

If you want to see the full picture, I keep a spreadsheet and a buying guide with every drive I have tested at adamtalks.tech/ssdguide, so you can pick the best SSD for your own use case.

The U35 Bolt Plus: A Thunderbolt 5 Option

Oyen recently launched the U35 Bolt Plus, a newer version that supports Thunderbolt 5 speeds. It was hitting about 6500 MB/s on the read and the write. I transferred 100GB in 16.5 seconds and 500GB in 1 minute and 41 seconds, almost double the speed of the U34.

The catch is that you only get those fastest speeds on a computer with Thunderbolt 5, which right now means the M4 Pro, M4 Max, M5 Pro, and M5 Max chips. The U35 also costs about $70 more depending on the capacity. If you are on a Thunderbolt 4 Mac like the MacBook Air, you will not see a difference. The U34 Bolt is already extremely fast for that class and handles every workflow I have thrown at it. The only real reason to pick the Thunderbolt 5 version is if you need faster random read and write for large AI models, or if you are constantly moving huge files. I still had no problem editing multicam 6K footage on the U34, though the U35 Bolt Plus would probably do better for 8K raw footage in a multicam project.

	U34 Bolt	U35 Bolt Plus
Interface	USB4 40Gbps	Thunderbolt 5
Peak read/write	~2700 to 2900 MB/s	~6500 MB/s
100GB transfer	33 seconds	16.5 seconds
500GB transfer	2 min 49 sec	1 min 41 sec
Needs TB5 Mac?	No	Yes, M4/M5 Pro or Max
Price	Lower	About $70 more

Pricing, Capacity, and Why It Beats Samsung and SanDisk

All SSDs are expensive in 2026, there is no way around that. But some of the slower drives are priced worse than this one. The Samsung T9 is going for over $1,100 right now, while at the time of filming the U34 Bolt comes in at about $830 for the 4TB model. You can get it in 1, 2, 4, or 8TB, with the price changing accordingly.

I would take the U34 Bolt over those pricier drives without much thought. Anything SanDisk has put out recently, or any of the Samsung drives, costs more and gives you top speed that does not last. The U34 gives you top speed and holds it after you have been using it for a while. It is faster and better on sustained performance than anything else I have tested, and it is the top of its class for USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 40Gbps drives. It also works fine with Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 5, and USB 3.2, really any computer with enough power to keep it running. The aluminum cooling core keeps temperatures in check. It gets warm to the touch after a while, but nothing like the crazy hot drives I have tried.

iPad and iPhone Compatibility

This is backwards compatible with USB 3.2, but after testing with a bunch of devices I found it did not want to work with iPads unless it was an iPad Pro with a Thunderbolt port. It also would not work with my iPhone. It worked fine with my MacBook Airs and the MacBook Pro lineup on both Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 5. So plan around the Mac, not the iPhone.

The Sustained Performance Advantage

If you only glance at a single speed test, the U34 Bolt might look a little slower than some other USB4 or Thunderbolt 40Gbps drives. That is the wrong way to read it. Where this drive wins is holding the top speed after you have transferred hundreds of gigabytes. The drives with big headline numbers and small caches cannot do that. That difference is the whole reason this is my main edit drive.

The Cons: No IP Rating, No TB5

Two things hold it back. First, there is no IP rating for water or dust resistance. It does meet the MIL-STD-810 drop standard, which means it is tested 26 times on all faces, corners, and edges, and that is fine. It is just not as reassuring as an actual ingress protection rating. Second, there is no Thunderbolt 5. If you have a Thunderbolt 5 computer, it is worth considering whether to spend a little more on the U35 Bolt instead.

Final Verdict: 18 Months Later

After 18 months of heavy editing, endless file transfers, archiving, and jumping between a lot of different computers, the U34 Bolt is my favorite drive. It is completely reliable, consistently fast, and it has earned its spot as my main edit drive. If you want a fast, dependable portable SSD that outperforms the competition in this price range, this is an easy recommendation. If you are on a Thunderbolt 5 Mac and move huge files all day, look at the U35 Bolt Plus instead. For everyone else, the U34 Bolt is the one to buy.