Mini Sized. Mammoth Possibilities.
Just like great duos Kirk and Spock, Frodo and Sam, or Woody and Buzz, the ministack and the Mac mini have been the perfect pair since 2005. The miniStack STX now features Storage and Thunderbolt Xpansion, continuing its award-winning legacy as the best sidekick a Mac mini can have. Meet the world’s first Thunderbolt certified Thunderbolt 4 storage solution.
With a universal SATA HDD/SSD AND an NVMe M.2 PCIe SSD slot, you can expand your mini’s storage capacity to gigantic proportions. Three Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports enable you to connect to millions of Thunderbolt, USB, and future USB4 drives, displays, A/V mixers, cameras, and tablets. It also works with desktop accessories like a keyboard, card reader, or mouse. The possibilities of how you can use your Mac mini are now limited only to your imagination.
Massive Capacity Add over 200x greater data storage on top of your Mac mini's built-in storage1
Mega Thunderbolt Use more accessories and devices with three Thunderbolt (USB-C) expansion ports
Maximum Compatibility Use with Thunderbolt or USB equipped Macs, PCs, iPads, Chromebook, Android tablets…virtually anything that supports external storage2,3
More Connectivity Add a mix of up to five Thunderbolt devices, three USB devices, and two displays2,5
Power While Working 60W of notebook charging power via Thunderbolt or USB-C
Pro-grade Performance Save/access/backup data and edit 4K video with up to 770MB/s real-world-tested performance
Easy Backups Apple Time Machine and Windows File History ready
Plug and Play Includes Thunderbolt cable
Whisper-Quiet An aluminum housing with internal heat sink and high-efficiency cooling fan provides cool, nearly silent operation
**Xpands Notebooks, Tablets, and More ** Sized identically to the Mac mini, the miniStack STX is also a sleek, complementary companion for MacBook and PC notebook and desktop machines, iPads, and Chromebooks. While highly powerful, these machines are often limited in the number and variety of ports they offer. The miniStack STX solves that expansion limitation with a new world of increased connectivity and storage capacity.
The Dual Drive Dynamo Just like superheroes have an alter ego, so too does the miniStack STX. The universal SATA drive bay holds a hard disk drive or SSD for big capacity data storage. When you need to support low latency instant access operations the NVMe M.2 SSD slot reveals miniStack STX’s ferocious power. NVMe was designed to deliver the speed potential of modern flash drive technology by using a direct path to a computer’s processor over PCIe. As a result, you can enjoy near instant access performance with the miniStack STX.
Edit. Save. Access Like a Pro. With multiple drive configurations available, you can experience up to 770MB/s of real-world data transfer speed. Move 5GB of GoPro footage in about 6 seconds. Transfer 1000s of photos from that priceless event in mere seconds. Use the SATA drive for Time Machine or File History backups while working off the NVMe drive. With heavyweight performance like this, the miniStack STX is great for multi-stream compressed 4K video editing, photography, audio, virtual machines, and everyday data tasks.
Easily Monitor and Protect Your Data For even more power and security, add OWC’s SoftRAID software to your miniStack STX and create a RAID 1 to automatically maintain identical copies of all your data on each drive. For over 25 years, SoftRAID has been the most fully featured and powerful software RAID solution available for Mac and Windows. It starts protecting your data even before you start saving by validating the miniStack STX drives are safe for data storage.
In the improbable event that you experience a disk issue, your data is still complete and accessible on the miniStack STX’s other drive! SoftRAID then constantly monitors your disks with a combination of S.M.A.R.T. (Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology) attributes along with its own I/O statistics. This deep dive disk health analysis identifies potential problems so you can take preventive action. SoftRAID is available for both Mac and PC making it possible to share the miniStack STX between computers.
Move Between Macs and PCs Accessing your miniStack STX on a Windows PC is remarkably easy with the addition of OWC’s MacDrive. This seamless software runs in the background, so there’s nothing to launch or learn. Just connect the miniStack STX and not only do you have instant-read access, but full write access too! MacDrive also includes powerful features that enable you to format and partition drives as well as repair basic disk issues.
Xpand Your Sonic Journey Building your music setup can be daunting. With two configurable drives in the OWC miniStack STX, it’s easy to create a storage powerhouse for recording and playback of essential tracks in real-time. You can even store your entire loop and sample libraries on the NVMe SSD for in-a-flash use with near-zero latency.
Xpand Your Connections You’ll experience newfound freedom when you’re able to connect to nearly any past, present, or future device/accessory via three Thunderbolt (USB-C) ports. Just like the miniStack STX’s innovative storage capability, these three ports have a second superpower: They reinvent the daisy chain by allowing you to create three independent chains with up to five bus-powered Thunderbolt devices with a USB device on the end of each chain (for 8 devices total). You can now also remove devices from one chain without affecting the other chain(s).
Xtend Your Investment If you own a 2018 Intel Mac mini or the latest Apple silicon version, the fact that the internal factory drive can’t be upgraded is no longer a reason to sell your beloved little powerhouse. The miniStack STX maximizes your mini’s investment with a mighty capacity punch for a fraction of the time and money you would spend in buying and setting up a new machine. You’re not left behind if you own a Mac, PC, or device equipped with USB-A only. With a USB-C to USB-A adapter cable (sold separately), you can utilize the miniStack STX’s SATA drive bay to transfer data to/from your machine plus infuse your trusty setup with additional device connectivity.
Detailed Specs
Drive Bays
1 bay supporting: 3.5-inch SATA drives, 2.5-inch SATA drives
1 bay supporting: M.2 drives
Supports NVMe M.2 SSDs with 2280 form factor and "M Key" connector type. Single- and double-sided SSDs are supported.
Total Capacity
19.0TB
Total Solution Cache Size
512 MB
Standard Mechanism
(1) 18.0TB Toshiba MG09ACA Series 7,200RPM Enterprise Capacity Hard Disk Drive with 512 MB cache
(1) 1.0TB OWC Aura P12 Pro PCIe 3.0 NVMe M.2 2280 SSD
*OWC reserves the right to replace or upgrade to equivalent or better components.
Hot Plug Support
Yes
Boot Support
Yes
Device Ports
(1) Host Port - Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) up to 40 Gb/s (5000 MB/s)
(4) Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) Ports
Power Delivery
Thunderbolt 4 host port provides up to 60W of power to the host computer.
Thunderbolt 4 device ports (for external drives and other devices) provide 15W of power.
Display Support
Up to one 8K display @ 60Hz,
or one 5K display @ 60Hz,
or one 4K display @ 120Hz,
or two 4K displays @ 60Hz,
or one 4K display @ 60Hz,
or one 4K display @ 30Hz
Display Support by Port
Thunderbolt 4: Up to 8K @ 60Hz or 4K @ 120Hz via a native Thunderbolt 4 display or other display that supports USB-C connections and DisplayPort 1.4
Host Port Requirements
Thunderbolt (USB-C) or USB (USB-C or USB-A1) port
Mac OS Compatibility
macOS 10.14 Mojave
macOS 10.15 Catalina
macOS 11.x Big Sur
macOS 12.x Monterey
macOS 13.x Ventura
PC OS Compatibility
Windows 10 32-bit Edition
Windows 10 64-bit Edition
Windows 11
Linux OS Compatibility
Yes
Mobile OS Compatibility
iPadOS 13
iPadOS 14
iPadOS 15
iPadOS 16
Android 11.x
Android 12.x
Android 13.x
Other OS Compatibility
Chrome OS
Linux
Driver Required
No
Other Requirements
macOS 11.1 or later for Thunderbolt hosts
macOS 10.14.6 or later for USB hosts
External Power Adapter
Yes
Power Supply
External UL-listed universal auto-switching power supply
Need an additional power supply? Secondary/replacement power supplies are also available.
DC Output
+20, 7.5
Replacement Adapter Part Number
OWCPWR20V150W (sold separately)
Cooling
(1) cooling fan
Security Slot
Yes
Power/Activity LED
Yes
LED disk status light may not function with some drives, including 8.0TB OWC Aura Ultra IV MVMe M.2 SSD (OWCP4U8T1PT08).
Dimensions
Height: 3.7 cm (1.5 in)
Length: 19.7 cm (7.8 in)
Width: 19.7 cm (7.8 in)
Weight
920.0 g (2.03 lbs)
Ambient Temperature
Operating: 50°F to 95°F (10°C to 35°C)
Non-Operating: -40°F to 149°F (-40°C to 65°C)
Humidity
Operating: 8% to 90% non-condensing
Non-Operating: 5% to 95% non-condensing
