OWC acquires OpenDrives: new products at IBC2026

OWC has acquired OpenDrives, expanding into enterprise data management. It's also bringing a new Thunderbolt 5 dock, USB4 hub, and Jellyfish updates to IBC2026.

As mentioned by Matt in his The 10 Top Things to See at IBC2026, OWC has acquired OpenDrives, adding OpenDrives' technology to its own shared storage portfolio and extending it into enterprise-scale data management, hybrid cloud orchestration, and edge workflows.

It’s a good buy. OpenDrives’ Atlas data storage and management platform has been used by Hollywood studios, post houses, and live broadcast networks since 2011, and is built for precisely the low-latency, high-throughput performance that data-intensive creative environments require.

The acquisition builds on OWC's 2021 purchase of Jellyfish. With OpenDrives' team joining OWC, the combined company now numbers more than 250 people worldwide and provides storage stretching from that which sits on a desk beside an editor all the way through to large-scale shared, edge, and hybrid-cloud environments.

It has three new updates at IBC that reflect that breadth. 

Thunderbolt 5 Dock with Dual HDMI

OWC’s latest dock connects over a single Thunderbolt 5 cable and adds two built-in HDMI 2.1 ports, allowing a monitor with HDMI to plug in directly without an adapter. On Thunderbolt 5 hosts it supports dual displays up to 4K 240Hz or dual 8K 60Hz with DSC, with a third display possible via Thunderbolt or USB-C.

Alongside the displays, the dock delivers 140W of power to the host, a downstream Thunderbolt 5 port for external SSDs and RAID arrays at full rated speed, 2.5GbE wired networking, and UHS-II SD and microSD card slots (with OWC Innergize support when used with OWC Atlas SD cards). A front USB-C port adds up to 30W of charging for a phone or tablet. OWC's one-click Dock Ejector unmounts every connected drive, and an included driver adds Apple Super Drive support on macOS. The dock can sit flat or stand upright, and works across Thunderbolt 5, Thunderbolt 4, USB4, USB-C, and Thunderbolt 3 (Mac) hosts on both Mac and Windows.

It ships in November, priced at $349, and joins OWC's existing Thunderbolt 5 dock and hub lineup rather than replacing it.

OWC's Thunderbolt 5 (USB-C) Cable is now also available in a 1.5 m (5 ft) length. It supports up to 80Gb/s of bi-directional data (120Gb/s for higher display bandwidth), up to 240W of lab-certified charging, and connections to up to three 8K displays, backed by a 3-year OWC warranty. It arrives mid-October at $58.99.

USB4 Hub and Active Optical Cables

The OWC USB4 Hub targets laptop users who want full desktop connectivity from a single cable. It provides up to 40Gb/s of total bandwidth across two USB4 ports, a built-in HDMI 2.1 port for displays up to 4K 120Hz, 4K 240Hz with DSC, or 8K 60Hz, and up to 81W of host charging through a dedicated 100W power supply that automatically allocates power between the laptop and connected devices. Two additional 10Gb/s USB-C ports handle drives and accessories, and the fanless aluminum housing runs silent. It works across Thunderbolt 5/4/3, USB4, and USB-C hosts on Mac, Windows, Linux, and iPad Pro. General availability is the end of October, at $129.99.

OWC has also extended its USB4 40Gb/s Active Optical Cable range with new 3 m (10 ft) and 5 m (16 ft) lengths, the longest in the lineup, and added DisplayPort Alt Mode support so the cables now work with USB-C displays as well as Thunderbolt displays. They carry up to 8K display support, including Apple Pro Display XDR and Apple Studio Display, very useful LED connection-status indicators at each end, and a braided nylon jacket over the internal fiber optic cable. Both lengths arrive mid-October: $98.99 for the 3 m cable, $129 for the 5 m.

Jellyfish NAS updates

And OWC is also previewing a set of updates to its Jellyfish network-attached storage platform. Jellyfish Connect 4 overhauls the setup process for connecting and reconnecting Mac and PC workstations, adding dynamic port detection, multi-network remote access, simultaneous connections to multiple Jellyfish units, Active Directory login, and quick-launch links to Strada, Peakto, Jumper, Resilio, and Shutter Encoder. It rolls out in Q4 2026, alongside Jellyfish Media Manager 3.2, which gets a rebuilt architecture, support for ProRes RAW, Immersive BRAW, and Sony, Nikon, and RED raw formats, in-browser previews for DPX and EXR sequences, the ability to open selected media directly in desktop apps, and batch tag and metadata editing.

Jellyfish Manager 3.2, the platform's admin interface, is already generally available with updated DaVinci Resolve integration, cloud media restore, air-gapped system updates, support for larger Active Directory environments, custom SMTP configuration, and an updated MASV integration. OWC has also added support for ATTO SmartNICs and ThunderLink adapters, plus a custom dual 25GbE NIC built into the Jellyfish Nomad, for higher-speed SMB ingest and playback from a single workstation.