The OWC Jellyfish B24 is the capacity-focused choice for teams that need shared storage for collaboration and nearline backup; the S24 is the all-SSD choice for active production where responsiveness matters more than HDD-style capacity economics. OWC announced general availability of both systems on March 26, 2025. Their published specifications distinguish them by drive type, rack space, connectivity and expansion—not by independently verified comparative speed figures.
How the B24 and S24 differ
| Feature | Jellyfish B24 | Jellyfish S24 |
|---|---|---|
| Intended role | Capacity-focused collaboration and nearline backup | Full-SSD production for teams seeking flash storage responsiveness |
| Drive bays and form factor | 24 bays; 4U rack system | 24 bays; 2U rack system using OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs |
| Published capacity | 144TB, 288TB or 576TB raw; OWC lists 97TB, 194TB or 395TB available after RAID, performance buffers and overhead | Current product page lists 48TB, 92TB, 192TB and 348TB configurations, and separately describes up to 384TB of all-flash storage in one head unit |
| Network connectivity | Up to 16 direct connections; connection upgrades listed at 10GbE, 25GbE, 50GbE and 100GbE | Two 100GbE QSFP28 ports and two 10GbE ports |
| Expansion | B24-E expansion chassis; OWC says four can bring a fully expanded configuration to 2.8PB under its stated conditions | Up to four R24-E or B24-E chassis for expansion, including hybrid storage |
| Backup and archive features | rsync, snapshots and Archive P5 | rsync, snapshots and optional Archiware P5 |
| Published direct-user count | Up to 16 direct connections | Not stated on OWC’s product page |
Both systems support SMB, NFS, FTP and SSH. OWC publishes the same resilience claim for each: up to two drive failures per eight-disk virtual device and up to six simultaneous physical-drive failures per pool. Those are manufacturer specifications, not a guarantee against data loss; a separate backup remains important.
Choose the B24 for capacity, collaboration and nearline backup
The B24 suits a team whose main constraint is storing and sharing a large media library rather than maximizing flash responsiveness for every active project. Its HDD-based capacity options offer a way to keep more material on shared storage, while OWC positions the system for collaboration with lower bandwidth requirements. It can also serve as nearline backup storage for another Jellyfish system.
Pay attention to the difference between raw and available capacity when estimating how much material will fit. OWC lists 144TB, 288TB and 576TB raw configurations, but its corresponding available figures are 97TB, 194TB and 395TB after RAID, performance buffers and overhead. Plan around the available figure, not the headline raw number.
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Expanding a B24
OWC says a B24 can connect to as many as 16 users directly. It lists connection upgrades from 10GbE through 100GbE, but the actual port configuration depends on the system ordered. For expansion, OWC describes adding B24-E chassis; its March 2025 launch announcement says four expansion chassis can take a full B24 configuration to 2.8PB when drive capacities are matched and media pools are merged in Jellyfish Manager. Treat that petabyte figure as a specific fully expanded configuration, not the capacity of a standalone B24.
The B24 is a 4U system and includes a 2TB read-cache SSD, redundant 875W power, IPMI, USB 3, VGA and an integrated DaVinci Resolve collaborative database, according to OWC’s product listing. These are useful infrastructure details to check against the rack, power and management requirements at the installation site.
Choose the S24 for active, latency-sensitive production
The S24 is OWC’s full-SSD option. Its 24 bays use Mercury Extreme Pro SSDs, and the system occupies 2U rather than the B24’s 4U. An all-flash pool is the more natural fit when editors are working directly from shared storage on demanding active projects—such as RAW footage, multicamera timelines or finishing—where responsiveness is a priority. It is not automatically the better buy for a library that mostly needs to be retained and accessed occasionally.
OWC lists two 100GbE QSFP28 ports and two 10GbE ports. Those interfaces describe available connectivity, not a guaranteed transfer rate to each workstation: realized performance depends on the configured network, clients, workload and storage setup. OWC’s published product information does not provide an independently tested B24-versus-S24 throughput comparison, so choose based on the stated hardware and workload rather than treating a port specification as a benchmark.
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OWC’s current S24 page lists 48TB, 92TB, 192TB and 348TB configurations, while also describing up to 384TB of all-flash capacity in one head unit. The page does not explain how the listed configuration sizes reconcile with that maximum. Confirm the exact offered configuration and usable capacity with OWC or the system seller before sizing a project around 384TB.
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The S24 can expand with up to four R24-E or B24-E chassis, which OWC describes as enabling hybrid storage. That gives a team a path to combine active flash storage with expanded capacity; it does not make the S24 itself equivalent to an all-HDD system.
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Resolution alone is not enough to choose. The better fit depends on the footage format and bitrate, how many editors access media concurrently, whether the team edits directly from the shared system, and how much material must remain online. Neither 4K nor 8K automatically requires an all-SSD server, and a large archive does not become a good SSD workload simply because some files are high resolution.
- Favor B24 if the priority is a large shared media pool, collaboration, or nearline backup, and the team’s active-workflow bandwidth needs are comparatively modest.
- Favor S24 if the priority is a full-SSD production pool for demanding active work and the team can justify SSD capacity for that role.
- Consider a mixed approach if the team needs flash for current projects but more economical capacity for less frequently accessed material; OWC lists B24-E expansion for both systems, and supports hybrid expansion options for S24.
Before ordering, map the workflow: estimate usable capacity, identify peak concurrent users, confirm each workstation and network path, and decide which media must stay on the fastest tier. The published specs establish product distinctions, but they do not replace a workload-specific network and storage design.
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What the published specifications do—and do not—establish
Both Jellyfish pages list rsync and snapshots, and both state the same drive-failure resilience limits. Their archive-software details differ: B24 lists Archive P5, while S24 lists Archiware P5 as optional. These features do not by themselves establish a complete backup plan; teams should account for independent copies and recovery needs.
OWC’s announcement included a broad statement from founder and CEO Larry O’Connor that the systems are intended to address different production needs, from nearline capacity and collaboration to SSD responsiveness. The more useful purchasing distinction is the hardware and role described above. No independent comparative benchmark is established by the product specifications, so claims of exact speed advantages should be verified against a representative workload.
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