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Do you trust OWC products?

P

pjny

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Feb 18, 2010
798
159
Hi,

I heard about OWC products on this forum and how they have a sterling reputation in the Mac community. However, two products I purchased from them have experienced catastrophic problems and their tech support was less than helpful in terms of shouldering possible blame on the actual devices in question.

I first bought an Extreme Pro SSD and that suddenly died a year after purchase. I lost a little bit of data that I had not backed up in 2 days.

I got the Newertech Guardian Maximus RAID enclosure and 7 months later both drives were corrupted simultaneously. I turned on the drive and got the dreaded "The disk you inserted was not readable by this computer." I saw the "rebuild" light blink but the drive indicators did not go red to indicate which drive was dead.

Tech support said reformat and let us know if it happens again. Thankfully was able to get the data back using Data Rescue 3.

Should I just send the Newertech back?

OWC sells has the same RAID enclosure(Mercury Elite Pro RAID 2-Bay Quad Interface Enclosure). Is that more reliable than the Newertech? I heard people lost data on both Newertech drives because of hardware failures.

Thanks.
 
T

thedeske

macrumors 6502a
Feb 17, 2013
963
58
Purchased a lot from OWC over the years for myself and clients. A firewire 400 drive failed many years ago, but that was replaced. Good company. No product is bullet proof from any vendor.

The Mercury Elite might be a better build over the Newer, but that's a guess. No experience with the Newer box. I tend to favor Caldigit Raid over any of the others. Their hardware is a step above.

Good Luck
 
Giuly

Giuly

macrumors 68040
Oct 16, 2009
3,348
4
That depends whether you ask for timezone, state o
pjny said:
OWC sells has the same RAID enclosure(Mercury Elite Pro RAID 2-Bay Quad Interface Enclosure). Is that more reliable than the Newertech? I heard people lost data on both Newertech drives because of hardware failures.

Thanks.
Click to expand...
Newertech is an OWC brand, the difference is that one is black and the other one is silver. If you want an alternative, there is the LaCie 2big.
2big-nas.jpg
 
mentaluproar

mentaluproar

macrumors 68000
May 25, 2010
1,762
209
Ohio, USA
I have ordered from them several times in the past. My favorite purchase was a 3TB mercury elite al-pro about a year ago. It's been fantastic.
 
Macsonic

Macsonic

macrumors 68000
Sep 6, 2009
1,706
97
I've purchased rams and optical drives from OWC in the past and so far all are working fine. As long as OWC continues to have strong after sales tech support that should be fine. After sales support is the "bread and butter" for most companies
 
G

gwerhart0800

macrumors 6502
Mar 15, 2008
456
31
Loveland, CO
I have purchased memory upgrades and 2.5" disk enclosures. All have been fine. SSDs and HDs are a statistical crap shoot. If you look at reviews for SSDs on sites like NewEgg, you will see plenty of horror stories. The question that nobody can answer is of whether or not OWC's failure rate is any higher than any other manufacturer. There is no independent way to tell. The reviews are not a valid statistical sample because they are not random.
 
Fishrrman

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
28,343
12,458
"However, two products I purchased from them have experienced catastrophic problems and their tech support was less than helpful in terms of shouldering possible blame on the actual devices in question."

I kind of hesitate to go public with this kind of stuff, but I've bought three products from OWC -- and all three had problems.

- RAM -- eventually gave errors and had to remove it

- Ministack -- ran for a while, then quit on me.

- Voyager Quad -- also ran for a while, then had problems. It came with USB3, and that NEVER once worked when connected to my new Mac Mini. Now it won't even work properly via USB2 with other drives.

Perhaps I'm just jinxed with their stuff... (sigh)
 
O

Oldmanmac

macrumors 6502
Mar 31, 2012
445
14
Edmond, OK
If OWC monitors this thread....

Seems support is good at times, others not so much.
Keep in mind next time I need some thing!
 
Last edited:
\-V-/

\-V-/

Suspended
May 3, 2012
3,153
2,688
Currently using RAM and an SSD from them and they've been working great (including RAM I purchased from them for an ancient Mac).
 
GGJstudios

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
OWC does have a great reputation, but like any company that deals with a large volume, there will inevitably be situations where a few customers are not satisfied. I've had nothing but good experiences with them and their products.
 
xlii

xlii

macrumors 68000
Sep 19, 2006
1,867
121
Millis, Massachusetts
In the last 4 years I've purchased 5 3.5" drive enclosures and 3 2.5" drive enclosures from them. Two of them went bad and OWC's support stood behind their product and I received replacement enclosures without delay or hassle.
 
LeicaM8

LeicaM8

macrumors member
Nov 29, 2012
97
6
West Michigan
I've had no problems with my purchases from OWC, but only been buying from them for about 2yrs and none have had a hiccup (Ram, USB Drive, ssd sled for my MacPro) so can't comment on their aftercare. I've had a number of prepurchase questions answered kindly and professionally though.

I'll give any vendor slack when it comes to Hard Drives - they're reliability is a random crapshoot and their lifespans are too. I don't trust em. Same goes for SSDs for that matter. I do trust enclosures more than the drives in them, but none are going to be perfect and not all of em that do run well will run well forever.

Hope you found an acceptable solution for your drive issues.

Sincerely
Richard in Michigna
 
A

AppleMac1987

macrumors newbie
Mar 3, 2009
11
0
Europe/Netherlands
Yes, I trust OWC products. Top quality, excellent service, never had problems.
I bought: OWC SSD's for Mac Pro, Mac mini, iMac, MacBook Pro, MacBookAir+Aura for Retina and MacBookAir, Accelsior's, Data Doublers, NewerTech Batteries and a lot more.
 
JoeG4

JoeG4

macrumors 68030
Jan 11, 2002
2,842
518
Not really. I purchased 2 Newertech batteries from OWC, and a refurb apple magasfe adaptor.

The powerbook battery worked, in fact it works pretty well even now, but it didn't sit quite flush and the aluminum was obviously glued on and you can see the glue was a little sloppy, plus it didn't match the case exactly, and the battery meter didn't work as well.

The iPod 2nd gen battery was probably a bad idea. The last time I got my ipod out and plugged it in to charge, the battery bloated up and nearly killed the hard drive.

The magsafe brick was a dud, so I exchanged it for another, and that one obviously had a broken pin (one of the pins was stuck inside the plug head).

I don't think their quality control is very good.

However, I really wanted to like them, and I rarely see people complain about them, so maybe I just got really unlucky. *shrug*
 
maflynn

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,478
43,405
I've purchased from OWC on numerous occasions and contacted their support a handful of times. In all cases I've been extremely pleased with the purchase, build quality and customer support. Top notch company, products and they have great people to help if you need help
 
eawmp1

eawmp1

macrumors 601
Feb 19, 2008
4,158
91
FL
OWC has been my source for gear for over a decade. One drive enclosure had a bad chipset, but was replaced without any issues. Price, selection, cutover service have all been without peer.
 
Parasprite

Parasprite

macrumors 68000
Mar 5, 2013
1,698
144
I've only bought the Data Doubler kit for 2012 Mini and an SSD from them but the (video) instructions provided were very helpful and enough to get in and out without breaking anything.

On the other hand, the instructions for the RunCore SSD I bought for the 1st gen MBA (not many options available) were pretty unhelpful and written in broken English. Fortunately there is a good iFixit guide for that, otherwise I would have been pretty lost (keep in mind that the MBA HD is a lot easier to replace than the Mini's).

Disclaimer: I've only had it for 3 months.
 
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