Diskless TB enclosures (Intel doesn't allow it?)

Is OWC wrong how? Im assuming that you want to recycle hard drives in empty enclosures. Where did you see that Intel won't allow them without disks?

 

That's strange. I would love to hear why they are prohibited from selling it diskless. Doesn't make much sense to me.

 

I've been looking into this dock from Highpoint http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_RS5212-overview.htm

 

Areca sells a multi-bay Thunderbolt enclosure. Comes empty.

A.

 

There are empty TB RAID enclosures.

And I also found single-bay 2.5" empty TB enclosures, but they only have one port.

 

There are several manufacturers offering diskless Thunderbolt enclosures. Use your Google skills.

More on point is that not every drive is suitable for a Thunderbolt enclosure. Perhaps OWC and others don't want the headache of explaining why a foreign drive isn't working correctly at a critical moment.

Granted, all HDD and SSD should be perfect

Alas, there are some stinkers out there that just may cause a problem for some users who may lack the tech skills to resolve issues that might arise.

All OWC could say is that "it should work".

On the business side, it's all about contribution margin. Every sale should be profitable in order to be successful in the long term. And there needs to be sufficient volume.

The actual volume of sales for empty chassis is probably NOT in the millions or even in the hundreds of thousands. Selling a few hundred here or there doesn't pay the bills. Factor in the likely support calls to troubleshoot an issue that may be due to faulty firmware, and this cost is not insignificant.

Don't get me wrong, it would be great if things "just worked!"

 

Their website list Thunderbolt enclosures as coming soon, none are listed as bare enclosures

 

Akitio = Inxtron = Macpower

DataTale = Onnto

There are also some specific rebadges of those at some well-known brands

 

Promise Pegasus J4 is available diskless, though you cannot boot from it.