OWC Introduces New Discounts on Thunderbolt Docks, Mac Memory Upgrade Kits, and More

[MacRumors]

Today we're tracking a new sale at OWC with notable discounts on Mac accessories including Thunderbolt docks, USB-C hubs, external drives and enclosures, internal memory upgrade kits for Mac, and more. Most products are in stock and ready to ship out today, and OWC offers free shipping on orders $149.00 and over.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with OWC. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

Highlights of the sale include a collection of Thunderbolt docks for up to $100 off. These docks allow you to easily connect a wide array of peripherals to your Mac, including two 4K displays or one 5K display with the 14-Port Thunderbolt 3 Dock.

OWC Mac Accessory Sale (Docks, Drives, and More)​

All of the devices listed below are in new condition at OWC, although the retailer does provide various item condition options for anyone who might want to save money by purchasing open box items. Be sure to visit OWC's sale landing page to browse the full sale, which also features deals on cables, Mac accessories, keyboards, and headphones.

Docks and Hubs

• Atlas Dual SD Card Reader - $79.99, down from $89.99
• Thunderbolt Mini Dock - $109.99, down from $129.99
• Thunderbolt Hub - $129.99, down from $149.99
• 14-Port Thunderbolt Dock - $178.99, down from $279.99
• Thunderbolt Go Dock - $299.99, down from $349.99

External Drives and Enclosures

• 4TB Mercury Elite Pro External Storage - $139.99, down from $199.99
• 12TB Mercury Elite Pro External Storage - $219.99, down from $369.99
• 16TB Mercury Elite Pro External Storage - $249.99, down from $379.99
• 8TB Mercury Elite Pro RAID External Storage - $269.99, down from $394.99
• 24TB Mercury Elite Pro RAID External Storage - $449.99, down from $699.99

Memory

• 32GB Memory Upgrade Kit - $78.99, down from $89.98
• 64GB Memory Upgrade Kit - $154.99, down from $179.96

Keep up with all of this week's best discounts on Apple products and related accessories in our dedicated Apple Deals roundup.

Article Link: OWC Introduces New Discounts on Thunderbolt Docks, Mac Memory Upgrade Kits, and More

 

[G5isAlive]

mixed luck with OWC, more returns with them than anyone else. but once I had a working product I was satisfied with it.

 

[PsykX]

I remember buying 32GB in 2013 for over 400 CAD for my 27-inch iMac. Now I could get 64 GB for half the price.
Prices have gone down quite a lot.

It really makes Apple look like thieves with their memory upgrades on Apple Silicon.

 

[sw1tcher]

I remember buying 32GB in 2013 for over 400 CAD. Now I could get 64 GB for half the price.
Prices have gone down quite a lot.

Not if you're buying from Apple though.

 

[Antoniosmalakia]

Not if you're buying from Apple though.


View attachment 2351981

Can you imagine how many more people would switch to Mac if the price of RAM and SSD upgrades were actually reasonable?

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

That's retail (buying quantity 1) pricing vs. massive corporate buying (for all Macs) pricing.

Yes, robbery. I like so much about Apple but this just about perfectly opposes much of the halo and makes them look exploitive IMO. But of course, that's easy when you act as your one and only "store" with no competition options for RAM & SSD.

It has also frozen me out of an easy sale of the new MBair on launch... and now has me seriously considering a PC laptop as my next laptop... where the price of say a 64GB Apple RAM upgrade can buy a pretty-loaded, high-rated whole laptop like this one (of many) around that price point...

Again, love that Apple, love that macOS but not enough to roll over and just pay any price for commodity items like RAM & SSD. Shareholders may rejoice but consumers do have a voice. If the latter is ignored, a wallet can shop elsewhere. In my own situation, I could get a lot of "on the road" (laptop) work done on a PC and then finish/polish it on the desktop Mac back at HQ.

But of course, I wouldn't even consider this if RAM & SSD were not 3X-5X market rates. And yes, over the last 20 years, I've paid an Apple "premium" many times... yet accumulated goodwill can be exploited only so far.

 

[macduke]

Problem: My second display doesn't always connect when I wake up my MBP when connected to my TB dock, but the primary display always does. I have to unplug and replug it to get it to recognize it. This is a pain when I have drives plugged into my dock, as I have to unmount everything, and the purpose of using TB with a MBP is to just have one cable for power and data so I can quickly grab and go.

Details: I bought an M3 Max 14" MBP last autumn to replace my desktop Intel iMac and my Intel MBP, so this is my first time using a Thunderbolt dock off of a laptop. I have an Anker 577 Thunderbolt Docking Station (13-in-1, Thunderbolt 3). The primary 4K display has USB-C video port built-in. The second 4K display is a couple years older and has HDMI but is essentially the same as both are LG and good displays in the same range of quality and price when purchased ($450-500). So the primary is connected directly to a TB port on the dock, and the secondary to an HDMI port.

Question: Is this a software problem with macOS, a hardware problem with my dock, or a hardware problem with the mix of displays that I am using? Because I'm wondering if I should jump on this deal for the OWC 14-Port Thunderbolt Dock. Thanks.

 

[roland.g]

OWC makes good stuff, but if you are in the market for a Thunderbolt dock, instead of their 14 Port Dock, I would go with CalDigit's TS3 Plus or TS4 Dock. Better design, and great product.

 

[Manzanito]

I remember buying 32GB in 2013 for over 400 CAD for my 27-inch iMac. Now I could get 64 GB for half the price.
Prices have gone down quite a lot.

It really makes Apple look like thieves with their memory upgrades on Apple Silicon.

Ironically enough, in the presentation of their new sms protocol they point out storage costs have reduced a lot over the years.

 

[Graphate]

mixed luck with OWC, more returns with them than anyone else. but once I had a working product I was satisfied with it.

Agreed. You just expect better quality for the price. In my experience, when it comes to three of my OWC docks there are two big problems (a) the USB-C and Thunderbolt 4 connections have been unstable on two, i.e. light touches cause them to disconnect, and (b) at least with one dock it simply will no longer power on.

In comparison, I have a two very cheap belkin docks to replace the OWC ones and the price trade off alone is probably enough to keep me away from OWC. I recall paying around $250 for the OWC docks. And I suppose for that price I could have bought around 15 Belkin docks rather than the 3 OWC (albeit they don't look as cool, aren't self powered, and don't have as many ports).

 

[mannyvel]

OWC docks are cheaper but they have odd issues. For my TB3 dock, when I plug a USB drive in occasionally the dock freaks out and disconnects.

I should ask support about it, now that I think about it.

 

[Analog Kid]

Aren't we past USB-A ports by now? I really wish companies would give up on those and give me more USB-C or Thunderbolt ports. At the desk, there are a few peripherals, including external drives, that I don't use at the same time, so they don't all need the bandwidth at once, but that I don't want to plug and unplug.

 

[joecomo]

at least they have good stuff

 

[Greybeard2017]

mixed luck with OWC, more returns with them than anyone else. but once I had a working product I was satisfied with it.

Same here - multiple problems - but once you finally get a good one they work well

 

[Alan Wynn]

Can you imagine how many more people would switch to Mac if the price of RAM and SSD upgrades were actually reasonable?

Almost none. People buy Windows machines because they want Windows (or are used to Windows or have software that only runs on Windows, etc.). They do not say: I really want a Mac, but getting more RAM is too expensive, I will buy a Windows machine instead.

 

[Alan Wynn]

That's retail (buying quantity 1) pricing vs. massive corporate buying (for all Macs) pricing.

Different animal, than on package RAM.

It has also frozen me out of an easy sale of the new MBair on launch... and now has me seriously considering a PC laptop as my next laptop... where the price of say a 64GB Apple RAM upgrade can buy a pretty-loaded, high-rated whole laptop like this one (of many) around that price point...


But of course, I wouldn't even consider this if RAM & SSD were not 3X-5X market rates. And yes, over the last 20 years, I've paid an Apple "premium" many times... yet accumulated goodwill can be exploited only so far.

Great that you have an option for a machine that will better suit your needs. Let us know how much you enjoy your experience.

 

[Alan Wynn]

mixed luck with OWC, more returns with them than anyone else. but once I had a working product I was satisfied with it.

I will probably never buy another product from them. Bought an SSD for an old Macbook Air that never worked and after them swapping it a few times, they just stopped responding.

Bought their Express 4m2, only to discover that it did not deliver the full Thunderbolt speed, unless one had 4 drives in it, and one bought a subscription to their terrible RAID software product. Nothing explained on their product page (at the time).

 

[theluggage]

Aren't we past USB-A ports by now? I really wish companies would give up on those and give me more USB-C or Thunderbolt ports.

I think the problem is that Thunderbolt ports have a high "minimum feature set" and are a lot more expensive to implement and have a higher minimum power delivery spec (so the hub needs a bigger power brick). The ability to have multiple downstream TB ports only came along with TB4, so it is fairly new. Same for non-TB USB-C ports if they're going to support video, USB 3.2 x2 modes, higher power delivery etc. Even USB 2/3-only USB-C ports are still more complex than USB A and I believe the minimum power output for USB-C compliance, while less than TB, is also higher than USB-A - plus the biggest demand for USB-C ports is probably charging phones, which needs high power. USB-A is still ubiquitous and economies of scale make it end-of-argument cheap.

I still need more USB A ports with 3.0 and 2.0 than anything else so the only "advantage" of using a USB-C is needing a new cable or adapter. However, time passes - at least now I have some USB C devices - including some that actually need more than USB 3.0, and if I were getting a new, relatively expensive dock in 2024 yeah, I'd probably be looking for something with more USB-C and less USB-A. It's gonna be a while before I can use a dock with zero USB A without a stack of USB-C-to-A adapters, though.

There are "better" hubs for USB-C/TB sockets than the OWC model shown - even OWC do a dock with three downstream TB ports and there's the Caldigit Elements TB hub, too. There's even this one from Satechi which is actually a plain old USB 3 hub with USB-C sockets, at a less silly price than TB.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Different animal, than on package RAM.

Do you KNOW that "on package" RAM costs substantially more than "off package" RAM?

Because another view of this point is that mighty Apple can't buy the "on package" RAM for about the same cost as the cost of "off package"... that they have to pay a lot more for it and thus is justified in seeking a much higher price from us consumers. I never see ANYTHING in the tech press that would support such a stance but perhaps you have?

Else, whether "different animal" or not, pricing for RAM & SSD is exploitive IMO and turns me off as a very long-term Apple customer in need of a new laptop soon. I'd much rather buy yet another Mac... but not at relatively ridiculous RAM & SSD upgrade pricing.

 

[G5isAlive]

Question: Is this a software problem with macOS, a hardware problem with my dock, or a hardware problem with the mix of displays that I am using? Because I'm wondering if I should jump on this deal for the OWC 14-Port Thunderbolt Dock. Thanks.

I had to reread your specifics to conclude it's likely a problem with Macs. The reason I say this is I had the same type of problem, 2nd monitor not always coming on and I had a different dock, coincidentally an OWC one. I bought into the idea of only having to connect one USB C cord when I bring my laptop between work stations (home office and work office). One display is the Apple Studios the other is a LG 4k. Both ALWAYS turn when connected directly to my MBP.

 

[G5isAlive]

Aren't we past USB-A ports by now? I really wish companies would give up on those and give me more USB-C or Thunderbolt ports. At the desk, there are a few peripherals, including external drives, that I don't use at the same time, so they don't all need the bandwidth at once, but that I don't want to plug and unplug.

We are. A lot aren't. People still hand me USB-A thumb drives, a lot of third party devices still use it. Apple really is the only one to move completely past it, while hampering us with lightening. So yeah, USB-A for at least another decade.

 

[G5isAlive]

It has also frozen me out of an easy sale of the new MBair on launch... and now has me seriously considering a PC laptop as my next laptop... where the price of say a 64GB Apple RAM upgrade can buy a pretty-loaded, high-rated whole laptop like this one (of many) around that price point...

Do you use windows often? Just cautioning you, for a variety of reasons I have a couple state of the art windows laptops but find windows to still be so darn ugly and irritating that I never use them. Apple has spoiled me. I do get how shiny the specifications look, but I havent found a user experience that justifies me sticking with a PC.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I do. Clients often need Windows compatibility so I purchased a desktop PC for the first time in 20 years in support of adopting a Silicon desktop Mac and thus losing Bootcamp. I find Windows to be a step down vs. macOS but not nearly as bad as some Apple fans can go at it. In hindsight, I probably should have purchased a PC laptop to kill 2 birds with one stone (Mac desktop and PC laptop, so the latter could take over "on the road" duties).

For the things I do on laptops, I believe a PC can stand in for a Mac just fine... and would guarantee Windows compatibility (I do not confidently consider ARM Windows to be up to the task). But I'd much prefer it to be a Mac anyway... just not enough to pay 3X-5X pricing for RAM & SSD. I can appreciate the "Apple Premium" over these decades and have paid it for MANY things but this is towards an "enough is enough" moment and seriously making me rethink future purchases from how it was even 5 years ago (pretty much automatic Apple).

It's not a decision I have to make immediately, so there's time for Apple to either throw customers a bone to get "my" (and others thinking like me) money or keep maximizing on each unit sold for those shareholders. My existing MB is still getting the job done but it doesn't have a lot of time left.

 

[G5isAlive]

Do you KNOW that "on package" RAM costs substantially more than "off package" RAM?

Because another view of this point is that mighty Apple can't buy the "on package" RAM for about the same cost as the cost of "off package"... that they have to pay a lot more for it and thus is justified in seeking a much higher price from us consumers. I never see ANYTHING in the tech press that would support such a stance but perhaps you have?

Else, whether "different animal" or not, pricing for RAM & SSD is exploitive IMO and turns me off as a very long-term Apple customer in need of a new laptop soon. I'd much rather buy yet another Mac... but not at relatively ridiculous RAM & SSD upgrade pricing.

Exploitive is such a harsh term lol. Apple is a business. A for profit company. Marketing is an art form. They need to have low prices to lure customers through the door to begin with really basic specs, but thats not really the profit they want to make, or the specs the customers want, so the customers upgrade on ram and storage and now Apple has the profit they want. Shrugs. I guarantee you the alternative is to RAISE the cost of the base model, and LOWER the upgrades but the net cost will stay the same. who wins with that? certainly not the customer that actually wants the base model. But nope, people want the low base cost and low upgrade cost. That's just not how Apple markets.

I am not making excuses for Apple, just suggesting the world doesn't always work the way we would like, but it sometimes follows predictable patterns. Blame capitalism if you have to blame someone.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

I chose the word carefully. It is a harsh term. But look at it purely as a consumer...

In Intel Macs where one could buy third party RAM or SSD, third party pricing was the norm. A PC buyer could not get much cheaper RAM or SSD than a Mac person. You want to load up an iMac with 64GB RAM? You are probably paying about the same as PC guy loading up his PC with 64GB RAM. Yes, Apple options were also priced high then too but Apple buyers could buy third party RAM for much less. For about 15 years, that was a "normal" way to get a lot of added value in a new Mac purchase.

Apple goes Silicon and- effectively- eliminates ALL competitors for RAM & SSD. Pricing leaps to 3X to 5X vs. competitive market pricing. Consumer wanting an Apple computer can no longer shop around for RAM & SSD. It's pay the "company store" price or don't buy at all. The word 'Exploitive' and the tradition of "Company Store" tends to go together. Where there is a single seller of anything with no competitors, pricing tends to run high. Bring in some competitors and prices tend to go down.

As is obvious from other posts of mine, I'm no Apple hater. Like you, I feel almost in the minority of viewing Vpro through "half full" or better lenses. But all things I write are from a consumer perspective... NOT a shareholder maximizer, nor caring much about "another record quarter of revenue & profit" for the corp. I want Apple Inc to be successful without feeling like I'm getting "robbed" in a purchase like this. I don't think AAPL needs 3X-5X RAM & SSD pricing to make a healthy profit... just as they didn't in the Intel Mac days only a few years ago.

And it's hard to know market rates for RAM & SSD and then look at Apple's rates for the same. For only the 8TB SSD upgrade alone ($2200 per Apple) not including the Mac too- just the SSD portion, I was able to purchase a fairly robust whole desktop gaming PC with 10TB of SSDs and 32GB of RAM.

Price Silicon and macOS itself higher since those are the unique elements here, not RAM & SSD... which are- basically- computing commodity elements. Net result could be the same high prices and profit but now the "premium" is associated with what is unique about Apple computers (the parts NOT available from competitors)... not in 3X-5X pricing of the same components available for PCs.

3X-5X RAM & SSD pricing doesn't feel very classic Apple-like... but it certainly delights the shareholders in modern AAPL. As a long-term Apple consumer- pretty much a 2-decade Apple everything guy- it just rubs me very wrong... and is evolving my halo'd view of Apple as such decisions persist.