OWC SSD "Upgrade" 2012 Macbook Air - Buyer Beware

[marc.garcia]

dtatl Defective Drive

Hello dtatl,

Please allow me to apologize for the defective drives you have received. This should not have happened and is very frustrating. I want to ensure this situation is rectified. Can you please contact me at ccsups@macsales.com with your order or account information. I look forward to the opportunity of speaking with you.

I'm just finished reading through this thread. In my opinion, you guys tried to silence buyers who clearly started pointing out errors on your products instead of actually assuming they might have spotted big design or production deficiencies instead. I find this unacceptable and will not choose Aura SSD for my MBA at this point.

Best

 

[flowrider]

^^^^OWC is on my Ignore List. Since my experience with their Aura SSD in my MBA, there are a NoGo for me! And some of their prices are ridiculous!

Lou

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

I purchased a 240GB from them over 2 years ago(maybe 3?) for my 2012 and just replaced it tonight for more storage. I've never had one issue with mine.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^Glad you made it through unscathed. As you can see others of us were not so lucky.

Lou

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

Yeah glad I didn't see this thread back then either lol

 

[ROSC00]

Just an update:
I am now about to be on the third one of these drives after the first two both failed within a couple of months. They also sent the wrong size replacement drive (240GB rather than 480GB). OWC has thus far refused to give me a refund, but if (when?) the next one fails, I am told that I may get some money back, less the 15% restocking fee. Big headache. Bad, bad business.

The point is, everything that seems inexpensive, OWC SSDs or even batteries, are poor reliability. Explained multiple times before that Samsung/Toshiba Apple OEM drives are rated for sub 1/10 000 failures, quite easily. OWC, thus far, from so many accounts has over 30%, 1/3. Easily 3,000 times worse reliability.

This simple rule of thumb stat was devised by monitoring the forum for members posting recurring failures. It is actually getting closer to winning the lottery to have that. Forum members here got one- fail- second-fail, 3d year, nth fail... These boards probably cost a few dollars to make and resel for 200-300$.

The 500$ 256Gb Apple grade, marked at 30-40% by the manufacturer, is actually costing over 200$ per board (and incrementally 100$ more at x2 Gb)
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I'm just finished reading through this thread. In my opinion, you guys tried to silence buyers who clearly started pointing out errors on your products instead of actually assuming they might have spotted big design or production deficiencies instead. I find this unacceptable and will not choose Aura SSD for my MBA at this point.

Best

Hey Marc,

So let's exclude Apple from the equation, and focus on Samsung, Toshiba, Sandisk, etc. These companies spend hundreds of millions in R&D, and their expensive SSD,s and management controllers, do provide that x3000 better reliability. We do know that big producers warrant their SSDs and controllers for less than 1/10000 failures. Or, for anyone to get repeat SSD failures with the big makers, is like winning the lottery (1 in 10 million or so).

On the other hand, take multiple users here posting of second and third failure. That implies a hideously high failure rate, easily 1/3... Some amateurs that soldier together memory slots, some gimmick controller, all repackaged and sold for 200-300$. But that half price versus Samsung, Toshiba etc is a industrial abyss in terms of reliability. I have no analogy- not even cars as an example- to match the odds of getting such repeat OWC lemons.

Even if I was to bet on 50% odds their SSD working for a year, it is an unacceptable professional and academic risk while on the go. It is way cheaper to buy Apple Care, and sell at a premium the used MBA/MBP, and used that money to buy a higher SSD spec mac..

 

[SuperCachetes]

The Aura 480GB I bought for my daughter's Christmas present is failing. Not being recognized on startup most of the time. Haven't begun the conversation with OWC yet, but this is frustrating.

 

[ROSC00]

The Aura 480GB I bought for my daughter's Christmas present is failing. Not being recognized on startup most of the time. Haven't begun the conversation with OWC yet, but this is frustrating.

In many countries outside North America they sell premium fuel at half price. Crazy deal. But, it turns out, iti s cheap fuel laced with water and stuff, backdoor alley brick a BMW engine.

Your Mac is a BMW, why did you go buy this 3d world crap junk and put it in? Has nothing in common with tier 1 SSD parts...

 

[flowrider]

The Aura 480GB I bought for my daughter's Christmas present is failing. Not being recognized on startup most of the time. Haven't begun the conversation with OWC yet, but this is frustrating.

Not surprised, RETURN the darn thing as fast as you can!!!!!!

Lou

 

[ROSC00]

AND FULL REFUND NON NEGOTIABLE dispute it with you CC if you have to. Also, PLSE POST A REVIEW ON AMAZON... And if OWC wants to convince you that it is a ONE-OFF, do not let them. 30-50% failure rate vs 1/10 000 industry standard for tier 1 SSDs (Toshiba Samsung Sandisk Crucial Kingston etc).

Far cheaper to sell that mac as is, make something and buy another entry level one with bigger capacity, then to actually get this thing ever working reliably.

 

[blake2]

This is a very interesting thread.
I'm happy for the people who had good luck with OWC products, but getting this kind of negative feedback from macrumors community can't be a good thing, especially when the questions raised are quite disappointing like the wrong dimensions of a product, unsatisfactory refund policy and filtering of reviews on their website.

What's especially interesting... and concerns me is that they filter the reviews and have a non-standard refund policy like refunding only the latest price for their products, which usually means a lot less in electronics. I said non-standard, but this used to be very standard where I grew up back in the 80's and 90's, and we usually thought of it as a third-world problem(because this doesn't happen anymore now, and we have laws to protect the consumers against this... yes the government is huge in Asia) but I guess it wasn't that simple.

As for filtering of the reviews, this happens quite frequently in Asia anywhere other than amazon, so I'm not too surprised but this only means that the colorful reviews on their site only reflect the happier part of their customers. I also posted a review of one of their drives but they somehow made it very hard to find by splitting their reviews of hard drives by storage size and showing only the best one posted, although that may very well not be on purpose.

Actually I have experience with some OWC products like their 3G mercury and some of their enclosures, and none of them failed before their warranty expired. Their support was also very helpful and always promptly returned any questions that I asked them, so I'm a bit disappointed to read this thread. It would've been better if their policy was transparent too, but now, after reading fellow macrumors members' experiences, I probably won't risk the trouble of struggling with their customer support from overseas.

 

[alembic]

So what vendor aside from OWC sells PCIe SSD for MBP or MBA?

If I decide to use an external enclosure then I can buy any industry standard PCIe SSD but the throughput suffers badly because no connection would ever be faster than an internal PCIe SSD?

 

[ROSC00]

So what vendor aside from OWC sells PCIe SSD for MBP or MBA?

If I decide to use an external enclosure then I can buy any industry standard PCIe SSD but the throughput suffers badly because no connection would ever be faster than an internal PCIe SSD?

No sure I get the goal: is it external storage or PCIe type SSD speed? Nothing comes close to internal. Also, there maybe one-two other vendors doing them, but they are all garbage! Part of the licenses Toshiba, Samsung and Apple agreed is for no one to make OEM parts outside RMA chains. The entire technological aspect of these SSD's particularly the firmware and sophisticated controllers, QC etc, is what makes them unique. I COULD MAKE YOU AN SSD that would fit, and even use top materials- top nand etc but know what? The actual parts will cost 50% more than it costs Apple, and the final controller and firmware I would never have access to it. So what makes their nand so reliable, fast and- yes, pricey as upgrades but cheap when bought in bulk millions by Apple or Samsung- is unavailable to anyone, not the least to OWC type sellers, hence their 30%+ failure rate vs 1/10000.

Even top grade PCs with Samsung or Kingston PCIe SSD,s they took quite a bit of tweaking and upgrades to get working. More than once I returned that 2.5" to a store due to freezes etc. Each case, some faulty controller, and took a long time for Sandisk or Samsung to get these things nearly flawlessly reliable.

On a Mac OS you also add a new architecture and file formats, new power demands. In the end, the cheapest, headache free way to upgrade the SSD is to buy a new unit.

 

[alembic]

Not sure I get the goal: is it external storage or PCIe type SSD speed?

I think the lack of quality internal upgrades would lead me to an external solution. Could I then just use a SATA SSD if I wanted to connect the enclosure to a USB3 port (I'm considering a 2015 model)? Or is the cost differential small enough to just buy a standard PCIe SSD upfront?

 

[ROSC00]

Yes. Use an external good quality enclosure with USB 3.0/ USB C or external PCIe and a good SSD brand, and you will get above and beyond expectations. Just do not try to replace the internal ssd.

 

[Johnny365]

I use a Tardisk 128GB for the SD Card and haven't had an issue since I installed it back in April

 

[Pugly]

I really hopped that these would be a good solution. But no way am I going to use one of these with the issues others have posted. It'd be great to put a 1TB drive in a MBA.

I think buying a salvaged 512GB OEM drive is probably a better option than this. About the same price... and if you factor in selling the old drive... it's not a horrible deal... probably a slight better than buying the upgrade from Apple originally.

Using Logic and sample libraries, the 256GB requires some care in managing it. I keep the main libraries I use on the internal ssd, and then just keep a 1TB HDD for the extra files and apple loops. Then I have to be vigilant about moving old projects to backups. Steam and Blizzard games are kept on that HDD too.

I also use a SanDisk Ultra Fit 128GB for my music collection in FLAC format...

With all the stuff I want to keep on the MBA I don't even think the 512GB would be enough. Hopefully more options become available in the future....

 

[PBG4 Dude]

I bought the 480GB Transcend JetDrive for my 2012 MBA 2-3 years ago off Amazon and haven't had a single issue with it. I was able to trim enable it, at one point I had it set up to triple boot Win10, Ubuntu, and macOS. I've since dropped Ubuntu, so only dual booting now. Came with an external USB3 enclosure for the old internal SSD so I have that in a slick external aluminum case that matches the look and feel of my MBA. Check it out!

 

[Guza]

I think the problem is here is the SandForce controller. i don't know why OWC uses such a **** controller that is non-compatible with Apple's controller but obviously they don't handshake very well if the speeds are automatically throttled down. I'm looking to buy an SSD for my 2011 MBA but does anyone know the controller for the 2011 MBA and the controller for a WD or Samsung or Crucial SSD?