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OWC SSD "Upgrade" 2012 Macbook Air - Buyer Beware

Just a note that I installed a 480GB OWC drive in our 13in MBA (2012) and swapped the internal drive to an envoy case without issue. It was not a tight fit, no need to wiggle things around, the HD just slipped in nicely. Seems the QC on these drives are getting better as this looks like a quality product.... or I got lucky. OWC's on line install video was also pretty good. Made in China.

BTW I used carbon copy cloner to clone the internal drive without issue. Well the only issue was remembering the password. :)

Daughter says the machine seems snappier, quicker. Now she can keep both her iTunes and iPhoto library on board.

From the photos on OWCs web site, one could get the impression the Envoy plugs directly into the MBA. But no, there is a 12 inch USB cable.
 
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ColdCase said:
Just a note that I installed a 480GB OWC drive in our 13in MBA (2012) and swapped the internal drive to an envoy case without issue. It was not a tight fit, no need to wiggle things around, the HD just slipped in nicely. Seems the QC on these drives are getting better as this looks like a quality product.... or I got lucky. OWC's on line install video was also pretty good. Made in China.

BTW I used carbon copy cloner to clone the internal drive without issue. Well the only issue was remembering the password. :)

Daughter says the machine seems snappier, quicker. Now she can keep both her iTunes and iPhoto library on board.

From the photos on OWCs web site, one could get the impression the Envoy plugs directly into the MBA. But no, there is a 12 inch USB cable.
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How much did you pay for the 480?
 
macneubie said:
Wow, it sure looks like a dodgy company that suppresses negative reviews and promote the good ones.
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Apple does this too, I have posted a couple of reviews about them selling Square card readers. It's unbelievable they are charging $10 for something that the original company hands out for free. Not one has ever showed up on their site.
 
I personally had a terrible experience with an OWC SSD last year. The unit I purchased for my 2011 11.3" Air failed after barely a year of use. All my data was corrupted and OWC accepted culpability for the failure and provided a replacement, but they steadfastly refused to refund the import duty I had to pay to accept delivery of the replacement unit. I ended up paying a double dose of taxes on a flawed product.

They even had the temerity to complain that I had not handled paperwork correctly at the border, and after that ridiculous assertion they ceased responding to emails.

Never again.
 
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Brandon0448 said:
Apple does this too, I have posted a couple of reviews about them selling Square card readers. It's unbelievable they are charging $10 for something that the original company hands out for free. Not one has ever showed up on their site.
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You do realize that it's Square who created the retail kit? And that there's a code inside to redeem and get the $10 back through your square account? So no, they weren't suppressing critical reviews, they were filtering out patently false information.
 
OWC has been good for most other products I have bought like their mecury elite pro. Surprised the response they gave you.
 
Yikes! What a roller coaster of talking points. I read the whole thread (yes, I'm bored) and it seemed like nothing got resolved. First, the customer isn't always right. I'm a consumer and know that this is an old wives tale. Second, it was a mistake in my eyes that OWC admitted to seeing the 3 star review from the OP but initially decided not to post it because they fixed the issue at a later time. If OWC was concerned, they should have posted the review and then responded with an action. Sweeping it away just looks bad. Third, in the future [OWC] should really respond to customers on a one on one basis. By airing your dirtly laundry here all you have gotten is making matters worst. It is a mistake for any company rep to solve a problem over a public thread. We are glad you read, but don't try to solve the issue on a forum. That is the real lack of professionalism here. Hopefully lesson learned.
 
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inlinevolvo said:
By airing your dirtly laundry here all you have gotten is making matters worst. It is a mistake for any company rep to solve a problem over a public thread. We are glad you read, but don't try to solve the issue on a forum. That is the real lack of professionalism here. Hopefully lesson learned.
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I would have thought that if the Original Poster makes sweeping allegations against OWC in a public forum, then, if OWC do not public defend themselves, it can be bad press. Already, in this thread, there are some comments that said that it caused them to not proceed with OWC orders. I myself have bought from OWC and have had no problems, and have always found their email helpdesk to be very helpful.
 
katewes said:
I would have thought that if the Original Poster makes sweeping allegations against OWC in a public forum, then, if OWC do not public defend themselves, it can be bad press. Already, in this thread, there are some comments that said that it caused them to not proceed with OWC orders. I myself have bought from OWC and have had no problems, and have always found their email helpdesk to be very helpful.
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The beauty of the Internet is you can say whatever you want. Take what you read with a grain of salt. I find it hard to believe your views of a company were totally skewed by a random strangers post.
 
inlinevolvo said:
I find it hard to believe your views of a company were totally skewed by a random strangers post.
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Sadly, I do not. The number of people who start threads on discussion forums asking strangers what to do indicates to me they'd be more than gullible enough to stop, or start, doing business with a company based on a random stranger's post.
 
TC25 said:
Sadly, I do not. The number of people who start threads on discussion forums asking strangers what to do indicates to me they'd be more than gullible enough to stop, or start, doing business with a company based on a random stranger's post.
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It's a sad reflection on our society. I find of the dozens or so forums I frequent, macrumors tends to have a younger less mature crowd. For me, 90% of this forum is fluff. The comments are entertaining though!
 
Also had problem with OWC SSD drive for MacBook Air

I have a first generation MacBook Air, and bought an SSD from OWC for it...the original was a regular hard drive, but I couldn't find one at a decent price. My dad had recommended OWC highly.

However, after installing the SSD in my MacBook, the laptop was overheating and the fan was constantly on...then one day it came up with the dreaded flashing folder. It would not let me reinstall the operating system, and it was completely dead in the water.

OWC was really great about replacing the drive, but I kept having problems. It kept having problems with overheating, excessive fan usage, and on three more occasions the computer froze and would not come back up...it had difficulty in the startup sequence, and eventually would come back with the folder on the screen. I had to reformat, reinstall the MacOS and I lost all data. I tried everything to get it to recover the data...I used to teach tech support at Apple, so I have no problems with recovering data or installing upgrades to my system. Something wasn't right with the drive(s). On the first failure, I took it back to Apple, thinking that perhaps there was something wrong with the MacBook motherboard. They tested it and said that the only thing indicating a problem was the drive. About that time we were moving to another state, and I had to get the house ready to sell...I didn't have time to deal with the Air.

Later in the year I upgraded to a MacBook Pro because I didn't trust the Air. It was overheating again. I was afraid to save anything on the drive without constantly backing up. I considered selling it to a friend who needed a reasonably-priced computer for their college student, but I was literally afraid that my friend's kid would have problems with it, lose papers or other important school documents...I would feel like crap if that happened! So I wouldn't sell it to them.

Now I need to use the Air for a project, and I just don't trust the SSD. I also went by the reviews, which were GLOWING reviews of the drive on OWC's site. After reading some of the folks on the forum writing about how their legitimate negative reviews were removed, I'm concerned that there were other people with problems and it just never showed up.
 
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Clarification on reviews comment

katkramer said:
Now I need to use the Air for a project, and I just don't trust the SSD. I also went by the reviews, which were GLOWING reviews of the drive on OWC's site. After reading some of the folks on the forum writing about how their legitimate negative reviews were removed, I'm concerned that there were other people with problems and it just never showed up.
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Hi katkramer and thanks for your input. If you search through this thread to January 4, you'll see that only one poster had claimed their review was not posted. And as you'll read in my reply on the thread, he unfortunately didn't follow our clearly listed guidelines. His second post was unfortunately not found in our system. And his third post, while it still didn't meet our guidelines (the one issue was no external links are allowed), you'll note in my reply we even overlooked that aspect just to get his review posted.

Sorry to hear of your experience with our drive. As you are likely aware, SSDs do run far cooler than a traditional platter based drive so just odd your machine would overheat. Really a bummer when the unexpected happens.
 
Since it seems this thread is still alive i'd like to post my experience with OWC and my SSD.
The drive had been installed and in use for about six months(as of about a week ago.) and now it's dead.

Background info/what happened:
The other day my MBA froze up completely, I had to force it to shutdown with the power button. After that point the drive has not been able to be seen in Linux, the OS X Disk Utility through the Mountain Lion installer, or through Windows;Via USB enclosure and internally. I've also tried all the Apple troubleshooting stuff to see if that would help.
Nothing has worked, so as best I know, the drive is dead.

OWC will not do anything for me because I am not the original purchaser(An old acquaintance bought and installed it for me) and I cannot get in touch with them, no matter what I've tried.
I understand that that is OWC's policy, and i'm fine with that, I just think it's disappointing that the drive only lasted for less than six months.

Just my two cents and experience.
Also, sorry to be a little off topic.
 
Possible Help Available

Sorry to hear of that experience aaricchavez. It is most disappointing when things do not work out as desired.

To help us further explore this matter, can you please contact us again and let us know the serial number, name of original purchaser, etc.?

Looking forward to hearing from you soon,

OWC Grant
 
Just had an OWC SSD fail on a 2012 MacBook Air, just like this person did:

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=16466231

I've sent them an email and hope they can help resolve this. I'm sticking this up here for anyone who found this thread through Google, as I did.

I can boot the machine off a USB stick formatted with OS X on it, and with a terminal window, the command "system_profiler SPSerialATADataType" shows no SSD connected.

However, on a second 2012 MacBook Air, with the OEM SSD, booted off the same USB drive, "system_profiler SPSerialATADataType" shows the SSD connected.
 
aaricchavez said:
Since it seems this thread is still alive i'd like to post my experience with OWC and my SSD.
The drive had been installed and in use for about six months(as of about a week ago.) and now it's dead.

Background info/what happened:
The other day my MBA froze up completely, I had to force it to shutdown with the power button. After that point the drive has not been able to be seen in Linux, the OS X Disk Utility through the Mountain Lion installer, or through Windows;Via USB enclosure and internally. I've also tried all the Apple troubleshooting stuff to see if that would help.
Nothing has worked, so as best I know, the drive is dead.

OWC will not do anything for me because I am not the original purchaser(An old acquaintance bought and installed it for me) and I cannot get in touch with them, no matter what I've tried.
I understand that that is OWC's policy, and i'm fine with that, I just think it's disappointing that the drive only lasted for less than six months.

Just my two cents and experience.
Also, sorry to be a little off topic.
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We have been attempting to get in touch with you. We have sent a few emails to your gmail address and have not seen a reply, the latest email was sent today. Is there a better method to contact you at? You may also contact us and ask for Ben M in tech support to address this issue.
 
OWC Ben M said:
We have been attempting to get in touch with you. We have sent a few emails to your gmail address and have not seen a reply, the latest email was sent today. Is there a better method to contact you at? You may also contact us and ask for Ben M in tech support to address this issue.
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This was aaricchavez's only post, so what are the odds they joined MR just to badmouth OWC and not to get help? Pretty high I'd guess.
 
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Owc - crap

I can attest that I would not buy another OWC SSD! I bought a Mercury Aura Pro Express 6G - 240GB about 16 months ago and then it died about 6 months after it was installed. OWC replaced it and now the second SSD has also died on me. So I am pretty sure I am going to go back to the OEM drive from Apple. I don't want to restore every six months!! I would never buy a OWC drive again. Junk.
 
besweeet2 said:
My 240GB SSD by OWC for the 2012 MacBook Air died on me yesterday (see my rant thread here).

I would simply advise potential MacBook Air owners to just have your Air configured with a larger SSD directly from Apple, as you'll most likely get guaranteed reliability from them.
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No, you won't get "guaranteed reliability" directly from Apple. My original MBA SSD died on me less then 10 days out of warranty, and employees at Apple store in Stanford Mall quoted me $400 to fix the lowest 120GB model. They also refused to fix it under warranty because, well, 10 days out of warranty is out of warranty.

So, the original Apple drive was not any more reliable for me then OWC SSDs even at twice the price :(
 
Can I ask what was going through your mind when you decided it was a good idea to shave components in order to fit the module? If it doesn't fit, that should be a strong hint that it isn't compatible.
 
trondah said:
Can I ask what was going through your mind when you decided it was a good idea to shave components in order to fit the module? If it doesn't fit, that should be a strong hint that it isn't compatible.
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It helps if you quote the person you are asking a question to. :rolleyes:
 
Just an observation ...

Hi, I am new the these forums, but not new to Apple. I am a certified Apple technician as well, not that that means I'm a "genius" though. :)

Something that I noticed, Grant, was in your installation video: http://eshop.macsales.com/installvideos/macbook_air_2012_ssd_h/

If you watch it in high quality, you can clearly see that your technician has sanded down the top right section in order to make it fit. Clearly this is a flaw in your design, and "pushing hard enough" was not working for your technician either.

I'm fine with DOA items, it happens, but this is a clear design flaw that OWC is failing to take responsibility for. Why aren't these drives notched like the previous generation to account for the battery structure? Are you suggesting that if it doesn't fit, that your customers should sand down the edge of their new drive, and likely void the warranty on it, in order to make it fit like your technician in the video?
 
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