Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Reliable cheap place to buy memory?
- Thread starter paulwgraber
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Crucial and OWC are the top two brands for reliability. OWC is famous for their customer support and Mac focus while Crucial comes out ahead on price.
So for cheap reliable I'd recommend Crucial memory. They also have compatibility lookup tools on their website.
Anything substantially cheaper starts to have compatibility/reliability concerns.
So for cheap reliable I'd recommend Crucial memory. They also have compatibility lookup tools on their website.
Anything substantially cheaper starts to have compatibility/reliability concerns.
Agree with the above. I have used memory from OWC on several of my Macs. I have also used Crucial memory purchased from Amazon. You can't go wrong with either one.
https://www.datamemorysystems.com/
I've used Data Memory Systems for years. Excellent support. Lots bought, none returned, never a problem.
Rule #!:
No such animal as cheap Mac compatible memory. Do not buy from PC shops or auction sites.
No such animal as cheap Mac compatible memory. Do not buy from PC shops or auction sites.
Every Mac I’ve ever owned I searched Crucial.com and OWC macsales.com for the cheapest option and bought whoever was cheaper. Never had a problem with either source.
Go with Crucial.
Avoid OWC. I've had major problems with their RAM, going back to the 2008 Mac Pro. Multiple bad sticks over the years across desktops and laptops. The most recent failure was late last year, blown OWC sticks in a 2017 iMac. I didn't buy the sticks, a colleague did. Nine months in, bam, blown sticks. Should have known, and man was I pissed, because this was like the fourth or fifth time. It is never happening again, if our company buys their RAM again I'm intercepting the delivery and throwing it out.
Note, as I was getting third-party Applecare service for this latest OWC RAM failure, the repair techs mentioned they too had seen a lot of blown OWC RAM sticks, and for their personal computers, they won't touch it. Also, search these forums, you'll see longtime and heavy Mac users complain about it. Not my intent to bash OWC, but my personal experience and many anecdotes say to stay away from their RAM.
(Not affiliated with Crucial in any way.)
Avoid OWC. I've had major problems with their RAM, going back to the 2008 Mac Pro. Multiple bad sticks over the years across desktops and laptops. The most recent failure was late last year, blown OWC sticks in a 2017 iMac. I didn't buy the sticks, a colleague did. Nine months in, bam, blown sticks. Should have known, and man was I pissed, because this was like the fourth or fifth time. It is never happening again, if our company buys their RAM again I'm intercepting the delivery and throwing it out.
Note, as I was getting third-party Applecare service for this latest OWC RAM failure, the repair techs mentioned they too had seen a lot of blown OWC RAM sticks, and for their personal computers, they won't touch it. Also, search these forums, you'll see longtime and heavy Mac users complain about it. Not my intent to bash OWC, but my personal experience and many anecdotes say to stay away from their RAM.
(Not affiliated with Crucial in any way.)
No problems ever with memory purchased from OWC and I've been using their memory since 2008. Not always the least expensive, but then again you get what you pay for.
Just saw this post.
I’m in same boat, OWC, 2 sticks blown after a mere 3 months! I am mighty mad as I was always under the impression OWC was a quality product. It’s only 32g but personally I just don’t have even that kind of money to waste.
Had to roll the dice and go with another, less expensive brand that many seem happy with. We’ll see.
I have a mid-2017 i5 5K iMac with only 8 working gigs right now.