OWC SSD's Die Fast?

[davidkr]

I just had one of those die on me after 3months

I was going to upgrade by 2012 MBAs SSD from 128 to 240. OWC seems to be the only option, but this topic is little troubling. Any experiences with the Aura Pro 6G drives from OWC?

I just had one of those die on me after 3 months. Now trying to get it replaced from UK. Very annoying. I would never buy them again if they fail that often. I went back to my old hard drive. I am now thinking of adding some storage with a custom SD card that does not stick out.

 

[m4v3r1ck]

You can setup Carbon Copy Cloner to automatically clone your SSD to an external partition like you want. Once you setup the clone, just click "schedule this task..." and pick the frequency/conditions you want to the clone.

This creates a bootable clone you could boot and run the system from if you had to.

+1
CCC has been a bacon saver for me many times! Easy as making a back-up should be. On-topic: never owned a better SSD (Q/$) than 840 EVO's with 5 years warranty.

 

[shaunp]

Most SSD's don't die after 6 months, this is a myth. I've got a Crucial M500 running in my PC that I bought in 2011. I've also got a couple of OCZ Vertex 2's that I bought in 2010, they still work fine I don't use them because they are too small - 120GB. I've also got one of the original Samsung SSD's from 2009 lying around somewhere too that works.

Overall I've been using SSD's in my machines since 2008, I've had around 10 of them. Out of these I've had one failure and that's because it was in a hot-plug drive bay that probably wasn't as hot-plug as I thought and I damaged the drive pulling it out of the bay.

The closest thing I've had to a failure of an SSD on the Mac is the M500 that I've now got in my PC was initially in a MBP. It started to get very slow because I didn't have trim enabled and I used to fill the drive to over 90% on a regular basis. I could have tried trim enabler, but I put a Samsung 840 Pro in there and it didn't have the same issue. The Crucial has worked fine in a PC since then.

I can't comment on the OWC drives as I've never owned one, but Samsung, Intel OCZ and Crucial have all been good. Read the reviews and the user forums to determine what they are like when things do go wrong, and take your pick. If there are good reviews and not much in the user forums then that means not much goes wrong.

 

[tomvos]

There has been an update to the RMA quotas report of different kinds of hardware. Besides others, SSDs are among the categories.


http://www.hardware.fr/articles/920-1/taux-retour-composants-10.html

or if you don't speak french, try the english translation:

http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=de&rurl=translate.google.de&sandbox=0&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://www.hardware.fr/articles/920-1/taux-retour-composants-10.html&usg=ALkJrhgj4fr4SbPXgcK4UhO2Gw_Y6spo8g

While OWC is not listed, this report shows that there are differences in the reliability of SSDs. However, this report does not say anything about long term reliability.

 

[mjohnson1212]

I've had a 256 Mercury 6G SSD that was purchased the first day you could order them from OWC in 2011.

It has functioned flawlessly once Apple released a firmware update to the 2011 Macbook pro to support sata III.

I however can not recommend the OWC firmware upgrade software as that bricked one pretty quickly. OWC however did send me a new drive for the bricked one for free.

 

[phrehdd]

I have had plenty of good experience with OWC.

As for SSD purchases not so good. I bought two of their 240 SSD higher end drives for a Mac Mini server. One died after only 4 months of usage. The other one has continued working for about 3 years now without a problem.

If you look at other sellers of SSDs you'll find similar situations where some purchases are DOA or just months after. I don't think this reflects as much on the seller but perhaps the maker of the SSDs. However, OWC does provide a warranty and the measure should be on how well they honour those warranties and the customer experience of going through an RMA etc.

 

[flowrider]

I was going to upgrade by 2012 MBAs SSD from 128 to 240. OWC seems to be the only option, but this topic is little troubling. Any experiences with the Aura Pro 6G drives from OWC?

I just had one of those die on me after 3 months. Now trying to get it replaced from UK. Very annoying. I would never buy them again if they fail that often. I went back to my old hard drive. I am now thinking of adding some storage with a custom SD card that does not stick out.

There is now another option from Transcend:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1729071/

My Review:

My Review of the Transcend JetDrive 520 480GB SSD in a 2012 11" MBA.

My Review also includes a comparison of the JetDrive with the OWC Aura Pro Drive.

I ordered the OWC Aura Pro Drive the day before the Transcend Drives were announced. Before I received the drive, I called OWC to see if they would price match, and the answer was no. So, I thought Shame on Me. OWC's pricing was $449. for a bare drive and $475. for one that included tools and an enclosure for the old SSD. (OWC's pricing has since been reduced to $398. and $419. respectively) I opted for the bare drive. I installed the drive, and as others have noticed, the vertical dimension of the circuit board the components are mounted on is a millimeter or 2 larger than the stock SSD. Others have cut the board, I didn't, I applied a little pressure and it snapped into place. OWCs installation video is, IMO, far better than the Transcend video. Once set up, the SSD seemed to work fine, for awhile, but less than a day later, the drive started giving me problems. I tried repairing it with both Disk utility and Tech Tool Pro, both to no avail. Two days later it happened again. I called OWC and asked for an RMA. They agreed but said I would have to pay a restocking fee and pay for return shipment. I challenged that, saying this was not a capricious return, that the unit was defective and I expected OWC to pay for shipping and refund the full amount. They agreed, and sent me a UPS label.

When ordering the Transcend JetDrive I was quoted a delivery time of from 2 to 4 weeks. The unit was shipped 3 days after the order was placed and I received it one day later, that's 4 days after order placement! The price of the JetDrive 480 GB SSD from Amazon was $350. + Sales Tax (OWC charges no tax in Arizona). If I could have waited longer, I could have bought it from my memory Supplier, Data Memory Systems and not paid Sales Tax, but Transcend has not yet supplied it's distributers with this product.

Upon receipt of the JetDrive, yesterday, the first thing that jumped out at me was the packaging. The OWC SSD came packed in an anti-static bag enclosed in a thin gauge blister packed piece of cardboard with blue printing. It looked the packaging used by Ace Combs. The Transcend packaging on the other hand was impressive. A heavy gauge white slide out box with a full color picture of the SSD. The box was multi layered and contained the drive, the enclosure for the OEM drive, and the tools necessary for installation. Each layer was a plastic bed with depressions sized to fit the associated parts. It also contained an instruction booklet and warranty information. The instructions are, IMHO, inadequate, and only two pages apply, the other 26 pages being written for other languages.

The tools worked very well, and installation was a breeze. the form factor of the circuit board is the same as apple's so no undue pressure was needed for installation. My old SSD fit into the supplied enclosure with no issues.

I then cloned the JetDrive using Tech Tool Pro from the external Hybrid Drive I had been using as the main drive for my MBA. I foolishly ordered my MBA with only the 64GB SSD.

No issues. Everything is working as expected. In terms of speed. I have not measured the speed, but it feels very snappy. I believe the OWC and Transcend drives to be equal here. Transcend even supplies software to enable Apple's Trim support, OWC does not. There is however, third party software that enables Trim, Trim Enabler. I use that anyway for the SSD I use in my Mac Pro.

In ending, I would urge anyone installing the JetDrive in a MBA to watch the OWC installation video, again, it is superior to the Transcend video, and will make things more understandable to you.

The JetDrive is by far the superior product, and as of right now is $69. cheaper than the OWC Aura Pro. When I bought the OWC product, it would have cost $125 more than the corresponding Transcend product.

That IMHO is Value.

Currently, Apple charges $500. to go from a 128GB SSD to a 512GB SSD in the MBA. So, $350. for a 480GB SSD AND you get to keep your old drive, you can't beat that.

Edit - The Transcend drive seems to run color than true OWC drive. When feeling the bottom of my MBA where the SSD is mounted, the area while warm, is not as warm as it was with the OWC unit.

Well, I ran BlackMagic this morning. The Transcend is one speedy drive. It's faster than the Samsung SSD mounted in an Apricorn Solo x2 in my 5,1 Mac Pro. The MBA is the first pict. The Mac Pro is the second pict.

Lou

 

[Murgatroyd]

…

Trim Enabler? For ten? T'anks for the info.

 

[gpzjock]

OWC Mercury 128 GB SSD in my MacPro 3,1 since 2010, not missed a beat yet.

 

[Eastend]

OWC Mercury Extreme Pro SSD 120 GB in a 2010 MacPro5,1, since August of 2010 still going strong. Also an old 60 GB SSD same type in a 2009 Mac Pro for close to 6 years no problem.

 

[Larry-K]

Got eight of 'em, three over three years old, most of them typically put in a twelve hour day, everyday.

Still waiting for one to go belly-up, but now that larger capacities are cheaper, they'll probably get replaced before they fail.

I did get a DOA once, rather have them fail up front.

 

[JackIsBack]

As a posted here https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1731143/

How fast is too fast? ... I have had two OWC drives FAIL, one just over a week old and the other (a replacement for the first) just under one week - more like a few days (since it was my sons computer, I put it in his computer on Sunday... and I heard it died by Friday - but I bet it died well before that).

They are crappy products... I'm just so glad that another company (Transcend Drives) is giving us Macbook Air owners another option now.

Thanks

 

[meic909]

That's true for me. Purchased "OWC Aura 6G SSD" for "Macbook Air Mid 2012" back in July 2013. In February 2014 it just died. Got it replaced under warranty, but about couple of months ago (October 2014) this replacement SSD also died. Didn't have time to claim for replacement SSD, but today I'm writing a claim.
So, as you see first one lasted for about 7 months, and second one for about 9 moths. I didn't have any problems with my stock 256 GB for almost a year. Now, my plan is to sell it when I get the replacement drive, add some money and buy the stock Samsung drive. I'm a part time musician and it gives me too much headaches to do backups, install VSTs, software and registrations.

 

[flowrider]

^^^^See my comment above above on the Transcend SSD above. As I indicated my OWC SSD was junk and failed right off. The Transcend (in my 2012 MBA) is still going strong.

Lou

 

[ColdCase]

OWC SSDs have been hampered by the sandforce controllers. A lot can change over a period of a year, but when we tested them a year ago, they were not near as durable as some others. Performance was similar to OCZ and other SSDs that use the sandforce chip. Infant mortality (fails within a month) can happen to any brand. OWC's storage sticks for the air seem to be decent.

 

[chrfr]

I've bought 2 of the Aura 480GB SSDs for the 2011 Macbook Air. I have an OWC 240GB SSD in a 2012 Air. Both of the 480s have failed, although the 240 is still working as of now. I definitely won't be buying any more SSDs from OWC.

 

[Alrescha]

I bought a 240GB Mercury Extreme Pro 3G back in 2011 which is still going strong (knock wood).

A.

 

[DPUser]

I've heard lots of tales of woe re: OWC SSDs, but been running three Intel 330s (Sandforce controller chips with custom Intel Firmware) for 2.5 years with zero issues. Just picked up a couple of Intel 520 250MB drives for $109 each. All these drives use larger NAND, so endurance should be better than the newer drives.

I was gonna' go for EVO, but then the stale data issue cropped up, and I didn't feel like dealing with the firmware update. One of my primary uses for SSDs is serving Virtual Instrument sample sets, which is primarily a read-only application where slow reads of stale data would be a real drag.

Trim Enabler is the ticket for boot drives and drives with more write activity, but as has been discussed, Yosemite complicates things a tad. With its compression scheme, Sandforce drives should go longer before lack of Trim becomes an issue.

 

[Larry-K]

I have several that have been running everyday since 2010.

 

[TCK101]

A friend of mine bought a 240 gig SSD from OWC. After 2 Months the drive died. I am also hearing that most SSD drives will only run for 6 months before they die. Has anyone experienced this as well?

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A friend of mine bought a 240 gig SSD from OWC. After 2 Months the drive died. I am also hearing that most SSD drives will only run for 6 months before they die. Has anyone experienced this as well?

My son's ssd in his Macbook pro is 4 years old. Mine is 3.5 years old. The average drive is going to last you at least as long as the effectiveness of your computer.

I've never had a drive go out in 32 years of both pc and Mac ownership, until my OWC ssd drive quit after 2.5 years of light use as an external project drive. Just prior to the end of my warranty it quit. I thought it was my cable, but after I the warranty expired I found out that it indeed died at about 2.5 years.

OWC didn't fix under warranty. I'm not willing to buy another OWC drive considering it didn't have a 1000th of the traffic on it as on my Mac's boot SSD. Yes they are nice at OWC, but they didn't do the right thing in the end (I paid about $600 for a 480GB drive that I used for about 50 hours).

I agree that you should always backup, but not because your drive might fail, as much as you might acquire a virus, or the system might become corrupt, or you might delete or otherwise mess up an important file, and have no way to recover. In my 32 years of computing, having the drive die is the least likely reason to lose precious data. Go with a good mfg that uses good drives, backup often in the background, and you should be fine. Having a drive die at 2 months is ridiculously rare, and takes weeks to get replaced and reloaded. I hear people say "don't worry, it's under warranty", but I can't afford to be without my computer for two to three weeks.

I'm going with Samsung or toshiba in the near future because I believe they are going to last as much as the average drive, based upon millions of macbook air and pro owners.

My opinion...

 

[J&JPolangin]

[doublepost=1452980165][/doublepost]


I'm going with Samsung or toshiba in the near future because I believe they are going to last as much as the average drive, based upon millions of macbook air and pro owners.

My opinion...

...don't over look intel or crucial SSD's either...I have 4 crucial, an intel, a corsair and a western digital blue drive...they are all between 2 and 6 years old and no issues with them whatso ever...

 

[Sorrel]

My OWC SSD, in a MacBook Air, died at the age of 3 years, 6 months. Can't get it to respond at all; it's as if it just isn't there.

 

[AidenShaw]

My OWC SSD, in a MacBook Air, died at the age of 3 years, 6 months. Can't get it to respond at all; it's as if it just isn't there.

Was TRIM enabled? TRIM can reduce the wear on an SSD, leading to longer life.

If you need to get data from it - try making it a data drive in another system. One failure mode (intentional) is for an SSD to go read-only. The OS might not like to boot from a read-only drive, but it can use it as a data drive.

 

[Sorrel]

Actually I had hardly used it in the last year; I was just planning to dual-boot Linux on the old Mac, so it had nothing of importance on it.

I've just realised that it was a Pro 6G which - in theory - has a 5 year guarantee. So I'm going to try that...