Today I had two OWC C docks on my workbench and had a rather disappointing experience.
I since many years have known and trusted “MacSales” aka “Other World Computing” but today was a real disappointment.
I needed to update the firmware that should take care of the sleep/wake issue. To my surprise, this update can only be done from a Windows computer
On top of that, neither of the docks work with a brand new 2018 15" MB Pro running the latest MacOS. No matter what I tried they would not even show in the system profile. So its impossible to the firmware using Windows 10 under VMWare Fusion since the dock did not want to connect to the Mac in the first place.
Calling tech support started with an annoying question from who these OWC docs were bought. After all it’s their product who cares? Either way, I was able to prove a valid purchase to continue the “support” session.
To my dismay, I was told that the only way we could work on this dock was by connecting it to a PC running MS Windows!
Adding insult to injury tech support told me that only their Thunderbolt 2 dock supports Mac.
No need to go into a further argument.
Just look at their website and see its advertised with a Mac.
Sorry OWC you lost me there, my future purchases for Memory and SSD drive will for sure go to Crucial or Sandisk.
The OWC USB-C Dock integrates perfectly into any workflow whether you’re rocking a MacBook, MacBook Pro, Chromebook, or PC with USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 ports*. And with a pass-through USB-C data / charging port, you won’t have to give up a port to expand your connection options.
My SSD experience
I would consider myself a loyal customer, but I bought a 1T SSD from them, went through all the backup, install, restore, etc. then had a kernel panic related to the drive. Tech support recommended something hacky using the terminal, don’t recall what. Decided I couldn’t risk having an unreliable machine (ie why would I spend $600 to make it less reliable). Went through the same exercise putting my old drive back in. Their RMA process was painless, and I was only out shipping one way.
What I have lost is some trust in the company’s products, and that saddens me.
Same experience here with their recent SSD drive. It was blazingly fast compared to what had shipped in the 2013 MBP that I was using but, even after working with them for far too long on why I was having problems, I was still getting kernel panics, UI freezes, wake failures, and in one case (I hope just one) a corrupted file.
That’s a shame.
It’s annoying when companies outsource their tech support to us. “Try this, then this, and let me know.” How about you (company) try those things, and the other dozen things you have in the queue, find the cause, and let me know how to fix the problem?
