Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased the Express 4M2 direct from the manufacturer. I was drawn to this product because of OWC’s past reputation with the Mac community and the product’s feature set and compact size. Bait & Switch When researching this product, I saw multiple references to their “SoftRAID” and “SoftRAID engine.” I fact, there are 14 mentions of this on their product page. HOWEVER, only the last mention, after clicking on the fourth tab on the bottom of the page, so you see that the software included is actually the SoftRAID LITE, with limited functionality. More on that later... SSD vulnerability Newer, cheaper nvme SSD’s on the market utilize a technology called “multi-level cells.” That essentially means more bits are packed into the chip (more accurately “stacked” on the chip) yielding higher density at a lower cost. YEA consumers, right? That benefit comes at a risk, though. Newer triple level cells (and upcoming quad-level cells) are more prone to failure. That’s why a nvme RAID is such a great idea... speed and data integrity. I won’t go into all things RAID at this stage, but in a nutshell: 1. a striped RAID has no data protection but allows you to use all the storage you paid for. If a cell in the SSD fails (and it will), you lose data. 2. A mirrored RAID allows you to use half of the capacity you purchased. Everything it writes to one SSD stick is also copied to a second. If one fails, you still have a second copy. 3. RAID 5 allows you to reserve just one SSD for data protection. It allows you to utilize three out of four SSDs for storage capacity and still yields full data security in the case any one of the four fails. Best of both worlds. Bait and Switch (or the dubious up-sell) Since SoftRAID is mentioned so many times on the page and it’s well know for its RAID 0,1,5 and 10 capabilities, one would expect that you’ll enjoy your Express 4M2 and all its RAID flexibility. Well, you’d be wrong. The bundled LITE software only supports STRIPE and MIRROR raids, so you either lose half your capacity or get no data protection. Customer Support So, I called customer support to inquire. I was told that since I could click through the product page embedded links to learn that only the LITE version is included (even though there is no definition of what the LITE version does relative to the full version) I would need to purchase the upgrade or settle for a mirror or striped raid. I asked that they clarify the product page so other customers wouldn’t discover this after purchase and I was told simply “no.” It’s unfortunate, really. The product is solid, compact and well built. It could be a much better product with the upgraded software bundled. Could they do this? Sure! OWC owns SoftRAID. So of course they have an incentive to push customers into an upgrade. I won’t be one of them. I despise this type of covert salesmanship. If they were more clear up-front what it does out of the box and how much it costs to get full functionary, I’d feel differently. As a result, I’m returning the unit and will avoid OWC in the future.