Pricing clarification please

@eoren1 

I am trying to get this thread moved to the pricing topic, and to your point about engineering, our VP engineering is going to post here, on the extensive engineering effort it requires to maintain SoftRAID. Apple is transitioning MacOS. Security changes are profound and introduce major bugs.

The entire driver model in MacOS is constantly changing. There are more to come. We need to keep up with these changes.

No one likes change but we are indeed listening to our customers. On the other hand, we must transition, so we can be around next year to support users.  Note again that several RAID companies that once offered "free" firmware upgrades, such as Drobo, CalDigit, Promise, etc, either closed their doors, or completely dropped their product lines when faced with the new Apple architecture.

SoftRAID offers great value when you consider the overall offering: quality enclosures, long warranty on bundled drives (free replacement of drives starting to fail during warranty when bundled with enclosures), technical support that is available 365 days a year (on this forum, at minimum), etc.

Hardware RAID is dying. Yes, you can still purchase very inexpensive enclosures with hardware ship RAID, but hardware RAID is slowly disappearing. Software RAID is the future. Your enclosure can get new features without hardware changes. And OWC intends to be around in 5 years to support it.

Consider the value of what you use your products for. This is your data at stake. And by offering well-tested updates every year, we can help you protect your data, which is far more valuable than the enclosures you store it on.

I'm still a little confused.

If I'm on Ventura, on ARM M1, using an OWC enclosure that's out of warranty, and I just want to access my data, not manage my RAID etc, do I have to buy an upgrade or subscription?

@syd 

You can install SoftRAID 7 in free trial mode, and let it expire. You will get notices on occasion that it expired, but the volume will work.

Where can we find the new/v7 subscription price for Softraid XT?

I can't see if on the web site, and if I click on "Upgrade Options" - after entering my serial number, there's no upgrade, only an "Add Seats…" option for my v6 licence.

I have to say I'm pretty upset about this as well. I thought an occasional upgrade maybe every few years was ok. But nowhere on purchase was there any indication that to continue to use SoftRaid with the new versions of MacOS required a subscription. This should be very clear on the purchase of an OWC enclosure. It should say in bold, easy-to-spot info, "3 years of software support included. After 3 years a $79 subscription fee is required." I think the only thing we users can do, is make sure whoever you bought your Thunderbay from, you go give a poor review and make sure to tell users about the subscription fee. I've done it at B&H where I purchased mine. We need to warn people about this.

With any other type of NAS the software updates are included, so no users would expect this. Comparing to a car is ridiculous. I can drive my car forever without ever giving the dealer a penny, plus it's a completely different type of thing, I know the maintenance schedule and cost of a car before purchase. Nowhere was the subscription fee stated when I purchased my Thunderbay and Softraid license. It's like a bait and switch. At least make the fee more reasonable. It's not a problem if you need to charge a fee to stay in business, that is fine, but it should be very clear up front!

@syd 

Wait until SoftRAID 7 is officially released. the Pricing/licensing pages are still being put together.

@rsmith4321 

All software upgrades are free while under warranty. Your gripe is therefore only enclosures that have no warranty. SoftRAID should be provided free of charge for all out of warranty enclosures?

SoftRAID is not a "NAS", which has software written for Linux, which is stable with few changes. MacOS has undergone and for the forseeable future, will continue to undergo, major changes. Thunderbolt is changing in specifications. OWC supports thousands or more of different configurations. Much of this by telephone or chat support.

It costs money. I do not like to buy routers that require subscriptions, but if I want/need those features, I will pay. I don't know about you, but some of the subscriptions in my car were a complete surprise. (I am not talking about Sirius) I have to pay $8 a month just to have the dashboard display the speed limit?

Nearly everything with embedded software that requires customized support is now requiring upgrades that often cost money.

Unless there is a bug (or security flaw) in the NAS, it never needs an upgrade. OWC wants to keep earning customers respect, and we do this with outstanding technical support, globally. Consider the alternatives.

We are updating the product pages to clearly describe our support plans.

If you want to be fair, state in your "complaint reviews" that when your product is OUT OF WARRANTY, you may need to purchase annual support to keep getting technical support and product upgrades.

Posted by: @softraid-support

If you want to be fair, state in your "complaint reviews" that when your product is OUT OF WARRANTY, you may need to purchase annual support to keep getting technical support and product upgrades.

 

Oh, please! To really be fair, OWC should have sold the product and disclosed the (not insignificant) future hidden costs with the sale. Stop putting this on the consumer - this is poor business practices from your side. Nobody is disputing that it costs SoftRAID to keep the software up and running - the issue is lack of transparency at point of sale.

@steve-nuns 

The SoftRAID upgrade and support policy is going to be labeled clearly in the future.

SoftRAID has always been supported during warranty. Maybe we were to generous in not having paid upgrades for several years, but MacOS was stable for years, and did not require major changes to keep compatibility.

This is no longer the case. It is now a serious engineering commitment to keep SoftRAID compatible with future MacOS updates. We are adapting to that requirement. I can get engineering or ownership perhaps to comment further.

SoftRAID never "expires" from your computer. But after a suitable period of time, we cannot offer support, without having the user enroll in a support plan. That period is the warranty period.

thanks for your feedback.

Posted by: @softraid-support

@steve-nuns 

The SoftRAID upgrade and support policy is going to be labeled clearly in the future.

SoftRAID has always been supported during warranty. Maybe we were to generous in not having paid upgrades for several years, but MacOS was stable for years, and did not require major changes to keep compatibility.

This is no longer the case. It is now a serious engineering commitment to keep SoftRAID compatible with future MacOS updates. We are adapting to that requirement. I can get engineering or ownership perhaps to comment further.

SoftRAID never "expires" from your computer. But after a suitable period of time, we cannot offer support, without having the user enroll in a support plan. That period is the warranty period.

thanks for your feedback.

This is very helpful but I do think needs to be flushed out on your SoftRAID 7 page.

Also, I really think 'upgrade' and 'support' need to be separated. I am far more leery of having to pay yearly for upgrades than if the plan is purely for phone/email support. I expect to have to pay for tech support and OWC/SoftRAID has been generous with the free support for years.  I do not expect to pay yearly for upgrades and, if that is the case, you should remove the paragraph on how subscriptions are bad because that is what you are proposing.

And I do agree that calling it a 'perpetual' license is disingenuous when it means being locked into a specific version of MacOS which is never a good thing either from a technological or security standpoint.

@eoren1 

I disagree that SoftRAID licenses are not perpetual. A Subscription means your application stops working, when the subscription ends. What changes with SoftRAID are MacOS upgrades. that causes issues that must be addressed. about 20-25% of users wait a year or more before upgrading to the latest, despite Apple pushing these upgrades hard. Those users can use SoftRAID "forever".

We still have users running SoftRAID 5.x, some that are running 4.x. That is not how subscriptions function. Try running Adobe after your "subscription" expires, even if you are on an older version, on an older MacOS.

We will be upgrading our pages over time, SoftRAID 7 is not yet released, and further changes will be made to these pages.

These are difficult changes to make, but to keep SoftRAID and Thunderbay's a viable offering, we must make them.

thanks.

Another OWC user and good OWC customer (Thunderbay cases, various docks, RAM, external and internal SSD... many years of all internal and external peripherals for my MAC's are OWC), VERY displeased with this new OWC policy.
The abuse of the lifetime charge to their customers who have not felt warned before of this expense that was going to affect them in the future for buying OWC products to store their work is not fair in my view.

As fellow @steve-nuns , I feel cheated, disgusted and what is worse and he denounced a year ago, OWC continues without warning their future customers that they will have this overcharge if they want to continue to recover their work in the future.

This, in my town, is called hiding the truth and "cheating" your customers.
I am very sorry OWC, for my harsh words, but I already tell you that all fellow photographers I know and have OWC products (many of them, OWC customers thanks to my recommendation) are as angry as I am with this, we do not understand it and we WILL NOT BUY OWC again because we feel cheated.

We understand that it is not free, but to pay 89$ EVERY YEAR to be able to rescue our works from a simple set of discs seems to us a tremendous abuse... Have we gone crazy?

OWC never again (a pity I feel about this).

PS: I hope you don't delete this comment, I'm trying to be respectful from my angry state. Thanks

@pafer 

You are welcome to respectfully argue your point of view.

Note that your data is never withheld from you. Your volumes are always mountable. Please do not accuse us of holding back data. That has never happened and never will.

MacOS undergoes tremendous changes every year. It requires extensive engineering to keep up with these changes.

How does a business cover these costs? Raising the prices on new customers? Or offering extended support for customers using the product and needing support? (after their warranty has expired)

IWe do want your business. Remember, when you purchase a new set of drives in a Thunderbay, you get 3 years of extended support and upgrades. Its only after that, when your warranty expires, that we ask for support (and upgrades) to keep supporting you.

Your alternatives are using non RAID, or Apple's free RAID. (which you can always do with a Thunderbay), or buying USB hardware RAID that is not worthy of your data. I certainly would not trust my data to one.

Thunderbolt enclosures with RAID are much more expensive and if you compare costs you will see Thunderbays are still less expensive if you compare with a 5 year expected lifespan of an enclosure. And multiple enclosures only require one license.

I think it is the perception you are arguing for. Free often means "minimal" support. Or, a frustrating lack of support when you want it.

I can think of several times I have tried to get support these days from other companies, where you cannot reach the company at all? Or they ignore you? Or give bogus answers? Many users give praise to OWC because we truly try to give great support to our users.

Look at the big picture and you should see we offer exceptional long term value to our customers.

@softraid-support

Question: my year of software support expired in mid-July.  I renewed today, and my new contract expires in... mid-July.  Why would it not expire one year from today?  If I had waited until January, would it still expire in July?

@softraid-support Thank you for your response and for acknowledging criticism of OWC from angry customers like me in a good way.

I fully understand that providing support, effective support, requires a cost to the company, I said that above.

What I don't understand are two things:
1- In no case, when I bought the Thunderbay with its SoftRAID there was any mention that after three years it was going to cost me money, in fact, it said for life! (yes, I know it's like that... if you do not update your computer or operating system... someone does this or can do it? live without updating anything?)
2- Do you think that we workers have a money, 87$/year only to be able to pay the updates of a program that manages the software of our hard disks? How many HDD hard disks would you buy? Don't you think it's an abuse of price and it's a shame to pay this EVERY YEAR just for that RAID program?
Of course, and it is obvious, customers do think it is an abuse that surely many of us can not afford and we would not have bought OWC if we knew in advance, we could have chosen.
Maybe that price for three more years?
I would think about it and I think it would be well paid with that price, not almost 100$ every year for that simple service. 

I'm sorry but I don't have every year over 100$ to pay this, I can't afford it and my clients are not willing to pay for this overpricing either.