It may seem strange that I’m recommending OWC after having half the RAM¹ I got from them failed last night². However, the excellent service I got on the phone this morning has them solidly in my good graces again.

The fellow I spoke with on the phone was friendly and competent (a rarity in the phone service dept.). He explained their RMA process: they e-mail me a UPS label that I print and use to send in the bad RAM, they send me new RAM.

I explained that I wanted to place an order for another hard drive (I’m not trusting that WD drive) and asked if I could order additional RAM at the same time, to be refunded when they received the RMA’d RAM. He then offered me their “cross ship” RMA option – basically, they authorize (but don’t charge) the amount of the RAM on my credit card and send out the new RAM today. I send in the RMA’d RAM and they remove the authorization from my credit card when they receive it. Awesome!

I then placed the order for the HD separately. I’ll be picking up another FireWire enclosure from CoolerExpress for the WD drive and I can add it to my backup system, or use it as additional storage.

UPDATE: the saga continues.

1. Probably only one of the 2 DIMMs in the pair, but since they have to be installed in pairs… [back]
2. And especially after Adam had to RMA his RAM to OWC as well. [back]