Hello Selfhosted - I’m writing to y’all asking for recommendations for a retailer that will properly pack spinning platter HDDs for shipping. These devices are sensitive to impacts, and since I’m intending to use them for critical data archiving, they need to be packed with appropriate padding! Newegg is apparently incapable of understanding this.
In particular I am looking for WD Red Plus drives, 2x of them, 10TB apiece.
To name and shame Newegg, I have now gotten two shipments of these from them, around $400 each time, and they have botched the packaging so badly on both that I would never accept and trust these drives. The first RMA I requested included notes about exactly how their packing failed, and about how these devices need to be treated better, which were entirely disregarded when they packed the second round.
Who can I buy from that will take their clients’ purchases seriously?!
I understand it’s small potatoes, I tried to indicate that. It isn’t to me.
I also did specifically and exactly call out the seller, Newegg, and even say that I wanted to name and shame right in the initial post, so I just don’t know what you want from me there lol. Does Lemmy support the old marquee tag somehow?
Thanks for the info on your experience with drives, I admit I’m slightly uncertain there. But nonetheless I bought new, enterprise grade drives and they were rattling around unprotected in their boxes, I don’t know why I should be expected to accept that.
After all I’m literally asking for more thoughtful careful retailers if they exist. And I gave Newegg two tries to get it right with detailed explanations of the problem, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable. In this day and age and with all the terrible treatment of all of us by corporations I am just asking this community who they might like better, and my bad experience with this one. Why is that contentious?
Yes, the seller is Newegg, but they’re a marketplace like Amazon. Check who fulfills the order.
If they’re in OEM packaging (cardboard box and formed clamshell plastic for individual drives, I assume, since you said “boxes”) that’s totally acceptable. If you put a shock sensor in the box at the origin, you wouldn’t see anything particularly bad even if the box fell off the truck. F=m*a, and with small m (a few drives) and small a (not falling very far) then F is going to be pretty small too.
I did, I don’t remember the exact phrasing, but I ensured it was basically Newegg fulfillment (I’ve even gotten a literal Amazon box from Newegg in the past when not doing so, I do basically understand how it works).
I also understand you’re trying to be helpful, but I really don’t need the physics lesson, I double majored in physics and electrical engineering, I understand that equation and it’s implications a lot better than you assume, and moreover I spent a lot of years in my career with a lot of HDDs, from many sources and for many purposes. I don’t agree with you that being shipped these drives in obviously faulty outer packaging is something I should be willing to accept, at least not without seeking out more conscientious suppliers first. It’s amazing to me that people disagree with this so much about spinning platter drives - I couldn’t give a shit less about any other kind of hardware I can think of, intact OEM packaging would be fine for me.
Why do you say “obviously faulty”? Do the drives not function, or do they fail any SMART test?
NOTE: I said “obviously faulty outer packaging”. That’s twice now you’ve disregarded something I stated clearly. I did not intend to take ownership of these drives, I never opened them. It’s entirely possible all SMART tests and drop indications come up clean, but as I did not want to own these drives, it felt inappropriate to me to find out. Given how sensitive HDDs can be, and given my consumer-grade budget here (I’m spending my own money on a few important pieces of hardware, not griping over an enterprise installation that churns through drives like a runner does shoes). The impacts that HDDs experience makes for a significant influence in its MTTF. Admittedly less so when powered off, but not at all zero! That is not controversial, it’s just engineering.
Let me put this a little differently - imagine I went to a brick and mortar, asked for some drives I couldn’t find on the display floor, and they brought out two drives, in sealed OEM packaging, in a dusty beat up box that had been through shit, and with no padding inside or anything. The employees were not being careful when carrying them either, giving little confidence that the damage looks worse than it is. It’s clear they’ve been mistreated to some extent, but no way to see from here how much.
This is an important distinction - I’m not asking if you’d be willing to buy those drives yourself. I’m asking if - when I decided not to buy those (and indeed not to test them!), would you grill me over that decision like this? Would you question me for wanting to find a retailer I can shop at that at least seems to take more care? Again, why is my preference not to receive drives in clearly mishandled and insufficiently padded packaging, so contentious?
(minor edits for clarity)
Yes, I read and understood what you said. If the packaging was obviously faulty, that means the drives were rendered unfit. If the drives were determined to be fit for purpose, that means that packaging was sufficient and not faulty. Hard drives are not eggshells, they are designed to survive FedEx punting them onto your porch.
If you want to play the combative game and accuse each other of disregarding each others’ comments, I will ask again the question you did not answer: do the drives not function, or do they fail any SMART test? If you are accusing your suppliers of being inadequate, please, support that with data.
YET AGAIN, answered that. I never opened the drives. It’s right there in the comment you’re replying to.
This is a fruitless back and forth, I’m tapping out. Have a good weekend, I wish you well, sincerely.
If you rejected the drives out of hand, then it’s impossible to say the packaging was obviously faulty.
You also did not answer my question about how exactly they were packaged. The plastic clamshell is generally fit for purpose and I doubt WD, Seagate, etc. would continue using packaging that resulted in high rates of failure. If you wish to contest that assumption, prove it with data.
For now the 4th time, the information you’re asking me to provide exists in comments I have already typed and that you have replied to. May we have an easier time seeing eye to eye if our paths cross again, again I really wish you well. I’m not going to reply any further, goodbye.