This Is Why We Don't Buy Drives From Newegg

[sechs]

Despite the complaints of myself and others concerning Newegg's horrible packaging of harddrives, they had a good deal on the 1TB Samsung F3, which I had been looking at getting another. Against my better judgement, I bought.

Mistake 1.

Drive came in an antistatic bag, rather than Samsung's plastic shell, with a little box contraption, floating in a sea of packing peanuts. Not even antistatic ones, at that.

The drive seemed fine for about a day, then started giving noticeable data errors, then stopped being recognised at boot, and finally started going click-click-click.

I decided to RMA with Newegg rather than direct to Samsung because the replacement would come back faster.

Mistake 2.

The day after Newegg gets the drive back, I receive an e-mail saying that the serial number doesn't match what they sent. This was a bit surprising since this was the drive that they sent me.

As directed by the e-mail, I opened up a chat session. The rep confirmed the situation, but wouldn't entertain the possibility that they had made a mistake. Nor would she consider the fact that this drive had the appropriate warranty at Samsung, and maybe they could just replace it anyway or save me the cost and ship it to Samsung on my behalf.

The drive was back in UPS's hands that evening. Frankly, I'm impressed at the efficiency at which they screw up.

Now, I understand why they check the serial numbers, but they don't seem to allow for the possibility of error. And that seems to be something that happens more often than one would expect, based on a Google search. Here's a good one:

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/blog.php?b=15397

Although these RMA serial number mismatches are relatively rare, considering the percentage of sales that are returned at all, how often must they make this mistake?

 

[MaxBurn]

Interesting. I had the same situation on the same 1TB F3 just last month from them. Mine didn't work right off the bat, spin up 13 clicks and then spin right back down. Unlike you I had no problem getting them to process me a no shipping label cost and restocking fee return for refund. I straight up told the rep that I don't buy a lot of drives and this is about the third I have gotten defective from shipping damage from them over the past two years, course she didn't care but was polite and all.

Could be a bad batch?

This is the drive I bought that was defective.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
Mine was shipped from MEMPHIS, TN US on 07/12/2010.

The retail seagate I got at bestbuy works great...

 

[LunarMist]

The last WD I received was in a small OEM suspension box that delivers some protection.

 

[LunarMist]

Why does the reply show only 1?

 

[ddrueding]

Why does the reply show only 1?

1 what?

 

[timwhit]

The replies column is showing one less reply than the actual number of replies.

 

[LunarMist]

When I posted there was an odd error message and then reposting gave the flood control reply. When I cleared out and logged in again the the Computer page showed only the number and timestamp of the first reply (MaxBun). I tried that a few times. Weird.

 

[mubs]

Newegg has always shipeed drives with bad packaging. These RMA problems seem more recent. Probably due to the scale / size they've grown to. It takes extra effort to sustain quality processes as the business grows.

 

[jtr1962]

While on the subject of buying drives from Newegg, is there any good reason for me not to consider the Seagate Barracuda ST315005N4A1AS-RK 1.5TB? It's been ages since I've purchased a hard drive. 1.5TB seems like the sweet spot right now in terms of price per GB ( and also in line with how much I want to spend ). The 200 GB in the machine I usually use is getting tight. Also, eventually I want to copy VHS tapes to DVD, and keep them on my PC in the process. Obviously I need way more than 200 GB for that. The 1.5TB Seagate is retail packaging-hence hopefully no shipping issues. So any other reason at all not to buy it? Has it had a poor record in the field?

I'm getting increasing frustrated with hard drives. Virtually nothing gets over 4 eggs, but from what I'm gathering a lot of the DOAs are on account of Newegg's crappy packaging. That pretty much limits my choices to retail packaging. At $70, the Barracuda seems like a good deal, provided it'll last.

 

[BingBangBop]

I believe that recent Seagate drives have reliability issues. So I wouldn't. Any other brand is better.

 

[Santilli]

While on the subject of buying drives from Newegg, is there any good reason for me not to consider the Seagate Barracuda ST315005N4A1AS-RK 1.5TB? It's been ages since I've purchased a hard drive. 1.5TB seems like the sweet spot right now in terms of price per GB ( and also in line with how much I want to spend ). The 200 GB in the machine I usually use is getting tight. Also, eventually I want to copy VHS tapes to DVD, and keep them on my PC in the process. Obviously I need way more than 200 GB for that. The 1.5TB Seagate is retail packaging-hence hopefully no shipping issues. So any other reason at all not to buy it? Has it had a poor record in the field?

I'm getting increasing frustrated with hard drives. Virtually nothing gets over 4 eggs, but from what I'm gathering a lot of the DOAs are on account of Newegg's crappy packaging. That pretty much limits my choices to retail packaging. At $70, the Barracuda seems like a good deal, provided it'll last.

You may want to rethink that.

Drive issues. I've purchased a bunch of Samsung 1.5 TB from Newegg, a bunch being 6-8.
They have come in plastic, with the foam, and once in awhile some bubble wrap.
No problems here. That said, I don't usually use them 24/7, but use them in removeable drive caddies, something you might want to consider for your current path.

I converted some old boxing tapes to DVD, but, it was either difficult, not very successful, and, a real waste of money. I used a Plextor hardware converter to do the job from a vhs machine to my computer, and the result was a degraded signal. REALLY noticeable when you compare it to regular DVD's. Looked most of the time like a couple ghosts dancing around the ring.

I'm real interested in what you are going to use, and why bother? VHS is considerably lower quality then DVD, and way below Bluray, which is finally becoming common and affordable, except for the players/burners.

By the way, using multiple removeable drives, 3 to 5, has not been a particularly easy thing, or successful thing, for that matter.

 

[flagreen]

This thread brings to mind all the times I've bought stuff online and later regretted it. The regret comes from not being able to go down to a store and confront the people who sold it to me when there's a problem. Then too the shipping delays are annoying particularly when they involve items coming from the west coast to the east coast and visa versa.

Now we know how our predecessors felt when they had no choice to buy cars, clothes, virtually everything out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog and wait for the package to arrive.

Find a way to overcome these problems with buying and selling on line and your bank account will be right up there with Bill Gates.

 

[jtr1962]

I'm real interested in what you are going to use, and why bother? VHS is considerably lower quality then DVD, and way below Bluray, which is finally becoming common and affordable, except for the players/burners.

I would hook a VCR to a TV card using the A/V inputs. That should avoid the signal degradation issues you mentioned. No idea of what TV card to get. I'll probably start a thread on that when I'm ready to buy. I'm really looking for something which has YPbPr as well as A/V inputs so it can connect directly to our cable box and get HD, but it seems no such cards exist.

As for why bother, I have a lot of tapes taking up a lot of space. They'll take up less space on DVDs, and also be a lot more accessible, especially if they're also on my PC. I know VHS is standard definition, not HD like DVDs, but hopefully the lower quality means I can get one 8 hour tape per DVD. Another reason for doing this is to avoid the eventual degradation of my tapes. I figure once everything is digitized, it'll be easy to just recopy to whatever new storage medium exists as time goes on. Left alone, I wouldn't be surprised if the tapes are unwatchable in another 10 years.

By the way, using multiple removeable drives, 3 to 5, has not been a particularly easy thing, or successful thing, for that matter.

No plans here to use removeable drives. Whatever drives I need would be installed in my PC. My case has 5 drive bays. I'm only using one at present. Plenty of room for future expansion should 1.5TB be insufficient.

If Seagate has quality issues then I'll stay away. The problem is what to get instead. I only see WD with retail packaging ( and only in 1 and 2 TB, not 1.5 ). WD has a less than stellar reputation around here. I really don't trust that anything not in a retail package will be packaged properly by Newegg. Amazing they've been selling hard drives this long, have experienced quite a few return issues, and still don't pack them properly.

 

[time]

I don't understand this. People have been complaining about Newegg drive packaging for years. Can't you just buy them elsewhere?

It's only a $75 item ...

 

[Mercutio]

Solution: Don't buy one drive. Buy eight or 10.

The last one-off drive I bought, I got from Amazon.com. They packed it in a little box with those plastic air-filled bags. The drive was fine (Amazon has a distribution center maybe 30 miles away so it was only an overnight trip), but that packaging didn't give me warm fuzzies either.

 

[time]

Hmmm. I just checked and I can buy the same drive for US$71. That's over the counter - I haven't had an HDD shipped for years now.

Have Newegg et al put shopfronts out of business in the US? Because they don't seem to be so cheap anymore ...

 

[timwhit]

Hmmm. I just checked and I can buy the same drive for US$71. That's over the counter - I haven't had an HDD shipped for years now.

Have Newegg et al put shopfronts out of business in the US? Because they don't seem to be so cheap anymore ...

What brick and mortar stores do you guys have to buy computer components?

In the US, I can think of Best Buy (1069 locations), Fry's (34 locations), Tiger Direct (34 locations), Micro Center (23 locations), and CDW (19 locations). There might be others that I'm not thinking of.

 

[LunarMist]

Have Newegg et al put shopfronts out of business in the US?

For the most part, yes they have.

 

[ddrueding]

I used to work for a big box computer retailer, and to think that they handle the merchandise better than UPS would be a mistake. Further, thinking that because you can talk to someone face-to-face you will get satisfaction is a mistake. The managers there are trained to be cold as ice and deny when possible.

 

[Pradeep]

Solution: Don't buy one drive. Buy eight or 10.

The last one-off drive I bought, I got from Amazon.com. They packed it in a little box with those plastic air-filled bags. The drive was fine (Amazon has a distribution center maybe 30 miles away so it was only an overnight trip), but that packaging didn't give me warm fuzzies either.

This. If your order is big enough they will use the OEM shipping cartons which provide plenty of shock abatement.

Anecdotally, lot of problems with Seagates dropping out of RAID arrays. Hibachi stangely seems to do OK.

 

[Pradeep]

You may want to rethink that.

Drive issues. I've purchased a bunch of Samsung 1.5 TB from Newegg, a bunch being 6-8.
They have come in plastic, with the foam, and once in awhile some bubble wrap.
No problems here. That said, I don't usually use them 24/7, but use them in removeable drive caddies, something you might want to consider for your current path.

I converted some old boxing tapes to DVD, but, it was either difficult, not very successful, and, a real waste of money. I used a Plextor hardware converter to do the job from a vhs machine to my computer, and the result was a degraded signal. REALLY noticeable when you compare it to regular DVD's. Looked most of the time like a couple ghosts dancing around the ring.

I'm real interested in what you are going to use, and why bother? VHS is considerably lower quality then DVD, and way below Bluray, which is finally becoming common and affordable, except for the players/burners.

By the way, using multiple removeable drives, 3 to 5, has not been a particularly easy thing, or successful thing, for that matter.

We should see cheaper standard BD burners as the BD-XL (100/128GB) spec burners come on the market. Several Japanese DVRs using them have been announced. They always get the fun stuff first.

 

[Santilli]

I would hook a VCR to a TV card using the A/V inputs. That should avoid the signal degradation issues you mentioned. No idea of what TV card to get. I'll probably start a thread on that when I'm ready to buy. I'm really looking for something which has YPbPr as well as A/V inputs so it can connect directly to our cable box and get HD, but it seems no such cards exist.

As for why bother, I have a lot of tapes taking up a lot of space. They'll take up less space on DVDs, and also be a lot more accessible, especially if they're also on my PC. I know VHS is standard definition, not HD like DVDs, but hopefully the lower quality means I can get one 8 hour tape per DVD. Another reason for doing this is to avoid the eventual degradation of my tapes. I figure once everything is digitized, it'll be easy to just recopy to whatever new storage medium exists as time goes on. Left alone, I wouldn't be surprised if the tapes are unwatchable in another 10 years.


No plans here to use removeable drives. Whatever drives I need would be installed in my PC. My case has 5 drive bays. I'm only using one at present. Plenty of room for future expansion should 1.5TB be insufficient.

If Seagate has quality issues then I'll stay away. The problem is what to get instead. I only see WD with retail packaging ( and only in 1 and 2 TB, not 1.5 ). WD has a less than stellar reputation around here. I really don't trust that anything not in a retail package will be packaged properly by Newegg. Amazing they've been selling hard drives this long, have experienced quite a few return issues, and still don't pack them properly.

It would be MUCH cheaper, and probably better to just buy a VCR/DVD player, that can copy a tape right to a DVD, in the machine.

I'm not convinced a setup exists in a computer that allows the VCR tape to be converted
to a DVD format, without software. The plextor-converter software wouldn't even work on some of my tapes, rejecting the original as too bad to even start on.

The LG DVD/VCR player in the other room was 80 dollars.

Probably the most cost effective way to go after it.

As for Newegg putting people out of business:
No, the stores do that on their own. Best Buy has a 15% restocking fee. Compusa was 20%, and, a bunch of their stuff was absurdly priced.
If for some reason something doesn't work with your system, you get to pay 15% for finding that out.

Haven't had to try their return policy on a defective product, but, their prices, and service have not inspired my business.

My friend had a laptop he gave me. He first took it to the Geek Squad/Best Buy tech guys, and they charged him 160 dollars to tell him they couldn't fix it, and didn't know what was wrong.

Fry's seems like the only one to go to, and, they are putting the others out of business,
little by little.

I don't see the aversion to the removeable drives. I have 18 drives sitting around, most full,
that I don't need unless I want to use, and, in fact, I don't want them sitting there, consuming power, and not being used for anything.

 

[sechs]

I don't understand this. People have been complaining about Newegg drive packaging for years. Can't you just buy them elsewhere?

It's only a $75 item ...

It was twenty bucks cheaper at the time, which lead the lapse in judgment.

In the end here, Newegg is just going to be dealing with my credit card. I purchased a nearly perfectly packaged drive from another online retailer.

 

[sechs]

Solution: Don't buy one drive. Buy eight or 10.

Unfortunately, I only wanted one.

Any time that I've needed to get more than three drives at once, someone else was ordering. And I doubt we'd be ordering from Newegg for that, anyhow.

 

[ddrueding]

Even if you are willing to order in significantly large numbers (<50), newegg still often has the best prices. I know they beat out my Ingram Micro pricing, even when I was doing $250k/yr.

 

[time]

What brick and mortar stores do you guys have to buy computer components?

For starters, I can't think of an equivalent to Best Buy at all!

On the other hand, the closest to Fry's is probably the DSE (Dick Smith Electronics) chain, with about 350 stores (433 total in Australia and New Zealand). They only sell some computer components, eg. no CPUs.

Harris Technology (5 branches, all in state capitals) would be similar to CDW, ie. more business oriented and half-way knowledgeable staff.

I see MSY, with 25 branches, as a rough equivalent of Tiger Direct, although they only sell computer stuff.

Umart might be a very loose match to Micro Center, but due to an earlier legal conflict it's only in 2 of 6 states so far (a competitor was using the same name). Although you can see some stuff in token displays, they really function as a wholesaler who happens to sell to the public. You're expected to place your order online, and you only go there to pick up or return the goods. It's hugely popular and highly efficient (and they handle hard drives carefully).

From Wikipedia: UMart focuses on moving large quantities of goods and for that reason sells primarily products that have a lot of demand and high turnover; they primarily sell computer hardware, computer software, and some consumer electronics products.

So it (and MSY) has a much more limited range than the American chains. With the rationalization that seems to have occurred with the GFC or maybe just the pace of technological change, that's no longer such a big deal. For instance, if you only sell Asus and Gigabyte motherboards, most people aren't going to care any more.

On the other hand, mail-order-only firms don't usually carry stock at all. They 'drop-ship', meaning the goods are delivered direct from the distributor(s). Unfortunately, shipping costs are pretty high in Australia and deliveries may take 2 or 3 days (look at a map, you'll figure out why).

Sorry to bore people with this, cultural comparisons with other countries fascinate me.

 

[time]

I used to work for a big box computer retailer, and to think that they handle the merchandise better than UPS would be a mistake.

I can't think of any big box retailers in Oz. I guess that's a significant difference.

 

[time]

I know they beat out my Ingram Micro pricing, even when I was doing $250k/yr.

It's a similar picture here, in that virtually all of the wholesalers I used to buy from have gone broke. The couple remaining offer prices above what I can buy retail.

 

[Pradeep]

For starters, I can't think of an equivalent to Best Buy at all!

On the other hand, the closest to Fry's is probably the DSE (Dick Smith Electronics) chain, with about 350 stores (433 total in Australia and New Zealand). They only sell some computer components, eg. no CPUs.

Harris Technology (5 branches, all in state capitals) would be similar to CDW, ie. more business oriented and half-way knowledgeable staff.

I see MSY, with 25 branches, as a rough equivalent of Tiger Direct, although they only sell computer stuff.

Umart might be a very loose match to Micro Center, but due to an earlier legal conflict it's only in 2 of 6 states so far (a competitor was using the same name). Although you can see some stuff in token displays, they really function as a wholesaler who happens to sell to the public. You're expected to place your order online, and you only go there to pick up or return the goods. It's hugely popular and highly efficient (and they handle hard drives carefully).

From Wikipedia: UMart focuses on moving large quantities of goods and for that reason sells primarily products that have a lot of demand and high turnover; they primarily sell computer hardware, computer software, and some consumer electronics products.

So it (and MSY) has a much more limited range than the American chains. With the rationalization that seems to have occurred with the GFC or maybe just the pace of technological change, that's no longer such a big deal. For instance, if you only sell Asus and Gigabyte motherboards, most people aren't going to care any more.

On the other hand, mail-order-only firms don't usually carry stock at all. They 'drop-ship', meaning the goods are delivered direct from the distributor(s). Unfortunately, shipping costs are pretty high in Australia and deliveries may take 2 or 3 days (look at a map, you'll figure out why).

Sorry to bore people with this, cultural comparisons with other countries fascinate me.

A good read. Though I would equate Dick Smith more closely with Radio Shack than Fry's. Of course I haven't been in a DSE store in prob 10 years so they may have changed.

 

[time]

I can't find a decent photo online to illustrate what DSE looks like now, so you'll have to use your imagination with this:

And you're right, Tandy stores were actually 'rebranded' as DSE stores.

Look, it's a loose analogy, okay? The relatively high number of DSE stores tells you how small they are compared to Frys stores in a country with 15 times as many people.

 

[Mercutio]

It would be MUCH cheaper, and probably better to just buy a VCR/DVD player, that can copy a tape right to a DVD, in the machine.

The DVDs that get made by those direct-to-DVD systems are almost always DVD-VRs rather than actual DVD-Video discs. That may be OK if you're watching them on a set-top player but if you ever want to do anything else that involves a PC, you need to be sure your software can deal with a DVD-VR disc. And maybe that software can, and maybe it can't.

 

[sechs]

Even if you are willing to order in significantly large numbers (<50), newegg still often has the best prices. I know they beat out my Ingram Micro pricing, even when I was doing $250k/yr.

One might imagine that you get better service from Ingram. Then again, some people get a choice.

I've been unable to convince some IT guys to buy custom-configured Thinkpads directly from Lenovo, rather than preconfigured models from CDW. Just because it's cheaper, faster, and better doesn't make it the right option -- somehow.

 

[ddrueding]

Really cheaper? My CDW guy gives me some pretty awesome breaks sometimes.

 

[Pradeep]

I can't find a decent photo online to illustrate what DSE looks like now, so you'll have to use your imagination with this:

And you're right, Tandy stores were actually 'rebranded' as DSE stores.

Look, it's a loose analogy, okay? The relatively high number of DSE stores tells you how small they are compared to Frys stores in a country with 15 times as many people.

Wow, they've certainly brightened it up. Before it was dark aisles where you may need a flashlight to pick out what you are looking for, and then the wise looking gentleman with the big beard would ring it up. Looks like they've gone all Geek Squad now.

 

[Bozo]

What doesn't make sense is most drives are rated upwards of 1000G of shock tolerance, non-operating.
Even minimal packing should be sufficient.
Considering the millions that are made every year, I would think most of the bad hard drives were borked at the factory before shipping.

 

[Pradeep]

1000Gs over what time period? You don't have to speed it up to the speed of a race car to exceed that when you drop it in the back of a UPS truck with just two peanuts and a bubble bag.

 

[sechs]

Really cheaper? My CDW guy gives me some pretty awesome breaks sometimes.

Not always, but in this case it was. If CDW had been enough cheaper, it would have probably made up for the not-quite-perfectly configured computers.

 

[sechs]

1000Gs over what time period? You don't have to speed it up to the speed of a race car to exceed that when you drop it in the back of a UPS truck with just two peanuts and a bubble bag.

I suspect that the box thing that they had it in actually helped to transmit the force rather than protect the drive from it.

I guess anything that dies after 30-days, Newegg doesn't have any idea whether they caused the failure or not.