It is the fault of the retailers because it’s well known that things don’t always get handled with care in shipping, especially when you’re talking about automated machines and people handling millions of boxes. They’re the ones packing these items to ship and damaged items are needless waste. I buy car parts online and they manage to pack these often heavy and awkwardly shaped parts correctly so that they don’t sustain damage. Newegg could do the same with some HDDs.
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Xanza@lemm.ee 1 day ago
This isn’t the fault of retailers. Shipping things is hard. It entirely depends on the people in transit willing to do their jobs, and sometimes you just don’t get lucky.
CmdrShepard42@lemm.ee 1 day ago
catloaf@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I’m sure they can and do. I have never received a defective drive purchased new, through I don’t even know how many desktops, servers, and storage systems. Even drives preinstalled in desktops with no extra packaging have run perfectly well for years. I can count on one finger the number of hard drive failures in those desktops I’ve seen in the last decade.
Benjaben@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I think if my business saw a $400 return for damaged goods, and I’m sure higher in cases too, I’d ensure I have a robust system to package those orders correctly the second time, no? I’m not complaining about the way it was treated in transit, but the way it was packed. It used only air bubbles, which both times (and on the same side) ruptured or deflated from elevation change, but either way left the drives just freely bouncing around their containing box. And I directly and precisely explained exactly the nature of the failure to them, with photographic evidence (as their process requires). I’m willing to acknowledge that mistakes happen, but c’mon. In addition, shouldn’t Newegg of all places know these are fragile devices, and probably savvy customers?
catloaf@lemm.ee 1 day ago
$400 is nothing for businesses. At my job, purchases under $10,000 don’t require any approval.
You haven’t said who you’re actually buying from. Any actual retailer selling new drives should be shipping them in the OEM packaging, and WD and Seagate should be packaging them just fine.
But really, hard drives aren’t that sensitive to shock. If the drive is off, the heads are parked, there’s not much that can happen unless they get absolutely slammed against something and directly impacted. I run plenty of used drives shipped in a single layer of bubble wrap with few issues. Where I do have issues (connector damage, excessive bad sectors, failed short/long/conveyance SMART tests), those I replace.
But, if this is critical data, you should always be prepared for drive failures with hot spares. Even an apparently healthy drive can suddenly stop working.
Benjaben@lemmy.world 1 day ago
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?
catloaf@lemm.ee 1 day ago
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.
Xanza@lemm.ee 1 day ago
This is my point. You can package your electronics as good as you want, but when it comes to hard drives, if the middle man decides to play ice hockey with your package it doesn’t matter. If you want to blame something blame Newton’s second and third Laws of Motion. 🤷♂️
Benjaben@lemmy.world 1 day ago
No I don’t think I will, I think I’ll blame the shoddy packing which is very unlikely to successfully protect the goods, due to the well-known challenges of shipping products and especially delicate products that you’re describing, and which indeed did fail 2x in a row to protect said goods, but you do you!
Xanza@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I owned my own tech firm for 10 years or so. I setup any number of backup solutions with enterprise level HDDs. I’ve seen HDDs packaged impeccably. I’ve seen them come in a cardboard box with absolutely no protection and it’s an absolute crap shoot no matter what. As a matter of fact, there’s a HDD connected to a NAS attached to the computer I’m typing this out on that’s been working for over 8 years non-stop and it was one that just came direct in a cardboard box. Didn’t have a lick of paper or bubble-warp in it.
I’m not telling you not to be critical of retailers who don’t properly protect the things you buy. I’m telling you to measure your response because at the end of the day they’re incredibly fragile no matter how they’re packaged. Properly packaging doesn’t mean you’re going to get a 100% success rate. If you’re that worried about it, then find a local retailer and don’t buy them online.