Comment on [deleted]
catloaf@lemm.ee 5 weeks agoYes, the seller is Newegg, but they’re a marketplace like Amazon. Check who fulfills the order.
rattling around unprotected in their boxes
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.
Benjaben@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
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.
catloaf@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Why do you say “obviously faulty”? Do the drives not function, or do they fail any SMART test?
Benjaben@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
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 (less so when powered off off, but not at all zero!) makes for a significant influence in its MTTF. 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?
catloaf@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
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.