7 ms·

We stopped buying drives from Amazon when we got drives for "the wrong region" and couldn't RMA them. NewEgg is a bit better, but don't buy refurbished drives.

by sn 7y ago

We stopped buying drives from Amazon when we got drives for "the wrong region" and couldn't RMA them. NewEgg is a bit better, but don't buy refurbished drives. Provantage is another reputable vendor that usually has decent prices. If you're local to the SF bay area, check out Central Computers. King Star USA also works if you're a business customer making a large purchase.

cortesoft 7y ago
Drives for the wrong region? What is that?
- Mattwmaster58 7y ago
  I assume they got a drive that wasn't meant for their region of the. When they tried to initiate an RMA with the manufacturer, it appears they wouldn't accept it.
- sn 7y ago
  Regions like for TV and movies. IE, they sold a drive in Asia and someone sold it to us. We do a warranty check and are told that we can't get a warranty for that drive because we're in the US. It's worth doing a warranty check with the manufacturer as soon as you receive the drive if there's any possibility at all it might not be up and up, so that you have an opportunity to return the drive if you want to. Even if the drive is legitimate, a vendor might sell you an OEM drive which means having to go through that vendor for warranty service instead of direct with the manufacturer. That might be too much of a hassle.
- robjan 7y ago
  Often the drives are sold at different prices in different regions. For instance, I have a few WD Reds (NAS 24/7 grade) cheaper than Blues (consumer grade). They have the words "Not for sale outside Mainland China" in big bold writing on the label. They are usually parallel or grey market goods, in my case they were brought into Hong Kong by parallel traders who probably brought infant formula or medicine back into mainland China
- cardiffspaceman 7y ago
  Gray market: The short version is that the exact model that was purchased was intended for a different region due to price segmentation at the manufacturer/brand. The item would be genuine but the manufacturer won't support the item if the customer is outside the intended region. DVD/BluRay implement a lot of the distribution layer of segmentation in hardware and software, but the notion exists in lots of goods, such as in the marketing of high-end watches to different countries.
cnst 7y ago
I don't understand why anyone still buys anything at Amazon. Their Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA) idea was quite a game changer, but the implementation with the inventory co-mingling is something that I'd much rather stay away from as a consumer. There's been oh-so-many reports that even if you're buying from the official store of any known brand, with FBA, then you might as well still receive a knock-off, due to the inventory co-mingling issue. Have they ever resolved this for good, or is noone really bothers to even pay any attention to this anymore?
- jjeaff 7y ago
  co-mingling is mostly opt-in, unless that has changed. And I doubt they are co-mingling high dollar products, nor should anyone be dumb enough to do that. You usually only co-mingle to avoid the effort of putting individual sku stickers on each item which makes sense for very low priced items.
- senderista 7y ago
  Official brands with their own store can opt out of commingling. I've confirmed this with a friend who works on the retail side of Amazon.
  - gregmac 7y ago
    As a consumer, is there a way to tell when this is the case? It would be nice to filter this way, similar to using "Prime" to filter to just "ships from Amazon warehouse".
    - ChrisRR 7y ago
      When you select your seller on Amazon, make sure the seller is Amazon and not a third party seller "fulfilled by amazon"
      - 867-5309 7y ago
        this is the opposite of what was asked
dehrmann 7y ago
I bought some "Amazon Renewed" WD/HGST 10TB He drives. They came from a sketchy seller that provides a "warranty," but the provided phone number and website didn't match. I think one was used but a different(?) sketchy used HDD seller in another state. I'm pretty sure there's no real warranty, I have no idea where these drives even came from, I have no trust in "Amazon Renewed," and I have a fear the drives are actually a bit smaller, but run a hacked firmware. But I saved $120 on the pair, so rolling the dice...
- toast0 7y ago
  Yeah, I don't know what Amazon Renewed is, but it's not consistent. I bought two renewed phones of the same model a couple weeks apart, and they came with similar but not the same packaging, and one came with a review card from the vendor, even though I bought shipped and sold by Amazon.
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    I think they're going to get in trouble for it (and Amazon Choice) because it implies they're the ones doing the work.
- bangboombang 7y ago
  I tried that once a couple months ago. The drive pretty much came with a head crash preinstalled. I plugged it in and it sounded like it's shredding bricks in there. I assume the seller just sources defective drives from somewhere and directly resells them as refurbished, letting the buyer do the actual testing. I assume this must work because some drives might erroneously been marked defective when it was really a sofstware issue, or other hw problem, like faulty sata cable, mainboard, loose connection, and then obviously there are drives with minor issues, like just a few reallocated sectors, that the naive buyer might not be aware of.
inferiorhuman 7y ago
I forget why I stopped patronizing Central Computer, probably something to do with selection, price, and service. Newegg is an utterly hostile place to buy things these days. Honestly, if price isn't a motivating factor CDW still exists (and if you're making large business purchases you'll definitely get better pricing).
NKCSS 7y ago
Well, Amazon is the place you bought them from, they are liable for your warrany, not the manufacturer, so it should not be your problem, Amazon will have to take care of it. My experiences with Amazon have been amazing; I bought two 1TB 970 pro's when they just came out (hella expensive), and one of them was faulty. After explaining my troubleshoot, they were like: ok, sounds like you know what you are doing, we'll send you a new one, be sure to return the one that's faulty in the next few days. I was blown away, amazing experience for me and certainly a reason for me to look at Amazon first when I need something else.
boring_twenties 7y ago
> NewEgg is a bit better, but don't buy refurbished drives. Be very careful even buying new drives from party vendors on Newegg. I've gotten quite a few that were advertised as new but report over 30,000 hours of power-on time. It turns out my experience is far from unique. Basically, very few people will check the SMART data, so the vast majority of the reviews are fine. If you do happen to catch it, Newegg will of course ultimately step in and force the vendor to fix it -- but that's about it. The first vendor that scammed me appears to still be doing brisk business on the site over a year later, with mostly 4 and 5 star reviews. Don't buy from https://www.newegg.com/TEKDEALZ https://www.newegg.com/TEKDEALZ to start with.

by sn 7y ago

cortesoft 7y ago

Drives for the wrong region? What is that?

Mattwmaster58 7y ago
I assume they got a drive that wasn't meant for their region of the. When they tried to initiate an RMA with the manufacturer, it appears they wouldn't accept it.
sn 7y ago
Regions like for TV and movies. IE, they sold a drive in Asia and someone sold it to us. We do a warranty check and are told that we can't get a warranty for that drive because we're in the US. It's worth doing a warranty check with the manufacturer as soon as you receive the drive if there's any possibility at all it might not be up and up, so that you have an opportunity to return the drive if you want to. Even if the drive is legitimate, a vendor might sell you an OEM drive which means having to go through that vendor for warranty service instead of direct with the manufacturer. That might be too much of a hassle.
robjan 7y ago
Often the drives are sold at different prices in different regions. For instance, I have a few WD Reds (NAS 24/7 grade) cheaper than Blues (consumer grade). They have the words "Not for sale outside Mainland China" in big bold writing on the label. They are usually parallel or grey market goods, in my case they were brought into Hong Kong by parallel traders who probably brought infant formula or medicine back into mainland China
cardiffspaceman 7y ago
Gray market: The short version is that the exact model that was purchased was intended for a different region due to price segmentation at the manufacturer/brand. The item would be genuine but the manufacturer won't support the item if the customer is outside the intended region. DVD/BluRay implement a lot of the distribution layer of segmentation in hardware and software, but the notion exists in lots of goods, such as in the marketing of high-end watches to different countries.

cnst 7y ago

I don't understand why anyone still buys anything at Amazon. Their Fulfilled-by-Amazon (FBA) idea was quite a game changer, but the implementation with the inventory co-mingling is something that I'd much rather stay away from as a consumer. There's been oh-so-many reports that even if you're buying from the official store of any known brand, with FBA, then you might as well still receive a knock-off, due to the inventory co-mingling issue. Have they ever resolved this for good, or is noone really bothers to even pay any attention to this anymore?

jjeaff 7y ago
co-mingling is mostly opt-in, unless that has changed. And I doubt they are co-mingling high dollar products, nor should anyone be dumb enough to do that. You usually only co-mingle to avoid the effort of putting individual sku stickers on each item which makes sense for very low priced items.
senderista 7y ago
Official brands with their own store can opt out of commingling. I've confirmed this with a friend who works on the retail side of Amazon.
- gregmac 7y ago
  As a consumer, is there a way to tell when this is the case? It would be nice to filter this way, similar to using "Prime" to filter to just "ships from Amazon warehouse".
  - ChrisRR 7y ago
    When you select your seller on Amazon, make sure the seller is Amazon and not a third party seller "fulfilled by amazon"
    - 867-5309 7y ago
      this is the opposite of what was asked

dehrmann 7y ago

I bought some "Amazon Renewed" WD/HGST 10TB He drives. They came from a sketchy seller that provides a "warranty," but the provided phone number and website didn't match. I think one was used but a different(?) sketchy used HDD seller in another state. I'm pretty sure there's no real warranty, I have no idea where these drives even came from, I have no trust in "Amazon Renewed," and I have a fear the drives are actually a bit smaller, but run a hacked firmware. But I saved $120 on the pair, so rolling the dice...

toast0 7y ago
Yeah, I don't know what Amazon Renewed is, but it's not consistent. I bought two renewed phones of the same model a couple weeks apart, and they came with similar but not the same packaging, and one came with a review card from the vendor, even though I bought shipped and sold by Amazon.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  I think they're going to get in trouble for it (and Amazon Choice) because it implies they're the ones doing the work.
bangboombang 7y ago
I tried that once a couple months ago. The drive pretty much came with a head crash preinstalled. I plugged it in and it sounded like it's shredding bricks in there. I assume the seller just sources defective drives from somewhere and directly resells them as refurbished, letting the buyer do the actual testing. I assume this must work because some drives might erroneously been marked defective when it was really a sofstware issue, or other hw problem, like faulty sata cable, mainboard, loose connection, and then obviously there are drives with minor issues, like just a few reallocated sectors, that the naive buyer might not be aware of.

inferiorhuman 7y ago

I forget why I stopped patronizing Central Computer, probably something to do with selection, price, and service. Newegg is an utterly hostile place to buy things these days. Honestly, if price isn't a motivating factor CDW still exists (and if you're making large business purchases you'll definitely get better pricing).

NKCSS 7y ago

Well, Amazon is the place you bought them from, they are liable for your warrany, not the manufacturer, so it should not be your problem, Amazon will have to take care of it. My experiences with Amazon have been amazing; I bought two 1TB 970 pro's when they just came out (hella expensive), and one of them was faulty. After explaining my troubleshoot, they were like: ok, sounds like you know what you are doing, we'll send you a new one, be sure to return the one that's faulty in the next few days. I was blown away, amazing experience for me and certainly a reason for me to look at Amazon first when I need something else.

boring_twenties 7y ago

> NewEgg is a bit better, but don't buy refurbished drives. Be very careful even buying new drives from party vendors on Newegg. I've gotten quite a few that were advertised as new but report over 30,000 hours of power-on time. It turns out my experience is far from unique. Basically, very few people will check the SMART data, so the vast majority of the reviews are fine. If you do happen to catch it, Newegg will of course ultimately step in and force the vendor to fix it -- but that's about it. The first vendor that scammed me appears to still be doing brisk business on the site over a year later, with mostly 4 and 5 star reviews. Don't buy from https://www.newegg.com/TEKDEALZ https://www.newegg.com/TEKDEALZ to start with.