I was an exclusive user of Crucial for memory and storage until about a year ago. My general thought was that: - It would give me a trusted supply chain, since

I was an exclusive user of Crucial for memory and storage until about a year ago. My general thought was that: - It would give me a trusted supply chain, since the company makes the silicon; and - I would have a credible standing behind it, which wasn't likely to want to tarnish its reputation cutting corners. The thinking was very much along the lines of "No one got fired buying IBM." And I think it was pretty correct for most of the past quarter-century. Historically, storage had a lot of counterfeits and shenanigans, and a credible vendor was nice. Price/performance for memory was adequate; there was a modest premium. However, post-2020, I bought a defective Crucial DIMM (and didn't find out it was defective until I was past the return window). The RMA experience was strange. Crucial said they could either: - Replace it with an inferior part with different, slower timings, which may or may not have worked in my system - Give me a quickly-expiring store credit for "fair market value" (never disclosing what that was, and stopped responding to emails when I asked) Neither of these was helpful at all. Reading online, there were many similar stories, unfortunately. They seem to be going the same direction as Sandisk / Western Digital. I replaced it with a cheap TeamGroup DIMM which worked without problems. I'm not quite sure what to do about the continued enshitification. There seem to be almost no credible brands left.