1 |
Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 16:00:09 schrieb Michael Mol: |
2 |
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann |
3 |
> |
4 |
> <volkerarmin@××××××××××.com> wrote: |
5 |
> > Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 15:17:45 schrieb Michael Mol: |
6 |
> >> On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 2:52 PM, Volker Armin Hemmann |
7 |
> >> |
8 |
> >> <volkerarmin@××××××××××.com> wrote: |
9 |
> >> > Am Donnerstag 27 Oktober 2011, 13:51:47 schrieb Michael Mol: |
10 |
> >> >> Just don't buy a SAMSUNG drive. I know, I know, everyone has |
11 |
> >> >> their pet "Don't Buy Hard Drives Made By $x" experience. |
12 |
> >> >> |
13 |
> >> >> Here's mine. |
14 |
> >> >> |
15 |
> >> >> I bought a 1TB SAMSUNG drive for cheap from Newegg at a Black |
16 |
> >> >> Friday |
17 |
> >> >> sale a couple years ago. It failed on me. Around the same time, |
18 |
> >> >> I |
19 |
> >> >> identified some flaws in the firmware which I considered |
20 |
> >> >> severe[2]. |
21 |
> >> > |
22 |
> >> > Model=SAMSUNG MMCRE64G5MXP-0VB, FwRev=VBM1901Q, |
23 |
> >> > SerialNo=S0FDNEAZ600013 Model=SAMSUNG HD502IJ, FwRev=1AA01109, |
24 |
> >> > SerialNo=S13TJDWQ346413 Model=SAMSUNG HD753LJ, FwRev=1AA01113, |
25 |
> >> > SerialNo=S13UJ1CQB07158 Model=SAMSUNG HD502HJ, FwRev=1AJ100E5, |
26 |
> >> > SerialNo=S20BJDWS913888 Model=SAMSUNG HD103SJ, FwRev=1AJ10001, |
27 |
> >> > SerialNo=S246JD1Z910209 Model=SAMSUNG HD103SJ, FwRev=1AJ100E5, |
28 |
> >> > SerialNo=S246JDWSA20722 |
29 |
> >> > |
30 |
> >> > Oh, yeah it was THAT 2tb drive with the smart bug. |
31 |
> >> > |
32 |
> >> > Which was solved with an easy to do firmware update. |
33 |
> >> |
34 |
> >> I checked at the time. There was no firmware update, and, to my |
35 |
> >> knowledge, there never was for the drive model that failed on me. |
36 |
> >> Shortly after my second drive failed, Newegg discontinued selling |
37 |
> >> model. (The most I remember about the model number can be expressed as |
38 |
> >> a regex: HD10.*UI. I don't remember the firmware revision. |
39 |
> >> |
40 |
> >> It was the combination of historical problems, personal incidental |
41 |
> >> experience and terrible customer service that led me to swear off |
42 |
> >> SAMSUNG drives. Take away any one of those issues from my experiences |
43 |
> >> at the time, and I'd consider buying another drive from them. |
44 |
> >> |
45 |
> >> You've got six working drives of various sizes, models and firmware |
46 |
> >> revisions. Good for you. I've got a still-functional 40GB IBM |
47 |
> >> DeathStar. (It's not powered up right now, but it never failed on me |
48 |
> >> after five years of use.) |
49 |
> > |
50 |
> > and I had 5 death stars failing on me. |
51 |
> |
52 |
> My point is that the numbers aren't what mattered here. My point is |
53 |
> that SAMSUNG sold me a shoddy product, replaced it with another |
54 |
> instance of the the same shoddy product, wouldn't replace it again, |
55 |
> and never addressed a detailed technical report of a systemic problem |
56 |
> in the same. Bad tech, bad customer service, and it looked like this |
57 |
> was a more common scenario than among other manufacturers. All of it |
58 |
> boiled down to a nasty case of being a bad candidate for spending time |
59 |
> and money. |
60 |
|
61 |
Samsung replaced my two drives (one 500gb drive from a known shady series and |
62 |
the SSD when the firmware overwrote itself) without any fuss. |
63 |
|
64 |
Of course, I included the results of their check tool. No problem. |
65 |
|
66 |
> |
67 |
> Did IBM refuse to replace your failing drives? |
68 |
|
69 |
no, but 5 out of 5 died and took tons of valuable data with them. |
70 |
|
71 |
That is the worst case scenario. All other harddrives had no problems at all. |
72 |
Different mobos, PSUs - nothing changed the fact that all death stars I ever |
73 |
owned died violently - except the last one, because I sold the computer it was |
74 |
built in in time. |
75 |
|
76 |
> Did you include |
77 |
> detailed technical information that should have allowed them to |
78 |
> resolve issues leading to those drives' failures? For me, SAMSUNG's |
79 |
> behavior in the customer service department indicated that I wasn't |
80 |
> likely to get good service in the future, and the rapidly-failing |
81 |
> drives (combined with my analysis of the SMART output and the history |
82 |
> of SMART problems with SAMSUNG drives) indicated to me that I'd need |
83 |
> to use that customer service department in the future if I bought more |
84 |
> of their drives. |
85 |
|
86 |
there was one smart related problem with Samsung in the last year. With their |
87 |
2tb drives. Samsung released a firmware patch after they were informed of the |
88 |
problem. |
89 |
|
90 |
Apart from that Samsung drives just work for me - and the people around me. |
91 |
|
92 |
I also had no problems with drives getting replaced - but the replacing was |
93 |
always the problem of my trusted hardware dealer. That is why you buy hdds |
94 |
from a trusted, local guy. The rest was the problem of Samsung. They can't |
95 |
wiggle out of Germany's warranty laws ;) |
96 |
|
97 |
> |
98 |
> So you've got six working drives, and a drive that works now that you |
99 |
> patched the firmware. Congrats on choosing a model for which a |
100 |
> firmware patch was made available (unless that was just luck...). |
101 |
> Also, good luck if you have a failing drive that was sent to you by |
102 |
> RMA. It's been a few years; if you're lucky, they may have cleaned up |
103 |
> their act. |
104 |
|
105 |
In fact there were two: a 500gb from a known series, and the SSD. Both got |
106 |
replaced because both failed in the warranty period. They had no chance but |
107 |
had to replace them. It went quickly and without any fuss. I did run their |
108 |
check tool and reported the results. No more questions asked. Here is the old |
109 |
one, thanks for the new one. |
110 |
|
111 |
Western Digital - two drives. They worked. They were lousy, noisy, lame, hot, |
112 |
but worked. |
113 |
|
114 |
Seagate: now 3 drives, 1 had to be replaced. It was pretty much dead on |
115 |
arrival, with a severe spindle defect. All three worked just fine until I |
116 |
replaced them |
117 |
|
118 |
Toshiba&co have to check my Dell Poweredge what drives are in there... |
119 |
|
120 |
IBM all death stars I ever owned failed except the last one - which was given |
121 |
away (and failed with its new owner). Which is the worst possible outcome. No |
122 |
customer support can outweight such a disaster. |
123 |
|
124 |
|
125 |
-- |
126 |
#163933 |