Seagate ES from china: Bad bad bad

I just bought a 400GB Seagate ES drive. When it arrived, it was not in
the usual Seashell, but in an ESD bag. It also had a big sticker
"Made in China". Alarmed by this, I had a closer look and found that
the creamic casing of the crystal on the PCB was shattered. The
missing parts were not in the bag, so this was done pre-packaging.
Also, shattering these things takes massive force.

For such an obvious problem to have passed Q/A basically means that
the Q/A done is worthless. I would advise everybody to stay away from
these drives.

Arno

On 9 Feb 2007 16:44:54 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote:

I just bought a 400GB Seagate ES drive. When it arrived, it was not in
the usual Seashell, but in an ESD bag. It also had a big sticker
"Made in China". Alarmed by this, I had a closer look and found that
the creamic casing of the crystal on the PCB was shattered. The
missing parts were not in the bag, so this was done pre-packaging.
Also, shattering these things takes massive force.

For such an obvious problem to have passed Q/A basically means that
the Q/A done is worthless. I would advise everybody to stay away from
these drives.

Arno
Arno,
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but are your recommending
avoiding that specific drive, or Seagate in general?

Previously DaveH wrote:
On 9 Feb 2007 16:44:54 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote:

I just bought a 400GB Seagate ES drive. When it arrived, it was not in
the usual Seashell, but in an ESD bag. It also had a big sticker
"Made in China". Alarmed by this, I had a closer look and found that
the creamic casing of the crystal on the PCB was shattered. The
missing parts were not in the bag, so this was done pre-packaging.
Also, shattering these things takes massive force.

For such an obvious problem to have passed Q/A basically means that
the Q/A done is worthless. I would advise everybody to stay away from
these drives.

Arno
Arno,
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but are your recommending
avoiding that specific drive, or Seagate in general?

Well, I don't quite know. At the moment this seems to indicate
avoiding Seagate drives made in China. And also that at least some
if the ES drives (Enterprise Storage, obviously a joke) are made in
China.

Arno

Arno Wagner writes:
I just bought a 400GB Seagate ES drive. When it arrived, it was not in
the usual Seashell, but in an ESD bag...
Well, I don't quite know. At the moment this seems to indicate
avoiding Seagate drives made in China. And also that at least some
if the ES drives (Enterprise Storage, obviously a joke) are made in China.

That is weird, that the packaging changed and so forth. Could it have
been a counterfeit drive or one repackaged by some dealer?

Arno Wagner wrote:

Previously DaveH wrote:
On 9 Feb 2007 16:44:54 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote:

I just bought a 400GB Seagate ES drive. When it arrived, it was not in
the usual Seashell, but in an ESD bag. It also had a big sticker
"Made in China". Alarmed by this, I had a closer look and found that
the creamic casing of the crystal on the PCB was shattered. The
missing parts were not in the bag, so this was done pre-packaging.
Also, shattering these things takes massive force.

For such an obvious problem to have passed Q/A basically means that
the Q/A done is worthless. I would advise everybody to stay away from
these drives.

Arno
Arno,
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but are your recommending
avoiding that specific drive, or Seagate in general?

Well, I don't quite know. At the moment this seems to indicate
avoiding Seagate drives made in China. And also that at least some
if the ES drives (Enterprise Storage, obviously a joke) are made in
China.


There are *numerous* problems with drives from China, failed heads being
the most prominent, followed by seized bearings.

Their laptop drives manufactured in China with firmware 7.01 are also
disastrously unreliable.

Clearly Seagate are manufacturing to a price by using China, and I think
it's going to ruin their reputation. First associating themselves with
the Maxtor brand, and now Chinese failures.


Odie
--
Retrodata
www.retrodata.co.uk
Globally Local Data Recovery Experts

Odie Ferrous wrote:
Arno Wagner wrote:

Previously DaveH wrote:
On 9 Feb 2007 16:44:54 GMT, Arno Wagner wrote:

I just bought a 400GB Seagate ES drive. When it arrived, it was
not in the usual Seashell, but in an ESD bag. It also had a big
sticker "Made in China". Alarmed by this, I had a closer look and
found that the creamic casing of the crystal on the PCB was
shattered. The missing parts were not in the bag, so this was done
pre-packaging. Also, shattering these things takes massive force.

For such an obvious problem to have passed Q/A basically means that
the Q/A done is worthless. I would advise everybody to stay away
from these drives.

Arno
Arno,
Forgive me if this is a stupid question, but are your recommending
avoiding that specific drive, or Seagate in general?

Well, I don't quite know. At the moment this seems to indicate
avoiding Seagate drives made in China. And also that at least some
if the ES drives (Enterprise Storage, obviously a joke) are made in
China.


There are *numerous* problems with drives from China, failed heads
being the most prominent, followed by seized bearings.

Their laptop drives manufactured in China with firmware 7.01 are also
disastrously unreliable.

Clearly Seagate are manufacturing to a price by using China, and I
think it's going to ruin their reputation. First associating
themselves with the Maxtor brand, and now Chinese failures.

Yeah, looks suspiciously like some fool beancounter is driving Seagate into the ground.

"Paul Rubin" wrote in message
Arno Wagner writes:
I just bought a 400GB Seagate ES drive. When it arrived, it was not in
the usual Seashell, but in an ESD bag...

Well, I don't quite know. At the moment this seems to indicate
avoiding Seagate drives made in China.

Like only the Chinese knock Xtals off, you Swiss Chauvinist Pig.

And also that at least some if the ES drives (Enterprise Storage,
obviously a joke) are made in China.

Like anything coming from the Chinas is a joke, eh Babblebot.
Better give your mainboard, video card, harddisk controller
and what else have you the boot then too, before they bite you.
Go live in a museum. Or a mausoleum, in your case.

That is weird, that the packaging changed and so forth. Could it
have been a counterfeit drive or one repackaged by some dealer?

You *do* know you are talking to the braindead attention starved Babblebot Idjut, don't you, Rubin?

It's obviously not Seagate's fault when one buys from some Ebay
broker flogging off leftover OEM drives.

In article , Odie Ferrous
writes

Clearly Seagate are manufacturing to a price by using China, and I think
it's going to ruin their reputation. First associating themselves with
the Maxtor brand, and now Chinese failures.

Wonderful. So what's the nest choice now? Hitachi? The Deskstars seem
to be rather good at the moment.

--
(\__/)
(='.'=) This is Bunny. Copy and paste Bunny into your
(")_(") signature to help him gain world domination.

On Sat, 10 Feb 2007 09:56:21 +0000, Mike Tomlinson
wrote:

In article , Odie Ferrous
writes

Clearly Seagate are manufacturing to a price by using China, and I think
it's going to ruin their reputation. First associating themselves with
the Maxtor brand, and now Chinese failures.

Wonderful. So what's the nest choice now? Hitachi? The Deskstars seem
to be rather good at the moment.
Right--same question.

I assume Maxtor is out. WD, Samsung? This is ridiculous.
I've never had a Maxtor fail, but sounds like the current ones are
garbage.
Dave

Mike Tomlinson wrote
Odie Ferrous writes

Clearly Seagate are manufacturing to a price by using China,
and I think it's going to ruin their reputation. First associating
themselves with the Maxtor brand, and now Chinese failures.

Wonderful. So what's the nest choice now?

I've never been into ****ting in the nest, but the best choice is samsung
IMO. Nice and quiet and on the low end power and temp wise.

Hitachi? The Deskstars seem to be rather good at the moment.

I dont care for their warranty claim system personally and
they arent as quiet and as cool running as the samsungs.