- Joined
- Feb 10, 2008
- Messages
- 1,955
- Purraise
- 30
I use a lot of techie stuff. Electronics are prone to things like bad solder, bad parts etc. I mean after all, it's all 100% automated manufacturing, so things just don't work perfectly sometimes. (though I think it's still better than hand made most times. tolerances and amounts of glue,solder etc are nearly perfect in automated).
I've been using a Westerd Digital Passport for a backup device. It's a small plastic piece of hardware that contains a laptop drive, and components so you plug it in to a USB port on your PC. When yo plug it in, it just shows up as another drive. I do complex backups of things and the sizes just started getting too big. so for some (about 200GB) i started using the passport for. I have a RAID5 data set up, which means even if a hard drive goes bad I don't lose data, but my thought was that i could store the backups, disconnect the unit and put it away.
about a month ago mine died. It was when I was moving here. I could hear the pinch heads clicking so i knew it was a typical drive failure. I figured that it must have been dropped (the box it was in) during shipping. So I got on the Western Digital website and got an RMA (basically a warranty call to get it fixed). I sent it in, and a couple weeks later I got a new one. Probably refurbished but in electronics I'm WAY ok using refurbs.
4 days after getting it........it went bad again. same thing. I started doing some research and this was a pretty common complaint. up until then I had no idea the passport had a failure problem.
So I put another RMA in, but while doing so I found a linnk to email them. I was pretty pissed because i had once again lost about 200gb of data, but this time it was my only backup. So i'm angry. In my email I go on about the problems, how I've lost faith in them as a storage solution after 12 years of using them. I went a little overboard. you know how it gets when you're ranting in an email to someone.... So i fired off the email.
The next morning i noticed there was a call from Western Digital on my answering machine. I ignored it, figuring they'd call back, which they did. It was a man that works in customer support. He said he'd read my email and wanted to see what he could do to make me happy again. I explained the problem again, and he said "well let's get you fixed up here" to which I said, "listen, i already got a new RMA, I'm shipping this back to you. When I get my new one from you I'm throwing it away, but in principle I want it replaced". He replies "No you don't understand. let's figure this out". He goes through some things on his site, and finally says 'Let's upgrade you to the WD "My Book", Mirroring edition (which means redundant hardware to cure hardware failures). I said "That's great, but I paid 120 for the passport, the my book mirroring drives are twice and three times that price.". to which he replied "No, i'm not asking you to pay for the upgrade, I'm just going to send this to you, free. We're still honoring your RMA for the passport".
So essentially this guy is still sending my passport to me, but gave me a $300.00 drive absolutely free, including overnight shipping, just to restore my faith in their company.
To me that is a rare thing. Companies don't care about their customers because they deal on a mass market basis. But for some reason, Western Digital took it upon themselves to do whatever it took to keep me a happy customer.
They've definitely earned my business from now on.
Here is the drive that failed twice (two different units, same failure)
http://westerndigital.com/en/product...sp?DriveID=525
However, those are 500gb and mine was only 250
here's the drive he sent me free
http://westerndigital.com/en/product...sp?driveid=466
Notice it's 2 Terabytes. a MASSIVE space upgrade and the mirroring solves the hardware problem
I've been using a Westerd Digital Passport for a backup device. It's a small plastic piece of hardware that contains a laptop drive, and components so you plug it in to a USB port on your PC. When yo plug it in, it just shows up as another drive. I do complex backups of things and the sizes just started getting too big. so for some (about 200GB) i started using the passport for. I have a RAID5 data set up, which means even if a hard drive goes bad I don't lose data, but my thought was that i could store the backups, disconnect the unit and put it away.
about a month ago mine died. It was when I was moving here. I could hear the pinch heads clicking so i knew it was a typical drive failure. I figured that it must have been dropped (the box it was in) during shipping. So I got on the Western Digital website and got an RMA (basically a warranty call to get it fixed). I sent it in, and a couple weeks later I got a new one. Probably refurbished but in electronics I'm WAY ok using refurbs.
4 days after getting it........it went bad again. same thing. I started doing some research and this was a pretty common complaint. up until then I had no idea the passport had a failure problem.
So I put another RMA in, but while doing so I found a linnk to email them. I was pretty pissed because i had once again lost about 200gb of data, but this time it was my only backup. So i'm angry. In my email I go on about the problems, how I've lost faith in them as a storage solution after 12 years of using them. I went a little overboard. you know how it gets when you're ranting in an email to someone.... So i fired off the email.
The next morning i noticed there was a call from Western Digital on my answering machine. I ignored it, figuring they'd call back, which they did. It was a man that works in customer support. He said he'd read my email and wanted to see what he could do to make me happy again. I explained the problem again, and he said "well let's get you fixed up here" to which I said, "listen, i already got a new RMA, I'm shipping this back to you. When I get my new one from you I'm throwing it away, but in principle I want it replaced". He replies "No you don't understand. let's figure this out". He goes through some things on his site, and finally says 'Let's upgrade you to the WD "My Book", Mirroring edition (which means redundant hardware to cure hardware failures). I said "That's great, but I paid 120 for the passport, the my book mirroring drives are twice and three times that price.". to which he replied "No, i'm not asking you to pay for the upgrade, I'm just going to send this to you, free. We're still honoring your RMA for the passport".
So essentially this guy is still sending my passport to me, but gave me a $300.00 drive absolutely free, including overnight shipping, just to restore my faith in their company.
To me that is a rare thing. Companies don't care about their customers because they deal on a mass market basis. But for some reason, Western Digital took it upon themselves to do whatever it took to keep me a happy customer.
They've definitely earned my business from now on.
Here is the drive that failed twice (two different units, same failure)
http://westerndigital.com/en/product...sp?DriveID=525
However, those are 500gb and mine was only 250
here's the drive he sent me free
http://westerndigital.com/en/product...sp?driveid=466
Notice it's 2 Terabytes. a MASSIVE space upgrade and the mirroring solves the hardware problem
