Seagate RMA process vs. Western Digital's RMA process

General Chia Discussion
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Yesterday, one of my Seagate USB drives failed.
Windows would give me the chime when it got connected, but the drive would never show up. This was on two different computers, and two different USB cables. So the drive failed.

Unlike Western Digital, the Seagate process was a pleasure to deal with.
I called them, and after pressing a few buttons to reach the right department, I waited on hold for 1 or 2 minutes.

The person that helped me made the process a breeze.
They are paying for shipping in both directions.
They are going to recover my data for free.
No charge for anything.

No hassle whatsoever, and no long waiting on hold.

With Western Digital, it is the exact opposite.
Western Digital makes every step of the process an agonizing ordeal, and it takes months to complete (it did for me).

Well done Seagate, and eff Western Digital.

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By the way, which drive failed? Oh, I see it was Seagate.

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I also had good experience with Seagate. Didn’t even have to call, just created RMA through self-serve portal, dispatched package and received a new HDD after some time.

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I’ve heard good things about Seagate’s RMA process.

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Well, considering Seagate doesn’t exactly have the best history in terms of overall reliability I would hope at the very least their RMA department is as efficient as possible. Those who know, sure have given them a lot of practice to improve the process.

hddfailures
hddfailures740Ă—810 167 KB

Very strange to see preference in hdd manufacturers lol.

edit: That chart is surprisingly favoring Seagate, but my experience with them has been awful as with most people if you were to run google searches. Not surprised about those HGST drives.

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6

I remember hearing years ago that Seagate was also trying to fix their bad drive failure rates. Maybe they have actually done so!?

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Out of ~30 Seagate Exos 18TB I have, I had 2 drive failures. One died after plotted and running in a jbod within first week, another DoA.

There is another one showing funny smart stats. Read/write numbers way overstated (like in a magnitude of millions). Didn’t bother with RMA on that one.

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I called to make sure I understood the exact process and fees, etc, just in case I had questions. Sometimes the web based process can be unclear or difficult to navigate. I am not suggesting that Segate’s web portal would be that way. I just was not in the mood to try and cross my fingers that it was straight-forward.

By calling, I got free shipping in both directions. I do not know if that was at the discretion of the representative? Would I have gotten free shipping in both directions by using the web portal?

Also, I got free data recovery, which amazed me. Same question as above. Was that at the discretion of the representative? Would I have gotten free data recovery via the web portal?

One other surprise that I did not mention, and amazed me even more than the free data recovery is:
They are throwing in an extra, free drive, as a way of making up for my drive failure experience.

They are shipping me a new drive, to get me back on my feet as soon as possible.
Then, when they take delivery of my returned drive, and complete the data recovery, they are sending me that drive, too.

I inquired about getting billed for the extra drive. I was told no charges or fees. “Keep both drives”.
I also inquired about the capacity of the drives. I was told that both would be equal to or greater than the one that failed.

I was reluctant to mention the extra, free drive in my initial posting, because until I receive it, I still am not sure that I believe it. I was going to wait until I actually got the two drives and did not get an invoice. But I changed my mind. I will update this thread if any of the above turns out not to be the case.

Just a guess, but I do not think that I would have be promised an extra, free drive, via the portal.

Lastly, the representative asked me to rate her service. And since she was totally professional, I gave her the highest ratings (would have done so, even if there were no freebies, and I only got one free replacement drive). Via the web portal, such professionalism would go unrewarded (or less often rewarded).

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By the way, the shipping label that they e-mailed me was for UPS.
UPS has stations in local stores. In my case, there was a Staples nearby, and they took packages for UPS.

So why am I mentioning this?

When I handed the Staples’ employee my box, she told me that on the 17th, 18th, and 19th (of this month), all UPS shipments will be ½ price.

I asked her if it is a UPS offering, or a Staples offering. She said “Staples” (so the discount is only when shipping via UPS from a Staples store).

I asked if the offering is only that store, or all Staples’ stores. She was not sure, but said that she believes that it is all Staples’ stores.

So if anyone has some pricey shipments to make, then confirm the above and take your stuff to Staples for ½ price shipping. But first confirm that your Staple’s really does participate, and the days in question are correct.