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Question: Amazon Packaging of Seagate Drives I have been reading several of the reviews on this product, and am curious whether Amazon has begun shipping Seagate HDs in more appropriate packaging. I want to make sure that I get a working, undamaged product when I open the box, so can anyone attest to a change in Amazon's packaging for these? There are a lot of reviews that complain about this issue...
Document: He did not know this box to be legit because I didn't buy it from Seagate directly.I have never had a problem obtaining warranty service on Western Digital retail drives.Check your drive's serial number on the box (if you buy retail) before you open the packaging on the company's website to make sure the warranty is good. Who knows...some retailer just might put an OEM drive into a forged box and sell it as a retail product.UNBELIEVABLE!! !
I purchased 2 of these drives. They are a good buy for the storage space. The only issue I have is not with the product but how it was shipped. We know how drives are shipped in foam or protected crate to protect them. Well the shipping department had one drive in the protective protected crate and just threw the other drive in the bottom of the box where is could be bounced around and banged up. I had to format the drive twice to get it to work. I hope it lasts.
Amazon does a TERRIBLE job packaging these things. It is literally just sitting in a cardboard box. Other places like new egg do a much better job. Amazon also has terrible customer service. I wanted a replacement rather than a refund. My hard ST3500418AS bare drive had a different ASIN number so the customer service lady had a hissy fit about replacing it when I am sure the only difference is the firmware revision. That is a big FAIL on Amazon's part for having employees that know nothing about what they are selling.
How it will do 1-2-3-4-5 years from now, who knows?I was a bit concerned about this drive because the packaging from Amazon was poor--just a few inflated baggies in the box for cushioning and the drive rattled around a lot in the outer box. Amazon should oversee their shipping partners more closely. Returning a DOA drive is a hassle. Should I receive one from any merchant, I would think more than twice about doing business with them again.
A few years back, Seagate was the bomb on long term warranties and excellent drives. Just look at their reviews NOW and that has changed. Yes, you can get a warranty for 5 years. Heck of a lot of good it does you when it crashes.I had my 1.5 TB less than 6 months before it gave the "click of death". They sent a replacement, which they make REAL convenient for [...] bucks.
It doesn't even have to be working hard to start cooking.I highly recommend only using this drive in a performance high-airflow desktop or a powerful fan external enclosure. My WD Caviar BLACK drive in the same dock never gets hot in open air no matter how hard it is working. I'm not going to give this drive a bad rating, but if anyone is considering buying it, be sure you have the proper setup to support it without risking overheating.
As the title of the review says, this is an excellent product at an excellent price. By "this" I mean the 1TB Seagate model "ST31000528AS-Bare Drive" which I bought here about two weeks ago for $70 and free shipping.Amazon lumps the reviews of all Seagate hard drives together. If there are differences in the quality and reliability of various models, it's hard to tell from reviews and the averaged ratings.
I bought two of these 1.5 TB disk drives in Dec 2008 for $120 each and free shipping. I've bought a lot of hard drives dating back to 1982. And this is the first hard drive I've ever had fail in my life. It worked less than a day and now all it does is make clicking noises as if the read head is searching for the track, but cannot find it. The other 1.5 TB drive is working fine.
Having already own a dozen Seagate drives in the past, this latest drive exceeds all my expectations. My thanks again to Amazon for delivering such an excellent product and even more superbly excellent and fast service/shipping. I ordered this on Thursday and unbelievably received it on Monday. It just doesn't get any better.12/22/2010Just received another 500GB SATA drive to upgrade a HP DC7100 desktop purchased from my workplace. The poor unit only had a 40GB SATA. Good thing it was another Seagate drive.
I have purchased 2 of these drives based upon very good service I have received with it's predecessor, the ST3500410AS which was super reliable, super fast and super quiet. Apparently, Seagate decided to cheapen  something in this drive with the ST3500418AS to make more money without assuring quality and it is an abysmal failure. Both of the new drives were almost instant failures and reviews I am reading are backing up my experience and bad feelings!
Answer: No they have not. I just received a 500GB Seagate today. The packaging is completely defective. The drive itself was in a cardboard box with extremely flimsy inner dividers that were suppose to "suspend" the drive in the middle. One of the divider tabs was broken (quite clearly due to poor design) and my drive was sitting on the bottom of the box. There was no form-fitting plastic clam shell. This defective box was then put in an outer shipping box which had plastic air bags only on top. This means my drive was effectively shipped with ZERO padding. The only thing between the drive and the hard ground was two pieces of cardboard. I'm sure the postal carrier had great fun with it.It boggles the mind that anyone could ship a hard drive like that.