Watch Out For Cheap External Drive Enclosures!
Posted: Thu May 25, 2006 8:05 pm
China is now making lots of cheap slimline USB hard drive enclosures. I bought five recently, through different sources, and three of the five had defective USB/IDE Adapters. Actually four of the five, initially, but in trying to test them all, I finally got a second one to work.
Looks like China goods may have some quality control issues. I was told that all these drives are alike because they are designed by committee, then manufactured in different shops, and finally put together and sold as units by little mom and pop shops. My guess is that they get mishandled by people who do not know about their suseptability to static electricity discharge.
A 60% - 80% failure rate is pretty significant, and you are now concerned with what the vender is going to do about making good on the deal. Further, having to ship them back, the time spent and wasted on trying to use or test them, and the aggrivation involved is not insignificant.
The good news is that www.computernyc.com (Madison Computer Corp),
which sold me four of the units, did give me an RMA # for the two that I sent back to them. I don't know what sort of credit or exchange I am going to get from them, though. The other bad unit was bought from a guy on eBay, and so far he has ignored three emails that I sent him. Guess he doesn't care if I give him a thumbs-down when I write my comment on the transaction.
Looks like it's buyer beware when buying "Made in China" external drive enclosures, either with or without fans. Better spend a bit more and get a better quality enclosure - the China versions are not that great at getting rid of heat either, because the cases are snug and enclosed (including the ones with fans) and give the drive no way to breathe to get rid of the heat.
Looks like China goods may have some quality control issues. I was told that all these drives are alike because they are designed by committee, then manufactured in different shops, and finally put together and sold as units by little mom and pop shops. My guess is that they get mishandled by people who do not know about their suseptability to static electricity discharge.
A 60% - 80% failure rate is pretty significant, and you are now concerned with what the vender is going to do about making good on the deal. Further, having to ship them back, the time spent and wasted on trying to use or test them, and the aggrivation involved is not insignificant.
The good news is that www.computernyc.com (Madison Computer Corp),
which sold me four of the units, did give me an RMA # for the two that I sent back to them. I don't know what sort of credit or exchange I am going to get from them, though. The other bad unit was bought from a guy on eBay, and so far he has ignored three emails that I sent him. Guess he doesn't care if I give him a thumbs-down when I write my comment on the transaction.
Looks like it's buyer beware when buying "Made in China" external drive enclosures, either with or without fans. Better spend a bit more and get a better quality enclosure - the China versions are not that great at getting rid of heat either, because the cases are snug and enclosed (including the ones with fans) and give the drive no way to breathe to get rid of the heat.
