After almost a month and a half of dealing with a troublesome, faulty set of hard drives, which I’ve chronicled here and again here, I’m happy to announce that the replacement drive sent by Seagate arrived in much better condition than the previous two sent out by NewEgg.

Since receiving the new drive, its been installed and functioning beautifully. The read/write times are faster than the previous one, and finally no more hiccups during video playback!

I don’t really know if this batch of drives experienced issues due to poor manufacturing by Seagate, or some horrible streak of bad luck, but what I can verify is NewEgg’s sub par packaging for this delicate piece of equipment. Having read through Seagate’s own packaging instructions, I realized NewEgg might be to blame.

As my original post describes, NewEgg shipped the drives in a cardboard box filled with packing peanuts, and the drives were in the electrostatic bag, wrapped in profuse amounts of bubble wrap and tape.

Seagate clearly states:

“Enclose the static-protected drive(s) in 2-inch foam rubber in a corrugated box. DO NOT USE foam packing pellets, bubble wrap, or newspaper.

Warranty is void if the SeaShield cover or top cover, or any seal or label is removed or damaged, if it is improperly packaged, or if the drive experiences shock in excess of its Gs rating.”

I’ve never had any issues with NewEgg, but such blatant disregard for proper packaging and care of my hardware doesn’t speak very highly of them. According to Seagate, there is a possibility of my drive having had its warranty voided due to NewEgg’s negligence.

I finally have a working 1TB drive installed in my PC, and I would gladly purchase a Seagate drive in the future. However, I must reassess my allegiance to NewEgg after this discovery, and the hassle it created.

Having paid close to three hundred dollars for this drive, I would expect to receive something in working condition, and proper packaging, despite its OEM status. Having to wait close to two months before receiving a functional drive, after paying an additional $8.43 for shipping the first drive back to NewEgg, followed by $21.24 for shipping the second drive to Seagate doesn’t sit well with me at all, especially since in my opinion, all of this could have been avoided had NewEgg properly packaged the drive the first time around.

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