At the end of June I ordered a [amazon title B000YQWQ4I]. I've had the previous version of the drive for a couple of years and it just rocks. They are a little more expensive than other drives but it's loaded with features from a great heat sink, leather carrying case and a triple interface. The goal was to get it before the July 4th weekend and get some data loaded for the OSCON trip later in the month. Everything looked good and the drive arrived a day earlier than scheduled. Things were busy but I plugged it in a couple of times and then finally sat down to load it up. This was the third time I'd used the drive. When I came back to the computer the drive wasn't responding. After rebooting the computer didn't see the drive. Using several computers verified that the drive was in fact dead. Plug in any of the three interfaces and it wouldn't spin up. The light was on but the drive wasn't spinning for anything.

So on July 8 I went to the G-Technology website and created a ticket. Late the following day I got an email with return instructions and the following information about what to expect:

As soon as we receive the drive, we will diagnose the problem and either
repair it or send you out a replacement.
Turn around time is estimated at
a) Ok To Erase: five to ten working days after we check in your drive or
b) Save Data drives require ten to fifteen working days after we check in
your drive for service.

So I had said Ok To Erase because the drive was after all blank. So the chances of getting it back before OSCON were zero but by the time we got home it should be here. Again to be clear this is a drive that was essentially DOA with no data on it and yet I should expect it to take up to 10-days in the shop to diagnose this. A disappointment to say the least but it's my fault for not checking out the poor service policy before buying.

More than a week passed and I had no word about what was happening. RMA number in hand I returned to the website to check the status of my ticket. Unfortunately there was no way to check the status. So I had to resort to email. I emailed asking for an update on what was happening with my case. Again a day later I received the reply:

The drive has been received and is into the repair techs.

Yup. That's the whole reply (other than the tech's name). Not a single mention of when it arrived, when it might be out, what the status was, not a thing. Just a very short note saying they are "working on it". This is not how to make customers happy. Here it was July 21 and I basically knew nothing more than I did back at the start of the month.

So now we reach July 31 and apparently the only chance I have to get info is another email. This time of course my tone isn't so understanding because I'm more than a little bothered that a technology company can't replace a DOA hard drive in less than a month. The next drive I guess I'll have to look for the best service company not just the drive that seems the best.