So how long does it take to RMA a Western Digital hard drive?
I bought a couple (in fact 4 units) of Western Digital Red 3TB WD30EFRX hard drives recently and unfortunately one of them developed numerous bad sectors after just 2 days of usage in my Synology DS412+. Luckily for the RAID setup, my data are still intact so I am happily blogging down here.
I popped out the faulty Western Digital 3TB Red hard drive from the Synology DS412+ and ran some tests using the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool. The tool gave up after encountering too much bad sectors so I guess it is time to pack the Western Digital Red 3TB drive and send it over to Flextronics Technology (M) Sdn. Bhd. in Johor, Malaysia. Yes, Malaysia. It seems like Flextronics have stopped their operations in Singapore and the nearest place you can RMA your new Western Digital hard drive is Malaysia.
Packaged the hard drive according to the RMA requirements on the RMA Premailer and send it as a registered article. So it is now time to track how fast or slow it takes for the drive to get back to me.
| Date | Description | Day # |
|---|---|---|
| 31 Aug 12 | Mailed out the package via SingPost | – |
| 01 Sep 12 | Processing in Singapore | – |
| 03 Sep 12 | Despatched to overseas | – |
| 06 Sep 12 | Arrived in Malaysia | – |
| 08 Sep 12 | Delivered to Flextronics | 0 |
| 09 Sep 12 | Flextronics acknowledge receipt of RMA article | 1 |
| 26 Sep 12 | Still no updates from WD | 17 |
| 26 Sep 12 | WD called to inform that they are looking at this RMA | 17 |
| 29 Sep 12 | No updates from WD after 20 days | 20 |
| 01 Oct 12 | WD emailed saying they couldn't get stocks to replace. WD offered refund for the defective drive instead | 22 |
| 06 Oct 12 | FedEx delivered the replacement disk | 27 |
Lets hope it will take less than 3 weeks for my new Western Digital 3TB Red hard drive to be returned.
Updates
The entire RMA process took 27 days which could be better.
There are no proactive engagement from Western Digital until I opened a email case on the 24th/25th day and contacted them via social media channels. I was then informed that they do not have stocks for replacement or servicing.
I felt that this could be improved by having some feedback loops from the service centres to the online WD portal to inform end users of whether there are sufficient stocks for replacements. Or have the option of advance RMA for Asian customers too. The online portal should also contain status updates on the progress of the RMA rather than leaving the customer guessing what had happened.
I will probably think twice when getting a Western Digital product in the near future although I have been a supporter of their products when it comes to hard disk.
