A bit of foot dragging with a support case

I bought a Caviar Black in 2010, and it was replaced as faulty in 2011. I discovered that the the replacement (also a Caviar Black, but a slightly different version) is a lot slower than the original drive. We’re talking not much faster than a Caviar Green.

I logged a support case on 13th Jan, and, after 5 days, the 1st level support guy said he’d run out of ideas, and was going to have to pass it on the 2nd level. That was 9 days ago. I asked what was happening after 4 days, but he asked me to be patient.

When the drive became faulty last year, the customer service was immaculate. This time it seems that nobody is interested, maybe because the replacement drive is actually working, even if not at the expected speed.

I’m starting to wonder what has happened. Why is it taking so long to get any support? What should I do? Can anyone advise, please?

What transfer rate are we talking about for the replacement Caviar Black?

Here are the stats from HD Tune:

Original drives: 89—122MB/s, ave. 108MB/s, 11ms access

Replacement drive: 44–94MB/s, ave. 75MB/s, 12ms access