Am I the only person who asks why such RMA requirements are imposed?
e.g. country of origin??
why do you need this if you are sending goods within one customs union such as the United States or the European Union?!?
require an antistatic plastic bag??
who has loads of these on hand except the cybercrime police and computer stores?
why put it in a plastic bag which can collect moisture which destroys electronics if aluminium foil is good enough?!?
2 inches of bubble wrap??
why as long as the device cannot move inside the external packaging?!?
external case opened??
why as long as the defect of the device is not obviously caused by incorrect operation or modification?!?
Is this policy of Western Digital as customer friendly as the RMA policies of others e.g. SONOS, SYNOLOGY, SEAGATE?
This is mostly a user to user support forum. WD rarely response to customer inquires and complaints.
The return policy is what it is. You mentioned Seagate. Theirs is somewhat similar having shipped a drive back to them for warranty replacement.
Put the media in an antistatic bag or similar material to prevent ESD.
Place the drive in a bubble wrap envelope or a box lined with bubble wrap.
Do not use packing pellets, peanuts, air bags, or newspaper.
Place the packing slip inside the package, and seal the box with nylon or vinyl tape along all edges and openings.
Place the label on the outside of the package.
Generally such shipping requirements are there to prevent the product from being damaged by the shipper. Some electronics companies will inspect the item before processing a replacement to ensure the customer didn’t damage the item in such a manor that would void the product warranty. Having the product undamaged from shipping helps them in such an inspection.
In WD’s case opening the My Cloud enclosure could be/probably will be grounds for voiding the warranty. It’s why some electronics products have special stickers/tape that is difficult to remove on their products that will indicate product tampering. Manufacturers see this torn sticker/tape and it’s automatic rejection of the warranty because they know the customer tampered with the product.
are DLNA-enabled and SAMBA-enabled (or other SMB depending on their OS),
have one or more USB3 ports
a 4Tbyte USB3 drive costs half as much as a 4Tb Mycloud,
USB3 maximum speed is 4.8Gb/s, actual often around 3.2Gb/s, faster with superspeed usb
Gigabit Ethernet has max speed of 1Gb/s but network speeds are lower due to port sharing/switching.
Yes, tamper detection stickers or other things on the important components would be a good idea, whereas a device or drive enclosure which cannot be opened easily is service-unfriendly design.
There is also the “NIH - not invented here” and “we have always done it this way” attitude which has been the downfall of many onetime market leaders
German Betriebsblindheit - blind to your own organisation’s faults while the environment has long moved on
