we purchased a wd Sentinal in good faith last fall, complete with 2x3TB hard drives. once it arrived, we decided to expand the unit, and purchased a WD 3 Tb [red] NAS drive, only to find that the system was ‘bios locked’ to a specific drive model from WD!
we returned the above drive, and special ordered additonal drives from 2 differend resellers [none were readily available in spite of assurances from our suppliers.
this was over a month ago!
We purchased this unit as an entrerprise class solution for our backup storage needs - potentially to recommend to our corporate clients.
We now have an ‘orphan’ unit that cannot be upgraded [except with drives that are amost $ 400.00 each] that are NOT REGULARLY AVAIALBLE THRU ANY REGULAR CHANNEL.
The unfortunate delay in availablitiy of support product does not bode for any failures that may occur.
as a result, the unit is not currently in use, and we feel that we have been taken advantage of!
Without any reasonable means of expansion, a 4 bay device with 2 drives in it is USELESS TO US!
we cannot in good conscience recommend the unit on that basis. business need responsive support. to wait for hardware for this long in today’s marketplace is not SMB supportive.
I want my money back.
this is unprofessional, and certainly an aberation in our industry. Bios locks, and unavailable product delivery - both very wrong in today’s marketplace.
First of all I think you made some assumptions and did not research how this thing works.
Second, there was this flood thing and all hard drives have just been hard to get.
Third I still think if you need these enterprise drives themselves, it is cheaper to buy a DX, pull the drives, and throw the box away
To make this thing plug n work, I am sure WD had to limit the variables. As far as ordering drives from other vendors who claim to have the drives and not, hard to blame on WD.
Hi Gramps
Thanks for the quick come back.
While I appreciate your comments. I still can’t get any inventory from Ingram Micro. The Resellers involved are simply conveniences for me.
Secondly the reps from WD assured me of product availability at SMBNation’s fall conference
Thirdly I have even working with specialty drives for almost 3 decades from HP IBM (now Lenovo), and Dell enterprise servers. I have no issue when full disclosure takes place.
At the end of the day I have a unit purchased in November, that is useless without additional drives
Currently there are only specific drives that work with the Sentinel, these drives are listed in a link in the Dashboard. Go to the “Monitor” tab on the Dashboard, and in the right pane click on “Compatible hard drives”, then a list will pop up in a box. There should be four listed (one being the 3TB), click on the 12TB Sentinel and scroll to “Accessories” this will then display the 3TB kit. Click on the “Buy Now” button and it will take you to the order page for the Compatible drive required for your system. If you wan to purchase elsewhere just make sure you use the one listed for your system when you click “Compatible hard drives” from the link in the dashboard. These do however look to be available on our WD Store.
Does the order online work for shipping to Canada
Who pays shipping ( and brokerage if applicable )
What would eta to Edmonton, Alberta Canada typically be ?
And if warranty issues arise are there Canadian locations for support
I have been to the TIDs for drive model listings - very narrow scope… The 3tb units are the ones that I had ordered
I do not have that information with regards to shipping, and other costs for our Canadian Friends. Please contact the store directly. Here is their support number:
Phone: 1-877-934-6972
WD Store customer support hours: Monday-Thursday, 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, and on Friday from 8:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. Pacific Time.
From the time of your post I figured you were across the pond. You came to Vegas? You have to take HarryB and WD reps with a grain of salt LOL
When I last asked about drives it was a long time ago, but WD said they had plenty laid back. I guess they are keeping the to themselves. I don’t think you are getting robbed at the WD store, but I understand how it is easier to deal with as few vendors as possible.
Don’t know of anything else to tell you. I know they monitor this forum and will take your feedback.
I have to say that WD is being a bit stingy here, and locking out the enthusiast/resale market. While I can certainly understand that they want to limit support to DX4000’s with a specific set of drives as shipped from the factory, It’s incredulous that you can’t use any other Enterprise, Red or AV drive with this unit.
If they wanted to tell you that they couldn’t support you unless you had the proper drives in is one thing, but to lock out any other compatible SATA drive not only limits the usefulness of the DX4000, but the marketability.
The floods in thailand and Indonesia were quite a while ago. Production has resumed in earnest. However, supply is being constrained for other reasons (profitability, cough, cough).
WD Also needs to address the upgrade path for the Windows 2008 R2 Storage Server OS.
I’m using the DX4000, the same problem exists.This thing is very complicated, not as good as the Linux system convenient.
Also, please tell me the address of the Chinese community, or may also discuss other useful Chinese external forum.
Thank you!
