roger@caen.engin.umich.edu (Roger Roberto Espinosa) (06/02/89)
Hi. I might be in the position to get myself a hard drive in the next couple of weeks, and I'm curious as to whether anyone has any knowledge about the quality of the Ehman Engineering drives. The prices on their external 32 Meg and 45 Meg hard drives looks ... ... well, when their 80 Meg is cheaper than the MacBottom 30 Meg from MacConnection, this reminds me of the old $80 140K drives for the Apple //, and this is a tad more expensive and important to break down soon. According to MacWeek, it said "Don't go for price, go for how long the company's been in business, etc etc," and Ehman's been around since 1985, they do use Seagate, which is another big (and old) name, but I know zip about hard drives. Anyone? Anything? (Anyone have a favorite 32 Meg hard drive (or 45) (or 20, I guess)? External?) Please e-mail responses, since I *know* this has cluttered the net before. Back then I just didn't need to read it, darn. Thanks! Roger Espinosa roger@caen.engin.umich.edu
ralph@lzfme.att.com (R.BRANDI) (08/29/89)
Okay, I know this has been hashed over a million times in this group, but at the time I didn't think we'd ever get a hard drive, so I ignored all the postings. If some kind soul has saved the responses about Ehman hard drives, I would appreciate them passing it along to me, so my dad can satisfy his itch to call an 800 number and order in time for Labor Day. Thanks. Ralph -- Ralph Brandi [most gateways in the known universe]!att!lzfme!ralph Work flows toward the competent until they are submerged.
pwp@shamash.cdc.com ( HOUFAC) (08/29/89)
An office mate of mine bought an Ehman 30Meg external drive about 3 or 4 months back. The drive recently developed a problem where it would intermittently refuse to power-up. (No spin, no noise. No NUTHIN!) He sent it the Ehman, from where it came back with "checked out fine" written on the slip. Naturally, it failed again almost immediately. After some phone conversation with Ehman, the drive went in again. It arrived back with exactly the same (non-)diagnosis! BUT... Upon calling Ehman again, they offered to send another BRAND NEW drive in exchange! This despite the fact that this drive was outside their free-return guarentee period. The new drive arrived and not only works fine, but is also a newer model with more compact (and stylish) packaging. Way to go Ehman!!! --Peter Poorman pwp@shamash.cdc.com
lauac@mead.qal.berkeley.edu (Alexander Lau) (08/29/89)
In article <13884@shamash.cdc.com> pwp@shamash.UUCP (Pete Poorman) writes: >An office mate of mine bought an Ehman 30Meg external drive about 3 or 4 months >back. > >The drive recently developed a problem where it would intermittently >refuse to power-up. (No spin, no noise. No NUTHIN!) He sent it the Ehman, >from where it came back with "checked out fine" written on the slip. Naturally, >it failed again almost immediately. > >After some phone conversation with Ehman, the drive went in again. It arrived >back with exactly the same (non-)diagnosis! > >BUT... > >Upon calling Ehman again, they offered to send another BRAND NEW drive in >exchange! This despite the fact that this drive was outside their free-return >guarentee period. The new drive arrived and not only works fine, but is also >a newer model with more compact (and stylish) packaging. Way to go Ehman!!! > >--Peter Poorman > pwp@shamash.cdc.com I fail to understand why, when someone lauds Ehman for "fixing their problem," they don't instead lambast Ehman for not giving them a working drive in the first place. I don't want to start another flaming war like last semester, but I just don't get it. Why do people like Ehman for their service? A hard drive company should concentrate on making a good drive. If too many people have to use their "good service," as it seems from the anecdotal evidence here on the net, then Ehman is failing somewhere else. I, personally, would rather have a working, fast, quiet and reliable drive that cost a little more than a drive that I have to send in for service as often as I've seen Ehman drives require. By the way, I'm using a Seagate myself right now, and I wish I had gotten something else. Already sent it in once, and lost its services for quite a while. I buy a drive to use it, not to use UPS Shipping. --- Alex UUCP: {att,backbones}!ucbvax!qal.berkeley.edu!lauac INTERNET: lauac%qal.berkeley.edu@ucbvax.berkeley.edu FIDONET: Alex.Lau@bmug.fidonet.org (1:161/444)
allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) (09/04/89)
As quoted from <1989Aug29.163358.11058@agate.uucp> by lauac@mead.qal.berkeley.edu (Alexander Lau): +--------------- | In article <13884@shamash.cdc.com> pwp@shamash.UUCP (Pete Poorman) writes: | >The drive recently developed a problem where it would intermittently | >refuse to power-up. (No spin, no noise. No NUTHIN!) He sent it the Ehman, > (...) | >Upon calling Ehman again, they offered to send another BRAND NEW drive in | >exchange! | | I fail to understand why, when someone lauds Ehman for "fixing their | problem," they don't instead lambast Ehman for not giving them a | working drive in the first place. +--------------- Because some "intermittent" failures can be a real pain in the *ss to detect under testing conditions. Example: a drive which fails only when it's been sitting around for a week or so. It is possible, if the drive is shipped to the service center via UPS Blue or a faster service, for the service techs to get the drive and put it through its paces *before* the non-failure period expires. However, if it sits around for awhile after being tested and then is shipped via a slower service, it could arrive outside the failure period and not work. Another example: I work for a company which sells and services (non-Apple, sorry... on the other hand, we aren't really in the same market) computers. Recently, one of our clients brought in a system which was having intermittent boot problems; but it never failed when we tested it. It turned out to be a glitch in the power supply, which was an auto-switching model (120V/240V). Some voltage spikes would cause the supply to switch, temporarily interrupting power and causing a crash. Unfortunately, our power was too clean even without a voltage regulator to cause this to happen during testing, so we had no way to find it ourselves. This kind of scenario is why a company like Ehman which will give out a replacement when an intermittent failure shows up but can't be found in (most) testing is better than one that won't. Such things happen; companies should have a policy which deals with them. ++Brandon (disclaimer: I work in the software end of the business, so I may be off base) -- Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc allbery@NCoast.ORG uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu "Why do trans-atlantic transfers take so long?" "Electrons don't swim very fast." -john@minster.york.ac.uk and whh@PacBell.COM