[comp.periphs.scsi] Any experience with Dennis Dried / Hi-Tech Asset Recovery Inc ?

ralph@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu (Ralph Becker-Szendy) (02/20/91)

Anyone got got or bad experience with Dennis Dried, who runs / owns (?) an
outfit known as Hi-Tech Asset Recovery Inc in Santa Barbara ? He does have
lovely prices on somewhat out-of-style (but unused) SCSI gear, for example
Conner CP340 40MB 3.5" disks for $210, or Seagate 766MB Wren for $850.

However, no credit cards, no purchase orders. Prepaid by check only, and he
only ships after the check has cleared. If I could deal with him on a credit 
card, at least I would have some protection through that.

If nobody has heard anything negative about this character, I will try him
out. I need another small 3.5" SCSI drive ...

-- 
Ralph Becker-Szendy                          UHHEPG=24742::RALPH (HEPNet,SPAN)
University of Hawaii                              RALPH@UHHEPG.PHYS.HAWAII.EDU
High Energy Physics Group                                  RALPH@UHHEPG.BITNET
Watanabe Hall #203, 2505 Correa Road, Honolulu, HI 96822         (808)956-2931

harry@noseams.UUCP (Harry Felder) (02/22/91)

In article <11543@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>, ralph@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu (Ralph Becker-Szendy) writes:
>    
>    Anyone got got or bad experience with Dennis Dried, who runs / owns (?) an
>    outfit known as Hi-Tech Asset Recovery Inc in Santa Barbara ? He does have
>    lovely prices on somewhat out-of-style (but unused) SCSI gear, for example
>    Conner CP340 40MB 3.5" disks for $210, or Seagate 766MB Wren for $850.
>    [etc.]

I first heard of Hi-Tech from their booth at the January Macworld.
The were advertising the ~660 Mbyte Seagate/CDC ST4766 for $1,400 w/o case; JMR
case for $198. Warranty was for only 90 days. Since I have had good
experience w/ CDC disks and their prices were lower than anyone elses, 
I went out to pick one up. If they have lowered their price to $850
for the drive, it is a steal. :-(

They insisted on *cash*. Since they knew I was coming, they put one into a case
for me.  It seemed a bit noisy on the bench, so they put a second drive in; the 
slight noise was that the top of the case hadn't been installed. Software for 
the Mac was Ontrack v2.23, which I haven't used since I use Silverlining. 
[Anyone interested in buying Ontrack for the Mac for $75?] The date
of manufacture for the drive was very late '89, as I remember.

So far, the drive has worked fine for the first 1/3 of the warranty.
When I visited them in mid-January, they had not moved to Santa Barbara.
they looked like they made a business of operating on slim margins;
no fancy offices apparent.  They explained their cash policy as necessary
to make any money on the margins they had.

All in all, you get what you pay for w/ Hi-Tech: cheap disks, w/ no
hand holding and a very short warrantee.  I would deal with them again,
unless my disk quits on the 91st day.

P.S.: They had some Extabytes for the Mac available also at good prices;
you may want to check with them for tape drives as well as disks.




-------
Harry Felder +1 213 829-7126            
...!uunet!janus!noseams!harry OR noseams!harry@janus.quotron.com 
Seamless Technology, 937 19th St., Suite 1, Santa Monica, CA 90403

pavlov@canisius.UUCP (Greg Pavlov) (02/25/91)

In article <11543@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>, ralph@uhheph.phys.hawaii.edu (Ralph Becker-Szendy) writes:
> Anyone got got or bad experience with Dennis Dried, who runs / owns (?) an
> outfit known as Hi-Tech Asset Recovery Inc in Santa Barbara ? .....
> 
> However, no credit cards, no purchase orders. Prepaid by check only, and he
> only ships after the check has cleared. 
>
  One "compromise" solution that gives some protection to mutually-suspicious
  parties is COD: most vendors we've dealt with have been willing to go along
  with this (we won't prepay ANYTHING, regardless of the company's reputation:
  too many things can happen even with the best intentions).

  pavlov@stewart.fstrf.org