Amazon Hard Drive Shipping

[FueledByBacon]

I am reviewing the service Amazon offers when it comes to Hard Drives, this should serve as a warning to people looking to buy hard drives from Amazon. If you purchase the retail packaging version of a hard drive they will ship it in that box with no additional protection, this resulted in my first Western Digital Blue 1TB (EZEX Model) having a delayed death and finally dying completely after under a month of usage as a movie storage drive. Upon replacing it with Amazon the replacement drive I had them send me was an OEM product so they shipped it wrapped in bubble wrap which was put into a box which was then placed into another box with additional packing material.

 

The whole time for this process took 2 business days, the second drive seems to be working flawlessly but I'm hoping to save other people the trouble of dealing with this issue, Amazon seems to have a bad reputation around the Hard Drive reviews that I've seen for delivering dead drives due to shipping damages. The customer service more than makes up for my issues but the shipping shouldn't ever be a concern when I'm buying something and for hard drives I can confidently state that I wil never purchase another hard drive from Amazon.

[Guest]

I mean, Amazon packaging for me is usually pretty good. It's the couriers that like to throw packages everywhere, but then i guess Amazon should take it upon themselves to realise that and package them in something other than cardboard and paper... 

[ttam]

I am reviewing the service Amazon offers when it comes to Hard Drives, this should serve as a warning to people looking to buy hard drives from Amazon. If you purchase the retail packaging version of a hard drive they will ship it in that box with no additional protection, this resulted in my first Western Digital Blue 1TB (EZEX Model) having a delayed death and finally dying completely after under a month of usage as a movie storage drive. Upon replacing it with Amazon the replacement drive I had them send me was an OEM product so they shipped it wrapped in bubble wrap which was put into a box which was then placed into another box with additional packing material.

 

The whole time for this process took 2 business days, the second drive seems to be working flawlessly but I'm hoping to save other people the trouble of dealing with this issue, Amazon seems to have a bad reputation around the Hard Drive reviews that I've seen for delivering dead drives due to shipping damages. The customer service more than makes up for my issues but the shipping shouldn't ever be a concern when I'm buying something and for hard drives I can confidently state that I wil never purchase another hard drive from Amazon.

I wouldn't blame that on shipping. That can happy to any drive at any time. If it worked when you got it, it worked. Nothing killed it besides the drive itself or to much usage.

[FueledByBacon]

They shipped it in the retail packaging, the second one they shipped was wrapped in bubble wrap in it's own box which was also surrounded by another box which was packed with additional packing materials to stop the box from moving inside and thus reducing the chance for damage to the HD. This has only ever happened to me with Amazon Retail HD's, I have never had it happen with anything else. There is a reason why the replacement was so terrifically packaged. The first time Amazon destroyed it, that is why they cross shipped me a second drive free of charge with one day shipping and then gave me a partial refund on Amazon.ca for the product.

[1823alex]

I got my Seagate 500gb drive ok in the mail no issues with it have had it for a year or so now.

[Emceeschw3pp3]

I had perfect packaging with my 1TB Hybrid drive but, I also only select Prime 2-day shipping so, maybe that is a higher priority packaging option.

[partyhardy]

Amazon's packaging is always fine on my part, even when I did not choose prime 2day shipping.

[JaSoN_XzIoN]

Not particularly regarding Amazon, but I've had a couple of seagate shipped to me with some bad packaging and haven't had a problem with them yet. But from the few WD drives I've had(very small sample size tbh) the tend to be "soft" in terms of handling them, to me anyway, where as seagate drives can take some hammering, like taking them out of the dock before they stop spinning, putting them down a bit hard on the table sometimes, and even some of my very old 250gb falling loads of times over the years and still working. WD seems to just need to handled with more care than seagate

[Mark LaCroix]

Oh yeah, Amazon is terrible. Get a load of this literal pile of hard drives they sent me, which I just returned for failing within days of installaion:

 

 

No exagguration here, I took this picture immediately after opening the package. That's all the "packing material" they included, some of which was deflated and stuck to the top of the box, and none of which prevented the four drives of knocking into each other as they rattled around in this cavern of a box that they were shipped in.

[Turkatron]

Oh yeah, Amazon is terrible. Get a load of this literal pile of hard drives they sent me, which I just returned for failing within days of installaion:

 

No exagguration here, I took this picture immediately after opening the package. That's all the "packing material" they included, some of which was deflated and stuck to the top of the box, and none of which prevented the four drives of knocking into each other as they rattled around in this cavern of a box that they were shipped in.

>Seagate

You kinda had that coming to you. Should've gotten HGST instead.

[_wky]

I bought a Seagate SSHD 2TB and a WD Blue 1TB separately and they were both sent in a card box with a piece of white foam either side of the drive. That box was then in Amazon's "stress free" or something like that cardboard wrap thing and both drives (so far) have been fine.

[spwath]

We got waffle mix, box is basically open, a waffle mix can is dented. If that was breakable, it would be bad

[ManWithBeard1990]

Question: were the products sold by and dispatched from Amazon themselves or third party sellers? That does make a difference. I've ordered a few things off Amazon in the past and all the Prime stuff was adequately packaged.

[Brenz]

Just look at reviews for HDD's on Amazon. A huge number of 1 star reviews are due to their poor packaging of them. Thankfully they do seem to be working on improving it, I ordered a WD Black in December and it came in a plastic surround inside nice thick foam.

 

Either way if something doesn't work Amazon are great with returns unlike many other retailers

[shujin]

Oh yeah, Amazon is terrible. Get a load of this literal pile of hard drives they sent me, which I just returned for failing within days of installaion:

 

 

No exagguration here, I took this picture immediately after opening the package. That's all the "packing material" they included, some of which was deflated and stuck to the top of the box, and none of which prevented the four drives of knocking into each other as they rattled around in this cavern of a box that they were shipped in.

holy crap this is bad

[shujin]

-snip-

thanks for your review I will buy a new 2tb drive next week now I know that amazon is not a good idea. normally I'll go with newegg if I don't find something cheaper and or more reliable

[Shira]

Same shit here in Europe, large box with no protection whatsoever, 2 damaged disks already, let's see if 3rd one breaks the rule.

 

 

 

 

[Hiitchy]

Since I live 20 minutes away from the distribution center, when I ordered my 2 10tb hard drives, I asked to pick them up without paying any shipping fees. They were ready in 20 minutes after I made the call. 

 

I do recall ordering a 2tb hard drive at one point and though it did get damaged in shipping, Amazon's return policy was A1. 

[J.b091]

I got my 4TB seagate perfectly shipped from Amazon (was wrapped in bubble wrap in it's own box which was also surrounded by another box which was packed with additional packing materials).