[mythtv-users] WAY OT: Storage designs

[Brian Wood]

On Sunday, August 29, 2010 02:23:35 pm Greg Oliver wrote:
> This is way off topic, but since Newegg sent me 2 bad computer
> components out of 4, I am ending up with too much free time to
> research how I want to implement this stuff  :)
> 
> Since my single core revos did not have enough horsepower to also act
> as a file server while doing backend and frontend duties (or without
> those as well), I went ahead and bought a PC and am migrating storage
> and BE duties to it (when it works - I'll never buy from Newegg again,
> but that's another story)..

It's hard to say if it's truly NewEgg's fault. I doubt they actually unbox gear and test it, so it may quite likely be the 
manufacturers fault. Not knowing the details I can't say for sure.

All vendors receive bad gear once in a while, the question is how well do they accomodate you when you report it, do they 
ship a replacement right away? Do they require you to pay twice and await a refund? Pay for shipping both ways? Good 
vendors will take good care of you when the inevitable problems crop up.

Having said that, NewEgg is usually the last place I will look for hardware. They seem to cater to gamers (which I am 
definitely not), and I felt they were somewhat deceptive with my 20-something nephew in offering him credit, then rescinding 
and reducing it, in spite of the fact that he had never missed a payment. I also intensely dislike mail in rebates, and 
try to never buy from any vendor that uses them.

I have found the best bets to usually be to buy one or two steps removed from the "latest and greatest", often buying 
refurbished units. I usually buy from "second tier" sellers like geeks.com, with whom I have had excellent luck, and 
immediate satisfaction in the one case where I received a bad unit. That's just me of course, others may have had different 
experiences.