A trusted brand? You never can tell. (Fujitsu Siemens Storagebird XL-S 400 GB)

Member Name: rabidbadger

Product:	Fujitsu Siemens Storagebird XL-S 400 GB
Date:	18/10/09 (148 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Ok when it worked

Disadvantages: Only worked for 15 days

I initially bought this product because I thought it would be a cheap no-frills way to back up all my work documents - which for about 15 days it was. It was easy to use, just plug it into a USB slot and it was there in the background, the way you want a hard drive to behave.

Unfortunately, after about 15 days, it started making strange ticking noises from inside the box. These didn't seem to be affecting its performance, just annoying me. Then after a couple of days it stopped working altogether. You could hear the motor stopping and starting as the drive was trying to work, but windows would not recognise it as a drive and neither would DOS, so I couldn't access anything on it. I couldn't even access it to reformat it or run a disk check.

I was then in a dilemma. Should I send it back to the retailer and ask for my money back or a replacement (knowing that all my work documents, letters, and emails may one day be recovered from it) or should I shoulder the £50 loss and learn not to trust this brand again. I opted for the latter.

Summary: I'm so glad I was using it as a back-up and not a primary drive

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