The previous Transcend is using Samsung drives, I'm not sure about current one though.
The company that I dealt with has 2 units of Transcend drives and so far it has no issue, the outer layer is rubber to absorb some vibration during drop, but no matter how it's built, never drop while operation, else it'll break like no tomorrow and say bye bye to the data.

Mind tell us the model (so we all can avoid it next time )?
Anyway if the sound is really loud (louder than your chassis fan) and clicking noise then you may send it back again (until it's fix) or give the CS (Customer Service) a few "shout" to make them know the severity.

Anyway you have to make sure it's the hard disk that making the noise instead of probably your PSU?

Died in what way? Unable to detect? No spinning (power)?
It all depends on what way it died, if it's still accessible using device manager, possibility will be high, but if there's no power at all then you have to seek professional helps also means you have to give advance ang pao (big big one).
No reliable in my dictionary, at least in my experience, all brands die on me no matter how careful I use them.
Reliable = Redundancy + Backup.

2GB? I assume you want 2TB.
When it's ticking, do you perform any activity on that hard disk? Reading/writing files?
If the ticking is loud and clear then probably it's mechanical failure, try to turn it off (unplug SATA power after off PC) until you find any sort of backup solution to backup all the data inside (use cloning fastest) then send for warranty? or continue use and see how it dies...
If you want Samsung, then go for Seagate, Seagate already acquired Samsung.

Unless you're good at soldering, it's advised to take to someone for repair, it's probably the solder inside the board loosen or broken off.
If you needs to recover the data this way, this can consider breaking the warranty if it's still valid at this point, at least it's still better than losing or spend a fortune to send for expert data recovery.

Good luck.

I do not know about this, some may have a good soldering skills to help you with, you may try to state your situation and see if any can help you with it.

p/s: Make a call first is a good start, won't waste your petrol asking for nothing.

Well, like I said, most probably the connector's solder is loosen, need to re-solder it back, if the connector itself is totally out of shape (metal is bent or disjoint) then the chances is low unless they have the exact replacement parts which I doubt so.
The shop probably do not want to make your repair, very rare people wants to risk their business repair very sensitive part, you can however ask a few if you can come by, probably some electronic shop that do electric watches repair? If you seriously want to get your data back, that is.
Otherwise expert/professional recovery option is very expensive, checking only cost you RM300 no including postage, and will depends on how much you want to recover, they may charge you per GBs, this one I don't know how much le...

Just assign any drive letter to the external drive and you should be able to see it at My Computer.

Mine returned after 4 days after I shipped, it's a round trip so it's extremely fast, Seagate drive with Samsung brand, I believe it's a new drive.
As for Western Digital, it took more than a week, at least it return me a new drive.
As for packaging, Seagate is the most generous, big box, 2 inches of foam to protect the drive with static bag, Western Digital only has like 1 inch only.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Feb 25 2014, 07:38 AM

Seeing so many RMA of many drives, also failure of Toshiba drives of less than 200 hours online (SMART) makes me take few steps back when I itch to buy external drives for portable uses... my Seagate Go 320GB has serve me well so far, only 1 RMA been done many years back, rarely use but sometimes just not enough to cater my needs (needs to transfer few times).
Reliability has been take a dump nowadays, luck has to be really darn good as well.

I live in Kuching, well I already RMA-ed myself some internal drives, never did any external drives yet though.
But for WDC and Seagate is very easy, just follow the instruction provided should get your new drives in few days to a week.

If you need to add them into a RAID1 setup then I don't think there's any need to empty other (current) drives.
If you going for RAID0, RAID5, or RAID6 then you have to reconfigure the whole RAID all over means you have to empty all drives, also means you have to prepare another set of hard disk just to safe keep your data before you going for new RAID configuration.
Usually most people going for RAID will purchase the required hard disks in one go to prevent such things happen when you're out of space in current setup.
If you can wait, you should get enough budget to setup another RAID, means of purchase another system with all the required hard disk.
If you can't wait, backup all the data into other hard disk be it external or another PC with enough space, then reconfigure the RAID with your new hard disk then copy back the data.

Good luck on your RAID setup.

All manufacturer (WDC, Seagate, ) now only has 2-year for their Internal hard disk, external is 3-year (dropped from 5 since few years back).

My own experience tells me that Seagate's RMA is much easier, I have RMA-ed 2 Samsung through them, very fast, less than a week (within 4 days).
As for WDC, you need to register at their portal to manage your own hard disk then use that to RMA one of your hard disk, slightly more steps and trouble but you can manage all your WDC hard disk in one portal (warranty period, serial number, etc.). WDC however is much slower to responds to the RMA, the items got stucked at their KL branch for few days before the RMA status changed to received, but once it goes through than the rest is good.

Packaging I would give Seagate 5 stars for their generosity, big box with 2 inches of foam of each sides, very secure packaging for rough handling. WDC is however only have 1 inch+ on each side, small box and it arrived slightly dent, luckily the hard disk is intact and working good, 3 stars for WDC RMA.

Add: You just need to send to the address provided by the RMA instruction, but if you do live nearby that area then you may walk-in, I live in East so I can only PosLaju it.

I think TS should PIN both these link into first page for easier future reference (no need to Google... copy.... pasta... )



Took a while to follow their instruction but they do give you some time to prepare and send in after you create the RMA so you can post during your free time or weekend.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Apr 4 2014, 08:41 AM

Current Pending Sector count does not means the sector is bad, it just means the sector has some issue reading and it timed out just marked as "Pending Sector".
You can backup your data into another hard disk and perform wipe on it, single pass will do for most, I use LLF (Low Level Format) tool software to perform the wipe, WD Diagnose also has this function I believe.
After the wipe, lookup the SMART again and see the result on the "Sector Count" or look out for "Reallocated....", if all the status is 0 means your hard disk actually working fine but it won't guarantee it will not happen again.
In my case my Seagate has encountered this as many as 4 times, I did wipe over them, all SMART shows fine and only last for few weeks to days then the stat "Current Pending Sector Count" shows up 1 again, I got fed up and didn't do anything about it since it didn't affect my OS nor my data so it's fine, been running with that stat for quite sometimes now.


TL;DR (If you're lazy to read my story): Do a wipe of your hard disk (BACKUP FIRST!!) then check the SMART again for "Current Pending Sector Count", "Reallocated Sector Count", if both stat are 0 means your hard disk is working fine, you can use it as data storage for non-importants if you're paranoid.

http://www.seagate.com/support/warranty-and-replacements/
Follow the guides, the Malaysia address is just another forwarder for Seagate, USPS to Singapore, somewhere in Subang.

Chances of local repair is low unless they do have the special room.
Seagate do provide data recovery but the price can be staggering, if your data worth thousands of RM and willing to fork out that much money for it then send through Seagate RMA and request for their recovery service.
If I'm not mistaken the checking process only is USD100? Long since I did research on it. They will check after you make the payment for them to proceed, then they will quote you a price for the data recovery, and it will depends on how much do you need to recover from it.

If you needs the boot up time and some application extreme fast loading time, yes, SSD worth every penny.
Is your signature your current system?
Please do read the guideline to optimize your SSD on first page.

I don't think that's easy as your friend said, PCB for each and every hard disk is different, it's trial and error for some, but if you screw up, you lose your data in one swoop.
Best is to pay a little visit to specialize shop (can't remember which) and let them deal with data recovery.
If you want to recover it yourself, you have to find the PCB of which of the same model, same manufacturing batch and not just date, if your drive is old the chances is little high, but if it's new, then it's of luck, rarely new drive fail (can RMA after all).

Isn't this suppose to be at SSD thread instead?

Old news? If you're constantly accessing the HDD, then the head won't park, constant torrenting won't be an issue.
As for the warranty, Seagate has changed his to 2-year, if you're into warranty, get the SV35 (WDC AV Green equivalent) which has 3-year warranty, just add around RM20~40 more depends on location and shop.

I don't have SV35, wanting to get one but local stock is not available or dealer does not want to due to low demand.
I only have the WDC AVGP 3TB, working fine so far but that's less run due to only-plug-when-needed.
As for my another WDC Green (normal one; 2-year warranty) is also only-plug-when-needed, so I think it should prone less issue. *cross-finger*

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Jul 2 2014, 05:26 PM

Vendor? Those are KL, if I'm in West Malaysia I won't have such hassle, I live in Kuching where vendor only import base on demand or for whatever reason.
Well, so far my drives has been... OK... I've not been using them for very long time, unlike my Samsung 2TB which is running 24/7, torrenting and shares purpose.