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Lacie Customer Support really went all the way for us…
I just wanted to shout out to Lacie for their amazing customer support in an incident that occured at our media shop, Statusfirm Inc.
We happen to have alot of the BIGDISK EXTREME 1TB (500GBX2 RAID0) units due to customers requesting them, or I don’t know why; I am the IT Guy and all I know is ALOT of media shops use Lacie stuff and I don’t really understand why its so popular!
But anyway, As much sense as it does not make to ship a RAID0 in such a way, Especially considering its max is FireWire800, The fact remains that Lacie helped us out when all I’ve ever read about them was somewhat disconcerning.
Our Production Manager (soon to be former 🙁 We’ll miss you, you are great!), Jeff Allen, Plugged the AC Adapter to a Vantec Nexstar3 External SATA unit (Because it matches the Lacie’s Plug, and on the Lacie drive no visible voltage specification is shown, an honest but tricky mistake.)
Now, for whatever reason not only did this fry the enclosure, but the drives themselves! This particular unit contained all of our footage from the Olympic 2010 Winter Games for Right to Play, so I went ahead and took the 2 RAID0 Drives out and thought to place them in a known-good identicle Lacie Enclosure in the same position as they were.
This ended up frying the known good unit, Which I was stupid enough not to backup onto Server beforehand, And this unit contained another project that we just heard a couple days later wanted all of their footage, What a nightmare.
Anyway this is what Lacie had to say:
Good day Nigel,
Although the warranty is voided, We can propose that you put the drive back together the way it was (mechanism configuration and all) and return it to LaCie for replacement of the controller bridge. We do not sell any parts so this we will unable to provide.
You can place a note in the box with the unit about data so we will not reformat the drive.
We cannot guarantee any data will be saved, recovered or returned.
You will receive instructions shortly via email on how to return the unit.Regards,
Jesse
_______Good day Nigel,
so now you currently have two defective units?
The unit that you would like us to do an exception on is the one with the hard drives still working right?
Please send that particular unit as per the instructions you received by email with a note on the external casing mentioning that data is very important and that you want us to only replace the bridge.
Regards,
Jesse
_________________Hello Nigel,
we always try to take the extra step, but sometimes we just can’t. The rule is to remember that there is nothing wrong with asking.
I will try to have this case resolved soon so everyone can relax.
Regards,
Jesse
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They sent us the unit back, fully repaired at no cost. (After verifying our drives mounted in their labs!)Way to go Lacie
Amazing customer support -
5 Replies
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I am shocked. This is the first time I have ever heard of Lacie being nice to a customer.
Maybe things are changing there.Bob Zelin
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Hey Bob Zeilin!
I am a fan of some of your posts in this forum and others around creativecow,
I did read some of your stuff about Lacie in the past; and others… Which motivated me to write this post because when people usually have a good experiance with a company, nobody hears about it – But when something bad happens, everyone hears about it; everywhere.
How are things with you? I don’t mean to attempt to derail this thread, but I was wondering what kinda storage system you work with these days?
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Bob,
Just wanted to let you know that LaCie does take a look at the forums occasionally.
The important things to remember about forums is that the bad bubbles to the top very quickly, and there is sometimes a “pile-on” effect.
I want to assure you that LaCie does not intentionally send out bad or defective products.
Last year, we shipped over 6 million drives worldwide, in a variety of single and multi-drive configurations. Not every customer has the time or proclivity to visit a forum to write about their good and bad experiences.
Of course, we do take it to heart when something does not go right with a customer. We have listened, and we do make efforts to improve our products. Demonstrating that fact is the increase in warranty period we put in place in the last few years, as well as offering advance-replacement drives for customers that require it. Recently, we have also added Enterprise class drives in some of our higher end systems for improved performance and reliability.
I support the management and development team – I do look for issues that need addressing and follow-up with our team as appropriate.
Mike
LaCie -
Nigel,
Thanks for your kind words.
Mike
LaCie -
nigel writes –
I don’t mean to attempt to derail this thread, but I was wondering what kinda storage system you work with these days?REPLY –
easy answer – do you see the ads right in front of you right now – the banner ads on this forum. These are the drives that I currently use and recommend – Maxx Digital Cal Digit, JMR, Dulce Systems, Sonnet, G-Tech, Active Storage – all great companies. It’s good to hear about the “new” Lacie support –
support is everything.Bob Zelin
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