Newegg Hard Drive Packing

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AVT

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I've seen some disappointing stories about Newegg's hard drive packing here. I recently placed an order which included a hard drive, was dissapointed to see that it was shipped separately from the rest, and figured I'd share what the packaging looks like with [H] forum members.

To me, it seems adequate.

spa0015hu0.jpg
 
I have few complaints in regards to Newegg packaging, though I would prefer if they used foam like in ZZF's case which "suspends" the drives within the foam for maximum shock protection from rough UPS/FedEx/DHL handlers. When I usually get my drives from Newegg, it comes from the City of Industry, CA warehouse, wherein they package the drive as shown above, and I do find that to be adequate - but I have only purchased one drive from the Egg at a time, so I can't comment as to whether or not they package hard disks in the same box like that if you buy two or three.

One complaint I do have about their packaging is that they put one of my WD6400AAKS amongst some other goods I have ordered in the same purchase (a KVM switch and 4GB of RAM) in the same box, and though the drive was fine, I could see how the drive can shift within the sea of peanuts inside.

Of course, Newegg is a huge online distributor of electronics in this country, and seeing pictures within their City of Industry warehouse as to their efficiency and the sheer quantity of goods they ship a day, I could see how some peoples' packages seem inadequately shipped, given the quantity of items they have to ship in the lightning fast shipping process on conveyor belts and hoses of peanuts. Of course, I hope their Midwest warehouse improves their shipping packages of wrapping hard disks in paper - that, if I ever encountered that, would be unacceptable for me as well.
 
The picture above is exactly how my hard drive was sent to me, and it was wrapped in about 3-4 inches of bubble wrap. I was more than satisfied.
 
I also just ordered a couple of drives from Newegg and they also came the packaged as above.
 
Got my OEM WD6400AAKS the same way from the egg (shipped from the TN warehouse). I was just fine with the way it was packed.
 
blah...yea thats fine when it just one drive...but I ordered 3 WD6400AAKS from them and they stacked them on top of each other and wrapped the whole thing in bubble wrap so they were banging against one another the whole way here...I immediately called newegg and returned my order.

I know newegg usually has pretty good pricing on HDD's but to me saving a few dollars up front doesnt mean shit when you have to pay for shipping them back to newegg cause they were DOA, and wait for new ones to come that hopefully work, or having to RMA them to the manufacturer in two months, pay for shipping, and wait for a new one to show up. Plus all this time your system is either not working, you have a degraded array, lost data, and are probably out of space because newegg didnt do an adequate job packing your hard drives. So for me that just not worth 2 dollars.

I only buy from ZZF or Directron online...and I buy from Frys locally.
 
When I've ordered 2 or less drives, they came bubble wrapped separately, just like the image in the OP.
I've ordered 4 at once and they came in a box with a foam insert with slots cut out for each drive.
 
BlueFireIce said:
Got my OEM WD6400AAKS the same way from the egg (shipped from the TN warehouse). I was just fine with the way it was packed.
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Since I live in TN, 95% of my orders come out of that warehouse.
I have never had an item that was not packaged correctly.
Always tons of bubble wrap and peanuts.

Heck, I even seen items get packed on Sat and Sunday at that warehouse.

Not to mention 1 day ship times .. :)
 
For you guys who have only ordered one drive, order a few more.... You can't base your entire opinion of newegg packaging on one order or two alone.

I've seen my fair share of crap packaging from newegg, to the point where I stopped buying hard drives from them. They also do a shotty job sometimes of packing components, usually putting them at the bottom of the box and filling the void with penuts, rather than suspending them with penuts.

Zipzoomfly and Fry's has the best packaging so far bar none.
 
I've only had one bad packing job (the infamous brown paper wrapping) for a pair of Seagate 250g drives. The ~15 or so other drives I have ordered were packed like the OP's.

That being said, if I was going to order a large number of drives at once I would go though someone else.

Oh, and the box for my new SAT2 card got crushed pretty good due to bad packaging + UPS. Looks like the card survived without damage.

 
I've ordered about 100 hard drives over the last 6-7 years from Newegg and haven't had any DOA's from them. I've usually ordered them 1 or 2 at a time, and about half the time with other components. I've never had one not come bubble wrapped that I can recall. When ordered just drives they came like the pic above.
 
Ockie said:
For you guys who have only ordered one drive, order a few more.... You can't base your entire opinion of newegg packaging on one order or two alone.
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I had more issues with how my motherboard and CPU were packed. Box was only half full of peanuts and the CPU had managed to work it's way to the bottom of the box and the motherboard had shifted to the top. That gives me the willies.

New Egg...Oversized Box. Invest in the expanding foam stuff. The only way to damage something packed in that stuff is to drop it out of the plane or run over it with the truck.

I've ordered 5 WD6400AAKS's on the same order. Each was individually wrapped in 4-5 inches of bubble wrap then packed into peanuts. That's all well and good, but they should ship them in a box with the squishy foam that has slots cut in them.

Less returns due to shipping damage = better image to customer.
 
Newegg has always packed everything quite nice and never had something DOA because of poor packing, though I do prefer to order from ZipZoomFly for drives cause usually I can get free shipping on practically any drive. So its really who has the best deal but I would have to say more then 90% of my spending is from Newegg, they just are that good. :D
 
AVT said:
I've seen some disappointing stories about Newegg's hard drive packing here. I recently placed an order which included a hard drive, was dissapointed to see that it was shipped separately from the rest, and figured I'd share what the packaging looks like with [H] forum members.

To me, it seems adequate.
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Seagate diagrees:
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/su...s_assistance/packing_&_shipping_instructions/

So does WD:
http://support.wdc.com/warranty/rmapacking.asp#Helpful Guidelines

And Hitachi too:
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/packaging2.htm
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/packaging3.htm

The major manufacturers state that:
  • bubble wrap is unacceptable
  • peanuts are unacceptable
  • lack of an antistatic bag is unacceptable
When large companies develop packaging for their products there's a considerable amount of physics, engineering, and statistical analysis involved. The design and development of appropriate packaging is an entire industry unto itself:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Packaging_engineering

(I went to secondary school wih a woman who now does this for a living.)

It's very serious business. If a company uses overzealous packaging it costs them money. If they use inadequate packaging it costs them money. They have a huge vested interest in getting it just right. Using even the slightest bit too much packaging can cost many millions of dollars in materials and shipping costs.

For disks drives the right thing is solid foam blocks that completely fill the containing box and 2-3 inches of solid foam between each drive. If anything less was OK then Seagate, WD, and Hitachi would use it and save themselves X millions per quarter. End of story.
 
kristof said:
For disks drives the right thing is solid foam blocks that completely fill the containing box and 2-3 inches of solid foam between each drive. If anything less was OK then Seagate, WD, and Hitachi would use it and save themselves X millions per quarter. End of story.
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You are right on this...however, I think they need to find a way to allow the OEM shipping method they use to be broke apart from places like newegg. I'm hoping they are working on this.
 
If Fry's and ZZF can ship in proper containers and usually include free shipping (not to mention, better prices a lot of the time), I'm sure newegg can do the same. I think it's all about nickle and dimeing the customer to death, same with the whole "rush shipping" concept.
 
In my personal experience I've gotten my drives surrounded in bubble wrap and packing peanuts like the OP. Never had a problem that was a result of NewEgg's packaging methods. I know there are several people who stated in this thread "the major manufacturers say..." but until I get a drive that fails because of NewEgg's packaging, I'm not going to complain.

I returned a WD drive in an anti-static bag surrounded by packing peanuts. No complaints from the RMA department even though using packing peanuts apparently "voids the warranty."
 
Sovereign said:
In my personal experience I've gotten my drives surrounded in bubble wrap and packing peanuts like the OP. Never had a problem that was a result of NewEgg's packaging methods. I know there are several people who stated in this thread "the major manufacturers say..." but until I get a drive that fails because of NewEgg's packaging, I'm not going to complain.

I returned a WD drive in an anti-static bag surrounded by packing peanuts. No complaints from the RMA department even though using packing peanuts apparently "voids the warranty."
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Your drive wont fail right away, at least a lot of them dont. You can damage a drive to where you have issues in the future due to bad packaging. This is the reason why a lot of companies will return drives as precautionary if the boxes are beat up pretty bad.

You RMA'ed a dead drive, so peanuts or not, the drive is already dead.
 
Sovereign said:
I returned a WD drive in an anti-static bag surrounded by packing peanuts. No complaints from the RMA department even though using packing peanuts apparently "voids the warranty."
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The drive manufacturers can tell the maximum G shock that a drive has sustained. Your were lucky. Your drive arrived at the RMA center without taking a massive hit. If a drive arrives for RMA improperly packed but it hasn't exceeded the maximum shock limit they will generally let you slide. However, if your package had taken a really bad hit and your drive exceeded the maximum shock limit, they would have voided your warranty no questions asked.

This is one of those situations where you cannot extrapolate from a small number of individual personal experiences.

I would encourage anyone who ships disks in peanuts to hang out at the nearest UPS depot and watch them load/unload trucks. Talk about getting scared straight! :)
 
Ockie said:
Your drive wont fail right away, at least a lot of them dont. You can damage a drive to where you have issues in the future due to bad packaging. This is the reason why a lot of companies will return drives as precautionary if the boxes are beat up pretty bad.
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This is the thing that most people don't know and why (I think) many people continue to stick up for Newegg.

That high G hit your disks took during shipment generally does not result in DOA drives. Those drives will work great...for a year...or two...or three...and then BAM! They die prematurely.
 
kristof said:
This is the thing that most people don't know and why (I think) many people continue to stick up for Newegg.

That high G hit your disks took during shipment generally does not result in DOA drives. Those drives will work great...for a year...or two...or three...and then BAM! They die prematurely.
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Is three years prematurely? What damage do you think is done to the drive during shipping that causes these failures? If the heads are parked, which they are when powered off, then there really shouldn't be any ill effects from "normal" shipping wear and tear that will manifest themselves after years of use. If the heads hit the drive then the drive will be DOA (or really badly messed up), if they don't then what damage is being done? Newegg sells a lot of drives, and has pretty decent customer service, I'm guessing if they were seeing a real trend in drive failures that could be linked to shipping, they'd change their practices. What is probably happening is that the few people who get bad drives post about it, while the thousands who have no problems don't, so you get an artificial sense of how bad the problem is.
 
kristof said:
This is the thing that most people don't know and why (I think) many people continue to stick up for Newegg.

That high G hit your disks took during shipment generally does not result in DOA drives. Those drives will work great...for a year...or two...or three...and then BAM! They die prematurely.
Click to expand...

I doubt anyone could unintentionally cause enough of a shock to surpass the non-operational limits of what today's drives can handle. An unprotected fall from a conveyor can only cause 1G of shock when it hits the floor. Kicking the box around the loading dock might get 5G to the drive and even that I doubt. The WD6400AAKS is rated for 300G (yes, that's three hundred )for 2ms while non-operational? Come on now.
 
I've ordered over a dozen drives from Newegg, never had any problems with packaging.
 
Over the years of buying harddrives from Newegg, all of them are still working to this day (knocks on wood).

They've always came in an antistatic bag, with a two+ layer of bubble wrap, taped shut, and then surrounded by packing peanuts.
 
ryan_975 said:
I doubt anyone could unintentionally cause enough of a shock to surpass the non-operational limits of what today's drives can handle. An unprotected fall from a conveyor can only cause 1G of shock when it hits the floor. Kicking the box around the loading dock might get 5G to the drive and even that I doubt. The WD6400AAKS is rated for 300G (yes, that's three hundred )for 2ms while non-operational? Come on now.
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You have a complete misunderstanding of what's being measured. Shock is the peak acceleration that an object undergoes upon impact. Shock force depends on a lot of things but most important are the speed of the object before impact and the length of the impact event.

According to your logic, anything dropped - no matter from how high - only ever experiences a shock of 1 G. That's just nowhere near correct. If you drop an object from 1 meter onto a cement floor it is traveling about 9.8 meters per second just before impact. When rigid objects like metal and cement collide the impacts last some small number of milliseconds. If you do the math using the basic equations of motion you will see that your disk can experience over a hundred G's from this impact.

Imagine the impact lasts 1 millisecond. The shock from a one meter drop is:

9.8 m/s / 0.001 s = 9800 m/s^2

9800 m/s^2 is 100 G!
[EDIT: LOL off by a factor of 10... That should be 1000G]

That's assuming uniform deceleration during impact. In reality, acceleration during impact is never linear. It has a big peak so the maximum acceleration will be much higher than calculated above.

Forceman said:
Is three years prematurely?
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Yes, absolutely but I don't want to get into big discussion about the length of warranties.

Forceman said:
What damage do you think is done to the drive during shipping that causes these failures?
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Are you questioning the maximum shock ratings? I didn't come up with them. The engineers at the disk manufacturers provide those and they certainly didn't arrive at them by sitting around thinking what could possibly fail and at what G's. They come up with those numbers after rigerous testing programs. Those numbers are critical to some of their customers. Not all disks spend their lives inside a case on someone's desk.
 
kristof said:
You have a complete misunderstanding of what's being measured. Shock is the peak acceleration that an object undergoes upon impact. Shock force depends on a lot of things but most important are the speed of the object before impact and the length of the impact event.

According to your logic, anything dropped - no matter from how high - only ever experiences a shock of 1 G. That's just nowhere near correct. If you drop an object from 1 meter onto a cement floor it is traveling about 9.8 meters per second just before impact. When rigid objects like metal and cement collide the impacts last some small number of milliseconds. If you do the math using the basic equations of motion you will see that your disk can experience over a hundred G's from this impact.

Imagine the impact lasts 1 millisecond. The shock from a one meter drop is:

9.8 m/s / 0.001 s = 9800 m/s^2

9800 m/s^2 is 100 G!

That's assuming uniform deceleration during impact. In reality, acceleration during impact is never linear. It has a big peak so the maximum acceleration will be much higher than calculated above.
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You're right, I have no idea why I said what I did, I do know better.

I did give a non-specific height of a conveyor belt. For most of the facilities I've been in, that's about 2.5ft or 0.76m. The 6400AAKS weighs 0.63kg and would only reach ~3.8m/s before hitting the floor. Assuming a deceleration of 0.001s,

3.8m/s / 0.001 s == 3800m/(s^2)

3800m/(s^2) / 9.8m/(s^2) == 387.7G

That's a bit beyond the manufacturers limits :) But we're talking about a bare drive hitting the floor in that exercise. In cases where the packaging stays intact, the shock would be spread throughout the corrugated box, packing peanuts, and bubble wrap. In cases were the packing doesn't survive, Newegg really can't be blamed for it.
 
In my experience, Newegg's hard drive packaging has improved markedly in the last 6 months.
 
The worst I have ever seen from newegg was when I was building 4 machines for an office, and they wrapped all 4 drives together. Recently I ordered 8 WD7500AAKS drives and they were each wrapped in bubble wrap separately and shipped in a box of peanuts. There were no DOA drives in the batch, and they are still running now (8 months later).

As someone else said, I personally prefer ZZF's method of shipping.


::Stuart
 
ryan_975 said:
An unprotected fall from a conveyor can only cause 1G of shock when it hits the floor.
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WOW, I want live on the planet that your version of physics come from. Must be cool to drive a car off an overpass and only have it sustain 1G of peak force when it hits the ground. Plane crashes on your planet must be no big deal, either. :rolleyes:
 
coolie_d said:
WOW, I want live on the planet that your version of physics come from. Must be cool to drive a car off an overpass and only have it sustain 1G of peak force when it hits the ground. Plane crashes on your planet must be no big deal, either. :rolleyes:
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Instead of flying off the handle and immediately responding to a post that's already been taken care of in a later post, thus making yourself look like a moron, finish reading the thread then comment.
 
I finally got screwed with Newegg HD shipping after about 100 orders from them.

I bought a WD GP 1tb drive, flash memory card, and a NIC. The hard drive came with a single layer wrap of the big bubble wrap, the NIC was in a hard plastic package that was double wrapped with big bubble wrap, and the memory card was loose. Also included was a token foot long piece of brown packing paper crumpled up. UPS isn't without blame either, one end of the box is an accordion.

I hooked the drive up and it was recognized but wouldn't complete a (non-quick) format. RMA time, I think I'm calling them too to vent my displeasure.
 
i've had bad experiences with newegg and receiving items DOA. But my luck sucks!! So I try to avoid online ordering :D
 
kristof said:
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kristof said:
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The problem with your argument is that a item securely held in place by blocks of foam doesn't have very much shock absorption. If the box was dropped, almost all of the force of the impact will be transfered to the hard disk.

Take a box of peanuts with the drive wrapped in anti-static bubble wrap like NewEgg does it, with the drive if in the center of the peanuts, it will have less of a shock transfered to it. The problem lies in the fact that due to the normal bumping and vibration of being transported, the contents of the box tend to settle if the box is not firmly packed.

Also, all modern hard drives, as in since manufactured since the late 1980's automatically park the heads when they are powered down.
 
I've never had a Hard Drive issue from newegg but then again I've sold all of them so I can't really comment on their status at present. I am however displeased with the way they are packaged. It looks sloppy to me. So thats why I prefer to get all my Hard Drives from ZZF. They take better care by putting the Hard Drive in a foam enclosure with lots of peanuts than just wrapping bubble wrap over it and throwing it in a box with an inadequate amount of peanuts like Newegg. Thats just my 2 cents.
 
I haven't had a problem with NewEgg; they've always been bubble-wrapped and the boxes filled with peanuts. That seems adequate to me. They usually ship from the east coast (where I live) so I get them much faster and with the shipping box typically in better condition than ZZF.

On a related note, I've had more problem with ZZF packaging. The last hard drives I bought came in individual foam placed in a box. There was no padding to prevent the foam from sliding around in the box, nor was the foam designed or padded to accommodate the smaller notebook hard drive I bought.

Another time ZZF shipped me a hard drive that was visibly damaged; a piece of steel was even chipped from a corner. Thankfully they took it back without hassle.

I've received a lot of defective hard drives over the years; many of which came from ZZF.
 
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