Verbalism Personified

Another thumbs Up!

Having lived with a malfunctioning flash drive for four days, I finally brought it back to Sim Lim Square for a replacement.

Prior to that, I had performed the usual read and write tests to my satisfaction. Media checks with Norton Disk Doctor and TechTool Pro revealed that sector 555683 was malfunctioning, causing a 'redundency error' when files were copied from the drive. There was no problem copying file to it.

The funny thing was that the problem didn't pop up on the PC version of Norton Disk Doctor or the mFormat utility provided by Transcend. So calling Storage Studio earlier this afternoon, I was assured that a replacement was possible.

At the store, the technician successfully reproduced the problem by filling the drive with data before copying them out again. This ensured that the problematic sector was called into play. For a moment, I was concerned that my drive would decide to work flawlessly on its own. But after all that, I promptly received my replacement without question.

However during the time when my drive was given the third degree, I got to speak with the Japanese manager of the store. I asked him if flash drive malfunctions were common. "One in a thousand," he said.

"Nothing you can do because it happens," he offered. Samsung, Fujitsu, Toshiba, Hynix and Hyundai are makers of the media that go into these drives and Transcend happens to be one such buyer among many.

Being a re-seller, he was pretty confident about Transcend's quality control process. As with every batch of media produced by Samsung for instance, the good yields would go to reputable companies like Sony, Transcend, Iomega and Scandisk.

The lower or questionable yields would be snapped up by OEM or brandless offerings. From time to time, a bad egg does get through even the most stringent QC process. Mine just happened to be one among a thousand.

"You don't have to worry," he assured me. Transcend's 2-year warranty was a good rider and it demonstrated that they had confidence in their product. "Go scan the drive at home and if it gives you problems, bring it back." I didn't need to be told twice.

posted by Teutoburg @ 10:56 PM