Page 1 of Ebuyer and hard drives

Yup, finally about to buy that drive again.
Found a 500gig Maxtor Diamondmax with 16meg buffer on Ebuyer for £61 delivered, the Diamondmax drives are good cos I have the 200gig in me machine already so happy with that.

Now, I have a couple of queries here:
1) Are Ebuyer any good? I`ve seen complaints but most are to mispricing and not then honouring but I`d rather pay more for reliable service than save a fiver/tenner and have grief later.

2) They have PayPal as a checkout method, and google, but I have a wee bit of cash in me Paypal and I have a CC that`s overpaid £50, so does theor checkout system allow payment from multiple source, or will I have to link the overpaid CC to my PayPal to get it without interest?

3) Any other comments or opinions I should be aware of before I order this? Like do they use couriers or RM and will I need to worry if the posties decide to pull another strike?

All opinions and comments gratefully received chaps n chapesses :-D

Jimbo : oÞ

"Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish inna barrel"

I use ebuyer for most of my IT goods. I`ve never had a problem with them.

I think (IIRC) that they only allow one payment method, so linking your CC to your Paypal account and paying with Paypal would sort that issue for you.

As for the delivery...they use multiple methods depending on where its coming from, how heavy etc. etc. You`ll probably find it will be a courier though (it was for my last 2 hard drives from them).

As for your choice in drive...have you looked at all the reviews/specs on Tom`s Hardware?
I`ve always either gone for Maxtor or Western Digital drives (mainly the latter due to lower noise ratings) - but its worth checking the reviews.

If anything goes wrong, its a pain in the arse to get it right, but you do always get it sorted.

And their delivery times are almost always very optimistic.

But they are cheap and the stuff does turn up eventually. Just check the seals on the boxes when they come as I have had some stuff in the past that has clearly been reboxed.

Quote:
Just check the seals on the boxes when they come as I have had some stuff in the past that has clearly been reboxed.

Most of their drives are going to be OEM anyway, so it`ll just be a drive in a heat sealed anti-static bag....so you`d never know anyway.

Ebuyer - I have used them for years and they are generally very good. I have had no problems with returns/exchanges on the couple of occasions when I have received faulty items. Once they failed to credit the next-day surcharge on a delayed delivery, but they credited that with an hour of an email from me.

Most of my deliveries have been via City-Link. Usually prompt, the 5-day service is often shipped early.

I don`t think you can split the payment.

They have the Samsung 500GB for the same price as the Maxtor; a faster, quieter drive.

Cheers for the replies guys.
Not checked the Toms hardware reviews but have looked through some of the Ebuyer ones...Samsung drive isn`t getting a consistantly good score and appear to have some failures from delivery.
The only Samsung 500Gb I could find was an IDE drive though, the others are SATA.

Found the WD at £3 more expensive and this is where one of my quandries comes into it.
I have a Maxtor 200Gig and it`s been brilliant. Almost silent, good speeds, excellent reliability.
I also have a 120gig WD which has been good too but I think I had to enable silent mode and turn off write-verify which came automatically on. That`s an IDE drive though.
The WD seemed to have a lot of good reviews on there, and there`s 60 of them.

£3 is nothing. It`s now Maxtor or WD I think....

Jimbo : oÞ

"Making Teenagers depressed is like shooting fish inna barrel"

To be honest Jimbo - go with whichever one you prefer mate.
There`s not a huge amount of difference between them nowadays (a wee bit faster in some cases and sometimes a bit quieter - but no major diffs).

I have 2 of the 500Gb WD (WD5000ABYS) drives in my external NAS box (mirrored) and they run very well. And the 2 x 250Gb WD drives running as a striped drive in my PC run very well also. But like I said, I also have Maxtor drives - the one in my PS2 has been running for years without any problems.

Just get whichever you reckon has the reviews you like, and you`re comfortable with.

I`ve been buying from Ebuyer for years also and never had an issue.

Their prices are usually the cheapest and I find if you`re not in a hurry to receive the goods and select the cheap shipping option (Super Saver within 5 days) that most of the time it gets delivered in 48 hours!

The RMA process is a bit of a pain - online forms, but on the odd occaision I`ve needed to use it the replacements or refund have been dealt with quickly.

Ebuyers fine if the item ordered works but I had a problem with two successive PDAs both dying on me. Never got a replacement as they stopped selling them and the refund of the second 6 quids worth of postage never did come through. So until they smarten up their return and refund procedure I`m steering clear.
Amazons always worth a look they also have a free delivery option.

Snaps

This item was edited on Thursday, 18th October 2007, 09:48