@elaterite
I am absolutely *not* an entomologist, but that looks a little like a California Crescent, which used to pop up around Donner in my day, and we'd get them in town sometimes along the Truckee around when school started up. I only remember because when I was a kid someone commented they were kind of uncommon, and one of my grandmothers really liked them.

So, it's been about 40 days and I finally have an RMA for the failed drive. Getting that RMA required no fewer than three return visits to human support, as none of the company's automated systems would interact with me, claiming the email address supplied with my login credentials wasn't recognized.

Which is kind of funny, since the company has NO trouble spamming that address they've never heard of with offers and promotions. Literally 12 marketing/promotional email messages since this whole business started.

So, I use external SSD drives for moving recording sessions around from place to place, and one of the drives has started intermittently failing. And I think, "Oh, I just bought this last fall, I bet it's under warranty." Yep, three years.

So, of course, to get a warranty replacement, one has to register the product. So I go to the manufacturer's site, create an account, fill out the form, open another window to download a PDF of the receipt to prove purchase, then enter the model and serial number…

"No matching records found!"

…and it clears the entire form so you have to enter everything again. So, I enter everything again, just in case I made an error. Same result. Search their forums: "Oh, yeah, this happens, call our support." So…I do. And I wait on hold for their support for 35 minutes, and then the call simply drops.

Heck of a way to avoid standing behind a warranty, isn't it?

#gearsquad #musicproduction