Sabrent

Bought a large (and expensive - nearly $2000) external nvme SSD made by Sabrent. It is 8TB and came in a TB3/USB3.2 enclosure.

It has randomly died, completely.

And it's been a few weeks since my last backup. This stuff happens -- drives failures (all brands) and backup hiccups. That's why there's Data Recovery companies in my area staying very busy with business.

Sabrent supposedly covers my drive and will replace it in this scenario. Supposedly.

I call a couple data recovery companies and ask about the scenario I'm in, and mention I want to replace via warranty once I retrieve my lost data.

They explain this is a *typical* scenario, and basically never a problem, they simply give me a letter explaining that the drive came to them untouched, but dead. And that the enclosure was opened by the data recovery company in order to recover data. One company casually listed off a good handful known manufacturers they've done this for regularly without an issue.

So I thought I'd be fine, but just doing my due diligence, called Sabrent to check protocol.

Getting a data recovery company to look at my drive? Nope, not allowed.

Because I couldn't believe what I was hearing, I called them a total of three times in order to talk to different people in different departments.

They all echoed the same thing: "Our company policy is that if you send us a drive and the enclosure has been opened, we will reject your warranty and send the drive back.

We don't care about the letter."

To be clear, I was told "You have to choose between your data the drive (replacement)"

Selling a $2000 drive that randomly dies in a matter of months without even being put under any stress, and then telling me you won't replace it if I try to get professional help to recovery my work? That's criminal.

I can't believe I'm being treated like this, and the financial impact this has for someone in my situation is very serious (especially when adding in the lost time, on top of replacing an 8TB nvme, paying recovery costs, etc).

Please don't support a company who treats people like this -- it's gonna hurt you when their product fails and tell you're a sucker for believing their warranty meant anything.