Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!cmcl2!ccnysci!alexis
From: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Don't buy Hard disks from CMS, they don't honor warranties
Keywords: CMS, yarddogs
Message-ID: <1331@ccnysci.UUCP>
Date: 26 Feb 89 06:28:24 GMT
References: <636@ndcheg.cheg.nd.edu>
Reply-To: alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen)
Organization: City College of New York
Lines: 45


The original article was rather unfair to CMS. While I understand that the
poster has had quite a bit of grief at their hands, I would like to say that
I've purchased well over a hunderd units from them. Their quality has always
been top-notch. This regardless of whether the drives break or not. What do
I mean by this? Just like all the other companies in the Mac market (except
Rodime and Storage Dimensions), they don't actually manufacture the drive
mechanisms. They buy them elsewheres, and in the case of the 60MB unit, from
Seagate.

It is well known that Seagate has had some *serious* quality control problems
over the last half year. Seagate is to blame for the drives all failing.

I have nenver had trouble with CMS honoring warrantees, the six or seven
times I have had to deal with them.

Despite this, I would agree with the poster that you should be cautious in
buying from CMS in the future. They have grown *very* rapidly, and lost lots
of good people in the last year. It does not surprise me that they are
making clerical errors occasionally.

In the past, I have always recommended CMS based on quality and price.
Now I reccomend MicroNet, for the same reason. MicroNet is run by Charles
McConnathy, the man who set up CMS's mac division, and it shows. They are
prompt, sell good hardware, and deliver for a low price. Much more signi-
ficantly, they are honest, which is enormously more than you can say about
most of the other smaller companies. They also have a special relationship
with CDC/Imprimis- they are the only company selling the new Wren Runner yet,
and at a price others won't match even when they do start shipping. (For
those who missed it, the Wren Runner is the fastest HD you can buy for your
Mac. No possible question. It's got the typical CDC transfer rate, i.e. much
faster than your Mac II or IIx can handle, and a *true* average access time
of 10.7 msec.)

Another good pont about the MicroNet drives is that the external models all
come with a rock-solid 30 watt *UNIVERSAL* power supply. You can plug them
in anywhere in the world that you can find a wall socket. That kind of power
supply is also naturally more tolerant of flaky power grids (which is why I
like them).

Bottom line is, CMS isn't as bad as it sounded, but better to buy from
MicroNet nowadays.

Alexis Rosen
alexis@ccnysci.uucp