I wouild like to register a complaint! Trays and screws

[Zebraitis]

(Copied from the STORAGE forum to ensure that Buffalo Engineers may see this.)

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To the Buffalo folks that may have influence and provide feedback to the engineers in Japan:

OLD:
The TS5800 trays had holes in the bottom of the tray to secure the SATA drive.   You could use ANY screws.

NOW:
The TS5810 has holes in the SIDE of the tray to secure the SATA drives.  Suddenly you MUST use Buffalo provided screws.

Opinion:  Not a fan of this change.  It is customer unfriendly.

Why:
*  I bought my TS5810 used.  It came with NO drive screws.

*  I looked at the hole design and saw the beveled hole on the side and lack of holes in the bottom.

* Looking at https://ew.buffalotech.com/collections/spare-parts/products/replacement-set-of-screws-for-hard-drive-trays by that time you add quantity 2 and shipping, you are at $18.98  (...not exactly a deal when you could have used almost any screw in the previous drive trays.)

* I tried an alternate supplier:  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016OCJQBQ  ... their price: $5.90 for quantity 50.

*HOWEVER -- Your machining / design of the drive bay is SO tight that with the head of that screw barely protruding it would not fit into bays 1, 4, 5, 8   So, failure, of course.

BUT COMPARE:  I was able to reuse my trays from my old TS5800 with the screw on the bottom of the tray and they slid right into the TS5810 just like butter.


Result:  Looks like I will likely throw away those nicely numbered red graphic stickered trays that the marketing folks thought would look SO cool...   Harrumph!


MY TWO QUESTIONS:

1) Why would you make this type of change, from an easy retaining solution to one that is problematic?

2) Considering that small drive screws tend to run away on their own and disappear, and that an easy screw hole in the bottom of the tray is no longer available, why would you make replacements SO expensive?  Is this an intentional move?


Price comparison (quantity each):

Amazon special beveled screws for NAS trays:  US$0.12

Buffalo Terastation Hard Drive Tray screws:  US$0.593
.
Junk drawer screws that fit all old trays and any SATA drives:  US$0.00


Please let me be clear:  I am not attempting to say that you should be at Amazon's price...  I am saying that the change in design that actually made me SO irritated that I took the time to document this ... THAT CHANGE of the screw location (or not including a choice of having BOTH in that tray) is what was unnecessary and unwanted.

If someone at Buffalo would like to discuss this further, I would be glad to do so via DM.