Are there any plans to ever allow customers to install their own hard drives without voiding the warranty?
It would seem logical that the RIO\Empeg is nothing more than a compact PC. and as a PC, it would seem that we should be allowed to install additional harddisk space without fear of voiding the warranty.

Will RIO continue to work with the customer based on non related HD upgrade failures? EX: If say the display goes out and the user had upgraded harddisk space some time in the past, would RIO work with us knowing that the failure was not caused by the upgrade?

With the current MK1\2 that I understand that a bungling user could damage the unit (however, PCs have the same issue - but DELL, Compaq etc only void warrantys if neglect is found - torn cable Etc.). So I guess this question would be more for future models that would lend themselves to a more user friendly HD upgrade process.
Empeg\RIO could specify which models are compatable and are supported.

The recent thread "new 48gb IBM HDs" got me thinking.

12Gb MKII 080000516 Blue

The following is not official.

Rob has always said that the warranty stickers are not the only thing they consider when working on warrantied units. They know how the players get damaged from misuse.

As an example. The display on my Mark2 actually went bad recently, and they replaced it free of charge, even though it went bad immediately after I added a second hard disk. The problem with the display was a known issue that affected only a handful of units. They knew the disk drive wasn't a factor, and were very kind about replacing the display.

The fact remains, though, that a hard disk replacement on an Empeg is more tricky and more dangerous than it would be with a desktop or laptop computer. So don't do it unless you're sure you can do it right.

Even if you do everything right, there are things that can go wrong that are totally out of your control, and Empeg would prefer not to have to spend support time helping you if this happens. For instance, someone on the BBS (was that "ynot"?) recently had his second disk go bad because the slave jumper fell off. He was able to resolve the problem himself, but what if he couldn't? He'd be forced to send his Empeg in and have them solve the problem for him. Sure, they'd be able to charge him for the repair time, but that's really a no-win situation because everyone is unhappy at that point.

With the expected increase in sales volume after the Rio purchase, I'm guessing that they're going to frown on user-upgrades even more. They need to be able to keep support costs down, and if they encouraged everyone to install their own hard disks, scenarios like the one above would become far too frequent.

___________
Tony Fabris

I was going to cite my own example from last week but you beat me to it. I will add that until I noticed the missing Master/Slave jumper, I was in quite a state of panic as to whether I had goofed something more serious up during my HD installation. I was mentally preparing myself for sending my Empeg back to the UK and paying some hefty cheese to fix it.

I have installed many a component in desktop systems, and that, along with my other electronics experience, made me feel perfectly competent to do the install, but I also knew the risk was that my warranty is gone. It's only a year warranty anyway, which is what most electronics get nowadays.

I don't feel Empeg should be responsible to PAY for the repairs once the cover's been taken off, because you know people out there are going to take advantage of it, and open it up without knowing what they're doing (possibly without reading this BBS, lord help them.)

Now, if SonicBlue endorsed user upgrades of the hard drive on the RioCar, then you've got a different ballgame. I'm not sure how likely that is... I mean really there's not a terrible risk of breaking anything inside unless you bash the display or the larger capacitors with the shock mount cradle. Everything else about the install is roughly equivalent to installing in a desktop system. But for them to actually endorse it means they are probably going to have to be more lenient about installation-related damages to the product.

Larger component manufacturers usually have a much more flexible interpretation of "neglect." Chances are if you put a screwdriver through your hard drives at home, you can probably get a new one shipped next day if you RMA it. When you're dealing with a company the size of Empeg, and a market as small as they're working with, I think that would be suicide.



-Tony
MkII #554

I don't think any compny would continue a service contract after the product had been knowingly altered by the user. Consider repairs to your car: the service depot makes the adjustments to the engine, you get it home and replace the cams and the engine doesn't go well anymore. Should the repair shop be responsible for the changes?

No matter how careful you were, no-one should underestimate the spoon factor.

____________________
Murray 06000047

Correct. BUT, if you install an aftermarket exhaust, brakes and intake, the rest of your car is still under warranty. It is all cause-and-effect. As long as the modification didn't effect the part that failed, it still is covered. (For example, your trans may fail because you increase horse power beyond its original specs. So, in that case, even though you didn't touch the trans, you still void ITS warranty. But, adding an exhaust or even a clutch that meets the required specs of the original clutch does not void that warranty.) Many car dealers will tell you otherwise, but they are wrong.

12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com

My original point was simply (from first post):

"So I guess this question would be more for future models that would lend themselves to a more user friendly HD upgrade process.
Empeg\RIO could specify which models are compatable and are supported. "

Using an automobile is a bad example... think more like a next gen product with removable storage as an option. Much more like a notebook computer with -User Upgradeable- ports.
EX. if you want to add say.... additional memory or an additional hardisk to any most existing SONY notebooks out there today, you may have to remove a few screws, 'plug in or attach' your device.... close the lid, configure and go.
This most certainly would not void your warranty.

When the fine folks over at Sonic Blue design the next player... I hope this topic comes up. :)


12Gb MKII 080000516 Blue

Of course, in addition to that cause/effect thing, there's still the plain old things that can be messed up by the user.

I wanted to get a new case for my Dell, which my dad paid a hefty warranty for. The very nice computer came with 2 freakin' drive bays. So with my CDR and DVD, I couldn't get an SB Live Platinum or something like that. I also like alot of room in my case.

Anyway, Dell didn't like this idea, even though I was technically replacing a part that had zero effect on the performance of the machine.

DiGNAN
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, etc.

Is that a buzzard in your photoID?
Glenn

This is harder with shock-mounted disks, especially in space-limited areas. You'll notice the small, Z-series notebooks can't be upgraded easily - you have to fiddle for ages working out how the plastic pops off the metal then peel the whole thing apart, disconnecting several ribbon cables. Definitely warranty-voiding (I as pretty afraid of breaking it, and in theory I know what I'm doing).

It's a trade off between engineering cost (& so production cost) & convenience. The fact is, with disks getting bigger all the time it soon won't be so much of an issue - if there standard empeg was 100GB, almost noone would want to upgrade it, it'd just be big enough.

Hugo

Ha, famous last words - disks are never big enough!

Rob

Right. You can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much disk space.

Remember the famous Bill Gates quote about how no one would ever need more than 640k?

___________
Tony Fabris

Well, yes, but look at it this way:

I have about 25GB of music. Over my lifetime, maybe this will increase to 75GB. As my ears are unlikely to do anything but degrade (and I'm currently happy with my normal/high VBR encodes) I don't see a problem with (in theory) putting a definite maximum HDD size limit on *this product*.

A future box could do video, holograms, whatever, and would need more disk space - but as the quality is fine, I'd have to quadruple the size of my music collection to be running out of space in 100GB in an audio-only player - and my collection is larger than many people's.

Hugo

A future box could do video, holograms, whatever...

Leaking 1.1 features again, are we?

___________
Tony Fabris

1.1 will bring peace to the galaxy.

12gig red mk2 -- 080000125

Are there any IBM drive model numbers to avoid? I see quite a few different model numbers for the 30gig. Some say that it is only 25 gig after being formatted?

12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com

Some say that it is only 25 gig after being formatted?

That's probably not a question of formatting, but of manufacturers lying about capacity, combined with the way the drive is used.

Remember back in the old days, when someone used to say "17 inch monitor" even though you could only see 15 inches of picture? Then they passed a law saying that's false advertising and they must publish the viewable area, not the picture tube size.

Well, I wish they would do the same with hard disks. When you buy a 30-gig hard drive, it's not really 30 gigs. It's thirty million bytes, and a million bytes is not a gigabyte. A gigabyte is 1024x1024 (1048576) bytes. So a 30-million-byte hard drive is actually only 28.6 gigabytes.

In the case of the Empeg, remember that much of the software resides on the hard disk, and it needs a little extra space for the scratch partition, playlist data, and database files. So that 28.6 gigabytes gets whittled away a little bit more (I'm not sure how much more).

___________
Tony Fabris

30,000,000,000 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = 27.93GB

Drive space is always measured in 1000 bytes per kilobyte by the makers, and 1024 by the OS. Formatting will probably take a few megs tops in overhead for the partition table and filesystem. No drive will eat gigs of space for formatting though.

Would it be safe to say that all 30 gig drives will be of the same capacity? If not, how would one find out the actual capacity?

12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com

Some say that it is only 25 gig after being formatted?

Well, first there's the manufacturers habit of counting 'kilo' as 1000
instead of 1024...

30.000.000.000 / 1024^3 =~ 27,94

Then you'll use some for the filesystem (inodes etc). I don't recall
what inode density (though I believe it's been posted) empeg uses on
the data partition. Too high inode density wastes space to inodes
that'll never be used, to low wastes space by allocation a large chunk
of disk to every little file, ie the xx1 files.

Given an assumtion of the average size of the two filetypes (xx0 and xx1)
the optimum density could be calculated, but I'm way to tired to try it
now...

/Michael

Fixed Photo! (?)

12gig Mk. II BLUE
Detroit, MI USA
www.PfeifferBeer.com

DAMN.

I got megabyte and gigabyte mixed up in that last post. Dope slap time.

Okay, megabyte is million/1024^2, gigabyte is billion/1024^3. I know this.

___________
Tony Fabris

Not blowing my own horn here but I have just over 75Gb of MP3s, 98% of which i encoded myself - I have never used napster. this collection I share and use at work and home.
It is always growing and I am used to having the entire collection at my disposal and would love to have it for the car too.
IF the Empeg ever goes "Video" as you mention we will need much more.

12Gb MKII 080000516 Blue

In reply to:

---

Remember back in the old days, when someone used to say "17 inch monitor" even though you could only see 15 inches of picture? Then they passed a law saying that's false advertising and they must publish the viewable area, not the picture tube size.

---

Ha - that's funny, just yesterday the ASA (Advertising Standards Agency) in the UK finally put paid to this practice on this side of the pond.

Yes, up until May 1st computer firms will still be able to do this....

The ASA are going after the TV companies next - roll on!

Funny co-incidence.

Cheers,

Paul.

Paul Haigh, Reg. 4120
(mk1) 6GB, Blue, 00254
(mk2) 12GB, Red, 00357