Precision 3640 HDD Caddy Issue

Question

I'm posting here with a new post regarding the HDD Caddies parallel to the other thread given that my issue is somewhat different. I also sent a few emails, and half a dozen phone calls trying to get through to Dell in either Business Order Support or Sales or whoever could ably answer the question and respond to the concern - with zero success. In utter frustration I decided to post here. The issue I want to raise is that I had to order these hard drive carriers/caddies for the Precision 3640 I purchased in January.   Owing to dealing with the estate of a family member I didn't open the box for a couple of weeks, then discovered that there were no caddies.On the web page product information and order page it very clearly shows (depicts) hard drive carriers/caddies for 3.5' hard drives in this image.   https://www.dell.com/en-ca/work/shop/workstations/precision-3640-tower-workstation/spd/precision-3640-workstation/xctop3640usca?configurationid=55f92072-8506-4acb-84b7-9b1d0955ef90Further down the page another image quite clearly depicts a hard drive carrier for 2.5' drives. From this it is (and I did) assume that the carriers are included in the purchase.   I did not see anywhere on the page that they are explicitly not included.Moreover, there is no place on the page or in the order section where there is information and/or an option to include empty hard drive carriers at the time of purchase.It seems to me that either the Precision 3640 purchase should have included the carriers as is indicated in the photos, or else it should have been very clearly specified that they were not included, and they should have been offered for purchase at the time of configuring the machine.   That would seem to me to be abundantly responsible and a a fair business practice.If Dell only includes carriers with the purchase of optional hard drives it seems to me that this should be clearly indicated on the purchase and configuration page, and at the order summary page.   It is not, and I reiterate that there is nothing to indicate that carriers are not included, and there is nowhere to purchase them at the time of purchase for the machine - and they are not shown or available in the Support section under Parts and Accessories for the Precision 3640To me it contradicts common sense to assume that someone would purchase a new workstation capable of having additional hard drives installed and provide no clear or simple mechanism to purchase hard drive carriers at the time of purchase (where it would be very clear they are not included), or afterward without having to go through a difficult process of trying to track them down, something others using this forum had to do also according to the posts.I say afterward because the hard drive carriers are not offered for sale anywhere, nor are the part numbers listed anywhere on Dell's web site at all. I found out how to get them on this forum and after making phone calls to Dell and then using an online chat thing to order them.Further, it seems perfectly reasonable to think that a purchaser may want to install hard drives they currently own and are using with data on them, or would prefer to purchase hard drives to install that are different from what Dell offers for sale and would fairly assume that they could do that without making further.This entire situation is quite problematic in my view.All it appears to say on the Dell Precision 3640 web page (link included in this email) is that accessories are not included. I would argue that hard drive carriers that are shown as being included, and which are essential to utilizing the machine for the purpose the purchase is intended does not constitute hard drive carriers as being accessories - they are clearly essential to the full utilization of the machine when it is sold without hard drives so that they can be installed by the end user - and can't be installed without them.Given that I was informed that the carriers are in short supply when I was finally able to track down how to purchase them, this seems to support my concern that they should have been included with the machine as is very clearly indicated on Dell's web page and marketing and order information.Now, I have had to spend an inordinate amount of time trying to find out how to purchase the carriers, I was told they are in short supply and I would have to wait or accept 'refurbished' parts (technically speaking the word refurbished has no explicit meaning - it simply means 'used'.)Additionally, the parts were noted as being shipped on the order page, and for the first order no shipping information has shown up in the specified period of time, and at the time of writing - the second order is shown as shipped but no shipping information has shown up.   They were delivered unexpectedly with no information having shown up on Dell's order page, and that they were delivered still is not registered on the pages.Now, I have been charged $26.86 for order two 3.5' caddies (carriers), and $20.15 for order  totaling $47,01 for (used) parts that any reasonable person examining the Dell Precision 3640 web page would assume were included in the purchase, and that in view of the fact that there is nothing to stipulate they are not included as well as that there is no mechanism by which to order them at the time of purchase, nor is there any obvious mechanism (e.g. listing them in Support where the service tag is entered) and the parts would normally be expected to be shown and offered for sale as Accessories/Parts for this machine - but they are not.https://www.dell.com/support/home/en-ca/product-support/product/precision-3640-workstation/upgradeIn fact, if a conventional hard drive (or sata that installs in a carrier) is purchased in the Parts and Accessories section under support for the Precision 3640 there is no mention of inclusion of a Hard drive carrier with the purchase for a buyer to actually install and use the hard drive.This raises the question: If at time of configuration and purchase a buyer includes an extra hard drive - does Dell include a hard drive carrier? It is not specified on the site.Why are carriers not listed on the Parts and Accessories page? And, since they are not listed as accessories (which technically speaking they are not - they are parts) it very clearly only states on the order/configuration page that accessories are not included.In summary, I think it is problematic that parts are clearly shown on a web page in an offering for sale, and if they are not included they should be offered on sale, and it should be very clearly indicated that the carriers are not included and this should be in the extra hard drive sections and additional information sections.If they were included as shown on the Dell Precision 3640 page where I purchased the machine, and were overlooked or not included owing to supply issues, I would think Dell should supply them at no additional cost.Given that the carriers are clearly shown on the page, and that there is absolutely nothing to indicate that they are not included in the purchase on the Precision 3640 configuration and purchase page, either explicitly stated, or by offering them as an additional option for purchase when configuring a machine and not buying extra hard drives at the time of purchase then I think it is reasonable to suggest that the site is at least confusing, and not Dell's typical business practice.   It poses the question: Why would anyone knowingly buy a new machine capable of having 3 to 4 drives installed and then not be able to install any owing to having no proper caddy - and especially since the drives cannot be installed without them?I think I have been fair and reasonable in both my assumptions and in conveying this information and will wait to hear from Dell before I decide what further steps I will take. Thank you

hammarlund · Answer

Yes, I had precisely the same issue w/ my 3630, complete with the "hard drive caddies are showing in the photo why on earth aren't they in the box?" issue.

IIRC, I bought some low end ebay and kludged it to fit. You may need to do the same.

Welcome to Dell. I tried switching from another brand, didn't realize what I was in for. Last time for me. I hope they fixed the heat sink, at least.

Andy812 · Answer

>On the web page product information and order page it very clearly shows (depicts) hard drive carriers/caddies for 3.5" hard drives in this image.

It is just a fully-packed platform image.

For caddies you should enable them in the order selector, or ask the operator, because the order builder is somewhat complicate and controversial (I got 2 optical drives just because asked for one RW instead of ROM; they shipped both).

So when ordering 5820, I turned on the option with caddies and RAID, and got 3 drives with an empty caddy in 4th slot. I.e. it was there because I have ordered it.

However, since I do not need one optical drive, I asked to ship us a decorative grill to cover the hole... but it seems it got lost during international shipping. I still did not receive it.

But honestly, you are right. Not shipping all drive holders for the proprietary internal cage by default is not nice.

Nonamehere · Answer

Thanks for your replies.

As it turns out, a person in sales informed me this evening that the caddies are not included and cannot be added in the configurator to purchase them.

This is the problem squared.

I re-read the entire page for the Precision 3640 (and archived it) and there is absolutely nothing to indicate that the caddies are not included.

Given that they are of a proprietary design, they are critical to being able to use this machine as advertised and intended - with extra drives installed.

Dell has confirmed you cannot buy them when configuring the machine to buy it or anywhere on their site. Caddies are simply not mentioned at all anywhere, and can't be bought on any Dell web site page.

You have to wonder why Dell would do this given that there are earlier posts about this on this very forum and it should have been resolved.

To give an idea of the difficulties trying to get this resolved, the people in the Dell Community Forum informed me they were escalating this issue over a period of about two weeks, then a few days ago told me I would have to contact sales.

I contacted sales through the Chat link they provided, and that person also (as did a supervisor in this forum) agreed that this caddy issue is a problem and needs to be resolved.

That just seems like common sense, to me. And at least two Dell employees understood it as well.

Sales Chat couldn't do anything so they finally provided me with an email address (internal - none are on their web site anywhere) to Business/Commercial Customer Care.

I emailed them, and the reply was that they can't help me and they referred it back to Sales.

The Customer Care person copied someone in sales who replied to me offering to sell me another tray/caddy. They ignored the problem and thought I was only trying to buy another caddy and didn't acknowledging any of the other information and ignored the issue and would not respond telling me that they would forward it to someone in senior management to respond to me and offer a solution.

They then said they would tell their product management team, but still refused to acknowledge the problem or commit to escalating it to someone who would respond and offer a solution.

Given that no one seems to have responsibility for this issue leaves me with no choice but to pursue it under the Competition Act of Canada, either with Consumer Affairs Canada or Consumer Protection BC.

I clearly said I would prefer to resolve this with Dell (especially since two of their employees acknowledged the problem in writing) and will give it a couple of days to see if I get any contact from anyone who can deal with it.

If I don't, I'll file a complaint with the Government and see what happens.

This could be merely an absurd oversight in which case you would think Dell would be quite interested in resolving it, or otherwise it's a problem of a different sort.

I'll post updates here for anyone else who has had the same problem.

Nonamehere · Answer

These are similar posts for reference.

This issue/complaint has been going on for several months.

Why has Dell not resolved it on the pages where the computers are sold given the caddies are a proprietary part?

That is, why do people have to scrape to find parts to use a machine as it is sold for?

https://www.dell.com/community/Precision-Fixed-Workstations/Precision-3640-part-number-for-3-5-quot-HDD-bracket/m-p/7729300

https://www.dell.com/community/Precision-Fixed-Workstations/Hard-Drive-Tray-for-Precision-3640-Desktop/m-p/7707113

Precision Fixed Workstations

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