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Do manufacturers care about their customers?

L

Lankyman

macrumors 68020
Original poster
May 14, 2011
2,083
832
U.K.
As per subject line. I have just been round to a work colleagues house to help him sort a problem with a Seagate GoFlex Home NAS. These drives are advertised as being for Windows or Mac. Well they are but as usual this isn't the whole story. If you use the GoFlex for TM backups, which it advertisers as one of it's features, then there is no way of limiting the folder size of TM. Result - the TM folder voraciously eats into the HD space of the GoFlex getting larger and larger until there is no more room. That's not just no more room for TM but no more room for adding data to your shared folders music etc. etc. so the GoFlex very quickly becomes redundant.

This to my mind smacks of manufacturers cynically treating their customers with contempt (at least their Mac customers) through poorly implemented solutions.
 
Lankyman said:
If you use the GoFlex for TM backups, which it advertisers as one of it's features, then there is no way of limiting the folder size of TM. Result - the TM folder voraciously eats into the HD space of the GoFlex getting larger and larger until there is no more room. That's not just no more room for TM but no more room for adding data to your shared folders music etc. etc. so the GoFlex very quickly becomes redundant.
Click to expand...

Umm, this isn't GoFlex's fault. This is standard behavior for anything you use for TM backups.

Time Machine will eventually use all available space on a disk. Once the disk is full, only then will it begin to delete the oldest backups to make room for new ones. The only way to mitigate this is to partition the drive, and set aside a certain part of it for Time Machine.

Apple really should have an option to always keep a certain percentage of the drive free. However, the very word "option" is probably verboten at Apple, so I'm not surprised there isn't. Because you know, we're idiots and might be confused!
 
Lankyman said:
If you use the GoFlex for TM backups, which it advertisers as one of it's features, then there is no way of limiting the folder size of TM. Result - the TM folder voraciously eats into the HD space of the GoFlex getting larger and larger until there is no more room.
Click to expand...
This is false and it's completely wrong of you to blame a manufacturer because of your lack of understanding. You can partition any drive by any manufacturer, giving TM one partition and using the other partition(s) for other storage.
 
That's the normal behavior for Time Machine. If you want to limit the size of the TM backup, you should partition your drive.
 
eric/ said:
which they don't make if they piss their customers off and they don't continue purchasing from them
Click to expand...
It's not a hardware manufacturer's fault if a customer doesn't understand how software works, especially if that software is produced by another company.
 
zorinlynx said:
Umm, this isn't GoFlex's fault. This is standard behavior for anything you use for TM backups.

Time Machine will eventually use all available space on a disk. Once the disk is full, only then will it begin to delete the oldest backups to make room for new ones. The only way to mitigate this is to partition the drive, and set aside a certain part of it for Time Machine.

Apple really should have an option to always keep a certain percentage of the drive free. However, the very word "option" is probably verboten at Apple, so I'm not surprised there isn't. Because you know, we're idiots and might be confused!
Click to expand...

Not a problem with Synology where you can limit the size for TM. :D

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laflores said:
That's the normal behavior for Time Machine. If you want to limit the size of the TM backup, you should partition your drive.
Click to expand...

Won't let you partition the drive - well it is possible if you are good at using Terminal but not sure how successful it would be.
 
Lankyman said:
Not a problem with Synology where you can limit the size for TM. :D

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Won't let you partition the drive - well it is possible if you are good at using Terminal but not sure how successful it would be.
Click to expand...

Synology is a NAS, which is a very different beast from a simple external HDD. This is not a fair comparison. NAS systems are set up very differently compared to a simple HDD. Can you buy a Synology setup for the same price as the GoFlex? I doubt it.

Why can't you partition the drive? Just go to Disk Utility. you don't need terminal.
 
eric/ said:
which they don't make if they piss their customers off and they don't continue purchasing from them
Click to expand...

Oh, I agree, and the best products are those made by companies that take that statement to its logical conclusion.

However, you have to also balance that with the realities of large-scale production, product timelines, and the fact that you can't please everybody all the time. Companies make compromises all the time in the name of "well, it's good enough, and we need to ship this thing".

If their company is anything like mine, there are probably engineers and programmers that are saying "Wouldn't it be much better if we did _____ instead?" only to be told "Sorry, we don't have the time to do that, the product can technically still do X, so it satisfies the requirements, and we have to move on."
 
old-wiz said:
Synology is a NAS, which is a very different beast from a simple external HDD. This is not a fair comparison. NAS systems are set up very differently compared to a simple HDD. Can you buy a Synology setup for the same price as the GoFlex? I doubt it.

Why can't you partition the drive? Just go to Disk Utility. you don't need terminal.
Click to expand...

I'd suggest you read the Seagate forums for your answer. I have been trawling the threads on their forum of which there are many on this very subject. The short answer being you have to strip out the firmware which then makes using the product difficult. If you're a Windows user then the product works ok, but as usual Mac owners get an inferior product. I noted that a lot of owners are returning them due to this issue.

P.S The GoFlex Home is advertised as a NAS
 
Can one take it then after reading the link with attachment that forum members agree that yet again Mac users receive poor support from third party hardware/software developers/manufacturers?
 
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