atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Other TDM Phone Systems ESI Telephones & Systems How many HDD's have you replaced???

Only after replacing yet another bad HDD last week im realizing a pattern here. I have had to replace nearly 10 HDD's all in vintage ESI systems and 90% pretty much an E-Class. Its happening usually during the customers 5th year which luckily enough in all cases still covered under the 5 year warranty.

I have left ESI for the past two years but am contracting with an old company at the moment that is an ESI dealer. Last I talked to my good ol' buddy Chris Harris at ESI he mentioned that none of the new stuff is HDD and all Flash card. Its about damn time...

I have worked on one comm server since comming back to phones and it looks like an ESI X-class or 600. Both of those ran an HDD and in the 600 had the option of mirrored HDD's. Is it safe to assume that all the comm servers have an flash card?

Anyway, the question remains... how many HDD's have you seen go bad since you've been installing ESI? I have been installing ESI since the Original IVX and have over 100 systems between CA, Oregon, and Denver under my belt.

Very, very few here....i've been selling them since 2003.

I've been putting them in since 2001 and have only replaced two harddrives, one on a 72e and one on a IVX 20 plus.

Just of the top of my head I can remember replacing 5 HD's in the IVX20 & 1 in a IVX128. I have yet to replace any in an E-Class and I keep a careful eye on a 42s I have out there with a rare HD.

I certainly see a lot of 128's on Ebay advertised as "working when removed". Those buyers I consider to be future customers.

i noticed on the 72e's i put in in 05 & 06 there is a slot for the compact flash, if these systems HD goes bad, I wounder if you can just disconect the ribbon cable & stick in a CF card ?

Yes I have done that

We probably replaced a couple a year over the past 3-4 years. As many new as old.

Unless something has changed recently, the 1000, 600 and the 24 port VM model of the 200 are all still hard drive based and have mirrored drives available. The 1000 comes with mirrored memory standard.

Wow, that is unusual to me. I only sold their Voiceworks and Voiceworks16 voice mail systems. I still have plenty out there that were installed in the early 90's. I can say with certainty that I've replaced no more than five drives since then, with the most recent one in a VW16 being a HDD replacement with a flash drive. That ain't a bad track record in my books.

Man, I sure wish they still made those things.

Good feedback. Now I dont feel so alone as it seems like a common thing. I wish the HDD's ESI used would be more reliable but I guess when you've got a lot of systems out there then one would expect more cases of trouble.

I have an old 72e feature set 2 that just had its HDD replaced last year. Im hesitating on reselling it though.

I love ESI and im going to continue to push them. Even over my beloved Nortel and Avaya systems. ESI is just to easy!


Yeah, great 3rd party VM solution back in the day. I only installed a couple of these because the is pretty much when ESI took a turn in the right direction releasing the 20 and 128 platforms both with integrated VM. The price to have a phone and vm box on a user desktop back then was rediculously cheap if you went ESI. I think it was just at $150 on avg. Compared to an Avaya solution.

I'm glad to see that we are not the only ones having an unusually high failure rate on ESI hard drives and ESI equipment in general. ESI tries to tell us that we are the only ones having this high failure rate. We have had many hard drive failures over the past 7+ years. We have even had at least 3 or 4 Flash Card failures. In all of my 23 years in the Telephony business I have never seen a Flash card go bad in any phone system.

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We have even had at least 3 or 4 Flash Card failures.

Hard drives are a moving part, they eventually fail. The ones I see failing are over 10 years old. It is just the way it is.

Now tell us more about the alleged flash card failures. I've been around a while and been in contact with many ESI dealers nationwide and I know of only 1 flash card failure and it was traced back to Samsung (not the phone system division). In that one case ESI was proactive and stood behind their product.

I have only had one Flash card go bad, it was on a CS-100 installed 06/07 the CF went bad a yr later around 06/08. customer reported crazy things happening in the month leading up to its melt down.

In this case it was covered by warranty, so despite the hassel of replacing it, you now have the latest software with most of the early CS bugs ironed out..............

The most recent Flash card failure was in a 50L that we installed back in August of last year. The first problem we had was about two months later. The voice mail started doing strange things. Not allowing messages to be recorded, messages getting cut off in mid sentance, not being able to access mailboxes, not being able to access system programming,Etc. A system reset would clear the problem each time. After about the fourth occurance in as many months ESI decided to try a new Flash Card. We retreived the system programming and loaded it into the new card. The system has been running fine since the beginning of Feb '09.

"Flash Card update"

I just found another customer service ticket from June of this year. This system is also a 50L. It was also installed in August of last year. This customer has had several occurances of lines not disconncting. We had ordered "Guarenteed Disconnect" from the Carrier a few weeks prior and verified that it was programmed on all lines. The Flash Card failure occured after the system had been rebooted due to the continuing line lock ups. The system never came back online and the only fix was to replace the Flash.

Both system were properly grounded and were on a decent UPS.

I am certain that I can locate other Flash Drive failures within the last year or two. This does not include the several Samsung Flash Card failures. THe first of which occured the day before ESI contacted all of the affected resellers.

Funny I just now see this topic, we had a 72e hard drive go down today. I've seen many hard drives fail some over five years old but more than a few not.

I've also seen a couple flash drives go bad. ESI is our favorite system to use, install and maintain but man... I think all of us here push for the extended warranty.

Now for the Hard Drives. We have had a few drive failures on the 600/CS Platform since the first one was installed in Dec. of 2007. We have had several X-Class drive failures. None of these systems are more than 4 years old.
The most memorable drive failure was on a 600 about this time last year. It was one of our larger customers. (Approx. 165 phones). The system started having numerous intermittent issues. Calls dropping mid conversation, voice mail problems, ETC, ETC. System did not come back up after reboot. After several attempts of booting up the system with and without the M3, trying one or the other drive without the M3, the system came back up. They were still experiencing some strange problems but they were small in comparison to having no dial tone at all. We backed up the programming and waited for the new drives to arrive. When we sent the defective equipment back to ESI they were quick to blame us for the problem because we didn't put the nylon washers back on the M3 when we assembled it for defective return. Nice piece of engineering on their part. Lets make it extremely difficult to properly install the redundancy for the main piece of equipment that runs the entire system.

Too bad we have to eat so much time and money replacing this warrantied equipment. I would like to see a 5 year ESI Parts and Labor warranty. This would make them step up and use better components. Do you think?

I have two drives in need of replacement at this moment. One is waiting for the customer to upgrade their PRI circuit to NI2 because the newer X-Class software does not work with NI1. The customer is still shaking their head as to why the current old software supports NI1 and not the newer software. They are having to nervously endure problems and hope that their system doesn't completely crash before their Carrier can make the change.

The other system, another X-Class only 2.5 years old, was having very strange ESI-Link problems. The only fix or the first occurance was to reboot the system which did not come back up. After several reboots and a full card reseat the system came back up. The ESI-Link issue was cleared. Several days ago the ESI-Link went completely out. ESI could not for the life on them figure out why this was happening. They kept requesting a reboot. We didn't want to reboot because of the issue 3 weeks prior. This customer is 3 hours from our office. Probably three hours from any other ESI reseller office for that matter. We finally gave in to a reboot after approx. 6 - 8 hours of ESI not finding the problem. Again the system did not come back up until after several reboots. All reboots were given ample time to take effect. The reboot again cleared the ESI-Link issue. The next day we got a request from the customer to find the problem. ESI told us to get a laptop and go to the site and reboot the system. Remember the three hour drive time> We refused to go and requested that ESI resolve the issue on their own. One hour later they came back with the reason for the problems. I'm sure gald we didn't listen to them as we unfortunatly have in the past and made unneeded site visits. It turns out that the system had a version of CS software loaded in slot two and was trying to boot from that slot first. We have no record of our company loading any software to that site. All software upgrades are requested to be performed by ESI tech support after all of the past failures we have encountered by loading the "Software of the Week" to "Correct" other problems. We were told that this CS software can run on an X-Class and that it was probably causing our ESI-Link issues. I want to know why the system was trying to boot from slot 2 in the first place? We are being told that this drive needs to be replaced because it is more than likely corrupt from the CS software.

IT NEVER ENDS!

Hey, Jeff. Welcome aboard.

I must say that if you have an issue with ESI products, you should take it up with them, not bash them here. Every manufacturer has their issues, but I don't feel that your numerous posts expressing your dismay here in a public forum is the proper approach.

Geez man, your company sells this product. Why in heaven's name would you bash it where your current and potential customers will see your continual negative comments? You do understand that your comments are viewable by search engines from around the world, correct?

Please do your fellow ESI dealers a favor and refrain from bashing the product here. If your issues with ESI warrant such comments, then perhaps your company should consider carrying another product line.

Ed. You are right. I am sorry. I will try to refrain and give ESI some time to come to their senses.

How do I send a PM?

Jeff...click on the icon in the post header that shows an envelope and two figures apparently exchanging a boomerang.

I guess I should be like the others and only use short sentances to get the same point across. I see how its done now.

Thanks Dave.

No problem...BTW I am originaly from Wilson NC just down the road.

Now that we are all on the same page, Jeff: I was born in Greenville and raised in Raleigh. I did a few years in Fayetteville in the late 60's, but I swear I was innocent.

Ahh So, You are the ED I heard about everytime I worked in FayetteNam.

I have lived in eastern NC since my parents moved us from Jersey in '69 when I was 4. It is a great place to live. I have a Sister and Brother-in-Law that sell NEC and ALTIGEN in Raleigh. They seem to do very well with those products. I did venture back up north installing and servicing ISOETEC in NJ, NY and CT from '86 to '89 and then working for Executone in CT from '92 to '94. I learned more in those years than I ever could have down here. The overtime that I was given the oppertunity to work up there during each stint was equal to over one whole year of regular work hours. EXECUTONE transferred me to Raleigh at the end of '94 and from there to New Bern in '95 where I was the only one left out of a recent four man show. I was able to keep the entire area serviced by myself (Again, many hours of overtime) until I was able to train my brother who went on to be a very good Telecom tech in the Raleigh area.

What brought you to the DC area?

Jeff, maybe technology just ain't your cup of tea?

I have had the exact opposite actions from ESI....they have been outstanding every time i have had to deal with them including replacing a system and 7 circuit cards under warranty that were damaged by an electrician and could have been exclued from warranty coverage.

The one time i had serious issues with a large system and a PRI (turned out to be all carrier issues as ESI said) they worked very hard to resolve it.

I was a BP for another product before ESI and i couldn't even get a response from my rep.....let alone tech support.

Same here upstateny :thumb:

Maybe it was/is the manner in which you ask for tech support. Did you say PLEASE? or just start ranting & raving?

I have clients that I'll bend over backwards for, others I wouldn't give the sweat off my back....depends on how they treat or talk to me.

Dave Moore

We are Techs ourselves and we all have a memory of those that call upon us to solve a problem with an attitude that consists of ranting and bitching about how things should be. I don't know about the rest of you but I personally can't solve any issue without pertinent information.

In every occasion I have had to speak with ESI TS I have received respect and considerable effort to resolve any issue delivered.

Is ESI the perfect system, NO.
Is any system the perfect system, NO.

ESI Tech Support, ESI R&D and ESI Sales are my partners not my adversaries.

The Moral of these stories is to make it as clear as day to the customer, that the Warranty covers PARTS ONLY, NOT LABOR..

I have learnt this the hard way...........

Gentleman. We have two instances of ongoing PRI problems that were called in to ESI tech support on an almost daily basis for six months. These problems occured on up to 7 large systems at the same time, each time. Each time it took ESI over six months to acknowledge that they had an issue in our area and send an engineer to try to resolve the problem. Notice that I said TRY. Two and a half years later and still having some of the same issues. ESI did make many software changes that cleared up some of the problems.

I guarentee that there is not one you out there that would stand by and let someone do this to their customers and not rant and rave about lost revenue and lost sales. Bottom line is that our customers are not getting treated fairly. They look to us to resolve their issues because we sold them the system. We look to ESI to resolve these issues because they built and sold the system to us. Unfortunatly, we are the ones that look bad because ESI can't figure out their problems. We as ESI's customers suffer because no one wants to buy something that has a bad reputation. We have covered their butts for quite some time now and have bent over backwards to keep their name out of the dirt but we only have so much time and money. It is ESI's turn to step up but I don't see that happening anytime soon. They would rather lose customers than try to make things right.

Why not start a new topic on your problem sticking just to the facts of the problem and what's been tried to resolve it. Maybe someone here has seen it before.

Here's my 2 bits worth. 180 ESI systems installed so far (since 1999)- 5 hard drive replacements, 1 Compact flash replacement not counting the Samsung recall (all save 1 replaced before anything went wrong). I've gone through 3 hard drives on my office PC's in the last 10 years so I think 5 is not out of line at all. I expect it to become a regular thing soon though as those hard drives out there hit the 10 year mark.

Jeff, you are among fellow technicians that are interested in your situations. This thread has and probably will continue to discuss the lifespan of HD's vs. Flashdrives.

All we are asking is you openin a new topic with your details such as X-Class, CS 600, PRI and so on.

We're not try to shun you, we just want to dig into your technical details in a professional manner.

Thank you John. I will do that.

I already have posted two replys on July 1 to someone having the same PRI problem. They are under : "Lose ability to dial out". I also E-Mailed two of the members in that thread directly asking if they were still having the same issue. I have not yet received a reply back from either of them.

This thread sounds like a different ESI than I have been a dealer for, for 5 plus years now.

No offence, but maybe it's time to review proper installation and handling practices with your technicians. These failure rates are exceptionally high. Whenever I've had a tech that has had a higher failure rate on equipment it was usually due to poor equipment handling practices.

SST - I wish this was the case. It would be an easy problem to fix.
We have checked up on most of the installs performed by several of our certified techs. All systems are properly grounded, UPS is installed properly and system locations are environmentally acceptable.

I am glad that you are having better luck than we are with this equipment. Don't get me wrong, we love the system and it's features. This is why we keep selling it hoping for the issues to subside.

I have had discussions with many different resellers over the years and it is either one extreme or the other. I have not seen much in between.

How about the shipping process? Is your FedEx driver rough on packages? Is the package received and unpackaged carefully? Are the cabinets assembled carefully, with adherence to pactices to avoid static discharge?

Justin

I've seen drive issues, especially issues with CF drives, when power was unstable. Jeff, you mentioned that you've checked out the installations, grounding, UPS install, etc. Do you always use the same UPS? If so, what do you use? Just curious.

There has to be some common thread here. My experience, and others' experiences, say that this is an uncommonly high failure rate. Many of us have been around ESI products for many years, and have not seen the same rate of trouble that you're reporting.

Justin

We do everything we can to make sure that the equipment does not get damaged in the handling process including static discharge before handling.

Justin

We use several different brands of UPS. Tripplite, Belkin, Powervar, SurgeMax. I haven't seen a trend with any of these.

Maybe we aren't having anymore occurances than anyone else. Maybe it just seems that way coupled with other issues.

I didn't mean to go on like I did in some of my posts. The frustration level is very high right now and I don't want to hurt any of the other resellers business. Please let me know what it will take to remove some of these posts. I will try to get my problems resolved using a different method and different tone going forward.

I apologize to anyone that I have offended.

I apologize to anyone that I have offended.

We all have been there, no matter what system. :thumb: