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

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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.