My nightmare experience with @DellCare / Dell Complete Care Warranty / EMEA Dell support FULL DETAILS INCLUDED

*****Disclaimer*****​

During the course of this thread, many people have volunteered their support for me, which I greatly appreciate. Many NBR members have asked my permission to effectively 'lobby' Dell, via email or other avenues to express their support for my case. Whilst I have given my permission for anyone to do so, please note that ANY emails or equivalent received by Dell concerning my case are purely from a supportive perspective only - they do not represent any course of action, or instruction, that I have condoned, or requested. I reserve the sole right to deal with my case personally, and any correspondence received is NOT to be taken as a third party acting on my behalf. To repeat, ANY contact that Dell receive in relation to this thread/case, from third parties, is intended as "support only" and no action is to be taken without my express permission. Thanks go to EVERYONE who has shown support for me, I really appreciate it.​

Guys, I'm normally not one to whine or complain, but I feel I have to let it out somewhere, and where better than here, amongst fellow Dell/Alienware owners. I won't be listing personal details, such as names or email addresses, but I WILL be going into great detail about my case here, so I am hoping that the forum moderators will allow me some scope to discuss this here.

Basically, I am going to try and convey just how PATHETIC and INEPT Dell customer service is for those outside of the United States. I am from Chester, England. Customer support for most things bought from a non-UK manufacturer is pretty good. The exception to this rule, apparently, is Dell.

I've added a poll for members to vote wether or not they feel that this level of support is appropriate, acceptable or not. I have elected to keep voter's identities private, just in case you didn't want to be seen as voting one way or the other - that way, it should be completely legitimate. Feel free to cast a vote or post a comment on the thread, or do both.

Okay. On to the details - I'll call this section "Part 1"

I initially reached out to one of our AW reps here, for help. Help was forthcoming, but little did I know that this help would only be offered to me if I was a US resident. As it panned out, my being an EMEA customer (Europe, Middle East & Asia) meant that I was excluded from the otherwise excellent support offered by the AW guys on NBR.

Okay, I'm back to edit!

So, you may be curious as to what I'm not happy with. Well, it's quite a long story so read on if you are interested. My M18xR1 shipped to me with two Samsung PM830 256gb SSD's in a Raid 0 configuration. Initially, they worked extremely well out of the box, performance with various benchmark tools showed performance to be excellent. Now, as I don't bench the drives frequently, nor do I write huge volumes of data to the drives on a regular basis, I had not really bothered with testing them regularly, until I kind of "felt" that the machine had slowed down in certain areas. It just felt "slower" overall than what it did when new. I first noticed this around March of this year, so I ran various tools to test the drives performance.

To my horror, the bench figures that I was getting were around HALF of the original results. Obviously, perturbed by this, I went about troubleshooting this myself. I tried re-installing the OS with no change, I cleaned and reformatted and re-installed the drives using DISKPART at elevated CMD prompt - still no joy. I then took the drives out of the Raid membership, reset bios setting to AHCI in an effort to restore performance, followed by setting up the raid array again - still no joy. Drives performing at around half of the speed when new. I tried various stripe sizes, too - I ensured that the drives were correctly aligned also but whatever I did, I could not regain the performance that I so much enjoyed "out of the box".

I've used several tools to test the drives, including CrystalDiskMark, AS SSD, ATTO, HDTune & ASU. All tests confirmed a dramatic slowdown in performance, meaning that it wasn't the tests, it was the drives themselves that had some sort of problem.

Back in mid-April of this year, I reached out to one of our brilliant AW reps here on NBR for assistance. My problem was acknowledged quickly and accordingly. I was afforded the option of replacement drives via PM - no questions asked, no interrogation, no hassle - just what I was hoping for, really. I felt that this problem was going to get sorted with the speed and efficiency that we see so many others enjoying on this great forum.

However,during that correspondence, I had to provide my UK service tag, which as soon as that came to light that I was an EMEA client, I was told that I could not be offered assistance and that I would have to take the problem up with Dell in my own location. Of course, with that said, there was nothing further that could be done but for me to reach out to Dell from the UK. And this is where it all starts to go pear shaped.

Read on if you will, if you've had enough - fair enough. So have I at this point.

 

PART 2 - Dealing with Dell EMEA - (a.k.a "The start of the end of my future dealings with Dell ever again")

Okay, so with part 1 out of the way, I move on to trying to get this problem sorted "on my own back" by contacting the relevant people from the UK. This in itself, is no mean feat, as many EMEA customers may well be aware of. I've had MANY problems in the past, where Dell EMEA support is left wanting. Many of you will have experienced the same "lack lustre" level of service from outside the US.

So, I pick up the phone, get through to an agent. I explain my problem to him in depth and I also tell him in detail about all the troubleshooting that I had performed up until that point in time. The inept service and knowledge became apparent pretty damn quickly. I had a remote session with the rep. and showed him the performance figures comparing present performance to past performance, so the figures are pretty much self evident.

The tech then tells me to update my SSD firmware. I tell him that there is no firmware released by Dell for my SSD's and if there were, I would have updated it already. He maintains that I try to update my firmware - he insists that I can use Samsung Magician Software to upgrade my OEM drives to the latest retail firmware. I tell him that this is impossible, as Magician does not recognize Dell OEM drives and it's functionality is limited to just reading a few details and performing an SSD benchmark. Yet he iinsists, so I entertain his procedure. Sure as eggs are eggs, Magician only allows a bench, which we did, which showed the extremely poor performance.

He could see that, he could see my previous results but then turned around and said that this was NORMAL! - I asked politely to speak to a supervisor, but was flatly refused that opportunity. I think from recollection, I called back in and asked for a supervisor again, and was yet again met with a wall of stone. I expressed my level of dissatisfaction, politely but again was told that "the level of performance is what is expected when running these drives in a Raid0 configuration". The rep said that there was nothing further he was prepared to do and if I wanted to complain, I should do so via an email address that he then gave me.

This is now May 17th. After writing a very long email to Alienware Management, I get an email back REPEATING that this performance is acceptable and is normal: (quoted)

It went on to advise me to do the same steps as I had already done - break the raid, optimize the single drives under AHCI, rebuild. So, I picked up the phone (yet again) and asked to speak to the gentleman who wrote me that email. Surprisingly, I was not allowed to do so - instead, the "monkey" I got again said that this was normal and expected and no problem existed, from Dell's point of view. Of course, I am not happy at this so I ask for a superior again - guess what? - NO CHANCE. I was told that if I wanted to pursue this further, I would have to physically write a letter to Dell UK.

That was the extent of Dell EMEA customer support. Quite frankly, appalling.

So with that avenue having turned into a "dead end", I decided to Tweet @DellCares.

On to part 3......

 

PART 3 - Dealing with @DellCares / @AlienwareTech / Technician Visits

Having exhausted the above avenue, I moved my case along to @DellCares - hoping that someone actually DOES care. My "Twitter" escapade starts in earnest on May 17th, is still ongoing and left unresolved to my satisfaction.

My initial Tweet gets acknowledged, and passed over to the team @AlienwareTech. I think, great - these guys will help out. Intially, how wrong could I have been. Almost immediately, I get an email response stating the following:

Okay, so now we are on to passing the buck. It's not our fault, it's not the fault of our the hardware we provided you with, it's Intel's fault. Where does that leave me, you might wonder? - probably up the creek without a paddle, as I have no recourse with Intel. The thing that I find quite astonishing from the above is this. Okay, if it IS down to Intel not supporting TRIM on older chipsets (which we do know to be the case, now) then WHY were Dell ACTIVELY selling this type of configuration in the full knowledge that SSD's in this configuration would degrade over time - degradation that cannot be recovered, at least by the methods outline to me by Dell/Alienware. Having tried their proposals to resolution, noting had worked, which has left me with VERY expensive Dell Solid State Drives that are by no means functioning at optimal speeds.

My very brief "Tweeting session" with @AlienwareTech ended pretty much with the above response, so...what do I do now??? - I'd been fobbed off by Dell EMEA, passed to @AlienwareTech by @DellCares.....well, might as well Tweet back to @DellCares, eh? - so I did.

To cut to the chase here, finally, I thought I was getting somewhere......after countless Tweets, someone had spoken to someone else (I know the names, but will not post here - suffice to say a quick thank you for your intervention, you know who you are) and I was offered what I thought was an amicable solution. I was offered the option to replace my x2 PM830's with a single 512gb SSD. Whilsy my machines performance would no longer be as fast as it was with my raided setup, I decided that this option was the lesser of two evils - it was either keep the failing drives or go for the 512gb and lose performance but have the drive maintain itself via TRIM support under AHCI - as that IS supported.

Of course, as I previously had Samsung drives that were great at the outset, I asked for the 512gb to be a Samsung variant. This was agreed and it was also agreed that the drive would come with the latest firmware revision, as Dell do not provide any path to upgrade SSD firmware at all - it was quite important to me to have the latest FW to avoid as many performance problems that older FW might bring about. So, at this point - I'm thinking "well, at least I am gonna have a drive that performs well enough, sure - it's not raid performance but as Dell chose to NOT tell me about the TRIM factor when buying the machine, it's the best option I am gonna get".

So I agree. I would have done a "parts only" service call, but was advised that if anything happens to my machine, or the drive itself - "you break it, you buy it" - so I chose to be fully covered and have a tech visit. The tech arrives at my house, I ask him to take a seat and watch me "do my thing" and he agrees (nice chap, btw). He hands em the drive and it's the wrong one. Dell, in their wisdom, chose to send out a LiteOn 512gb instead of the agreed PM830. He calls someone, has a bit of a talk, says he'll be back the next day with the right part. I get a call the next day, tech says he has been given the wrong part yet again.

During all of this, I am constantly Tweeting @DellCares to keep them informed. They then get back to me and say that it's a stocking issue and that there is no ETA on the correct AGREED part becoming available. I call EMEA Dell back, spoke to a really nice Irish guy who said he would take care of my problem personally and that he would ensure that I get the correct part. I let @DellCares know of this contact, and I asked them to liaise with this individual to stop bugging them with constant tweets that are taking 24hours between responses. For whatever reason, they ignore this request.

On top of this, the Irish guy from EMEA tells me that there is nothing in the logs about my problem. Nothing. Zero. He goes on to inform me to tell @DellCares to update the logs for historical accuracy - he mentions (quite correctly) that if it's not logged, then it goes unacknowledged and can have adverse effects in the future. He quotes the "three strikes" approach to attempted tech fixes and that after three attempts, they have the option of a system replacement. He tells me to get this sorted ASAP because it isn't even logged, so would not count towards the "three strikes" policy. Yet another rather HUGE error from Dell, in my eyes. Deny that something has ever happened and you won't have to deal with it in the future. Way to go, team Dell.

I am then greeted with a Tweet a day or so ago stating that the Samsung part that was agreed will not be provided. The only option would be that of the LiteOn. Now, some of you may be saying "well, just take it....." but as we are all enthusiasts here, and we all own performance systems, we all like to have the best performance possible. If someone offered you a lesser performing GPU for your machine, you would not be happy. I fail to see why the same logic should not be applied to any other component within the machine, including Solid State Drives. There is quite a marked difference in performance of the Samsung vs. the LiteON (no to mention reliability, with LiteOn being a budget brand) which can be seen by checking out the tech spec's on the respective websites below:

Samsung 512gb - 512GB 2.5-inch SSD SATA III (Desktop) with Norton Ghost
LiteOn 512gb - 2.5" SATA SSD

IMHO, quite a performance difference, which I am not at all happy with. I have tried explaining this until I am blue in the face to @DellCares, the response I am now getting from them (after a lot of supposed discussion with escalations) is that as long as the SSD actually works, Dell aren't concerned about it's level of performance - basically they have told me that as long as it plugs in, turns on, the performance figures are irrelevant to them and they deem this to be a suitable resolution.

This brings me pretty much bang up to date. The cards are on the table from @DellCares - as far as they are concerned, they have left me with only two options from them. They are to take the underperfoming LiteOn 512gb drive OR have my existing setup back....which will of course only degrade again due to the hardware Dell sold me in the first place not being optimized to actually support raided drives. Dell were quick enough to take around £800gbp off me for the SSD's in the first instance, but they are not prepared to address properly any problems that arise from running the machine in the fashion that THEY sold to me - Raid 0 SSD's.

This whole debacle has eaten up my time, stressed me out unbelievably, and left me feeling extremely undervalued as a customer. I also took out 4 years complete care with my M18x R1, when I did so, I assumed that this would be money well spent and that Dell would have "my back" should I ever need to call on support. This whole process has taken around two complete months, so it's not been short....and at the end of the day, I am left feeling like I will never buy anything Dell orientated EVER again. In fact, I would probably go so far as to say that I would not even recommend Dell or it's warranty services to anyone considering either.

Some of you may sympathise, some of you may not. I didn't write all of this to gain any sympathy, I merely wanted to point out the completely horrendous experience that i have had to endure over the last few months. Hopefully, if anyone reads this, they will take whatever they want from my experience and make their decisions accordingly.

As owners of these high performance machines, we ALL want them to perform at their optimal levels. We ALL like our high performance components, and NONE of us would like the thought that this performance would be reduced under a warranty claim. Wether it be SSD's, WiFi cards, CPU's or GPU's - the same thing goes. I would not be happy if one of my GPU's died and Dell offered a lesser performing replacement, simply because "it will work in your machine". I could argue that a traditional HDD would technically "work" too, but it's performance will be far less. Same goes for any other component that can have it's performance measured. That encompasses pretty much every component in these high end systems.

The Dell "attitude" of "well, this will work, it's all we have....suck it up" is TOTALY unacceptable to me - and probably would be equally unacceptable to many of you reading this.

On top of all of this, it remains that I haven't even been using my Alien for the last few weeks at all. It's sat on my desk, kind of "ship-wrecked" right now - I had wiped the SSD's in advance of my tech visit and it remains like that to this day. I do not have the heart to even want to try and get it back up and running, as it stands right now. I'll probably end up just getting whatever I can, get it back up and running and sell it. That's how much this whole escapade has affected me. I no longer get any enjoyment from even looking at my machine, let alone trying to use it.

If any of you have managed (or were even bothered) to read all of this, my hat goes off to you. If you would like to vote on my poll about the treatment/service, please feel free to do so.

Consequently, I'm just left here to suck it up, take whatever Dell decides they are prepared to toss my way and be forced to live with it. In my book, that's not how you do business...that's not what I paid for in terms of warranty services and components.

I expected better - Dell, you've let me down big time.

 

Hi Steve,

Sorry to hear (read) about your troubles.

Unfortunately, this is the case for most everyone outside of the United States. It somewhat has to do with regulations and such that we enforce here, as opposed to other countries which don't. One might also say it's sort of a double standard type deal - one that I don't like to see, but exists.

I feel for you, brotha. I hope this issue is addressed in the future.

 

I do not know how to really vote on your thread because I can say that all that you referred too, it is true. Meaning, while in US they do have excellent customer service; for Canadians is the same situation with the reps over this forum, they are unable to help us as well (though sometimes I get over the phone some nasty rep. from the support team, in particular ladies - no offence but this is what happened to me). I guess this is what we can get from Alienware / Dell team and it may be way too far for them to extend all over the world. I am sure if those guys would have had the priority and possibility to help us, they would have not hesitate one second... Truly (I am not taking anybody's side), they have a wonderful team focusing on notebookreview.com.

 

steviejones133,

Being in the USA, I cannot see what has happened via the UK service tag history. Please provide details on what hardware was shipped, what has failed, and what you want.

 

Hi Chris. If you want to re-read the posts from the top, as I have now completed my story, you might get an idea of things. I am, nor have I ever thought I was, in the position to demand things. It's not about what I "WANT" - I didn't write this thread with a view of "Gimme Gimme" - for me it's about what Dell are prepared to OFFER me to redress things. I'm a fairly amicable guy, and am quite happy to deal amicably. The treatment/resolutions that have been proposed thus far, I do not deem to be amicable. They seem to be "final offerings" so I am unsure if there is anything you can do anyway. Maybe this is just time that my computing relationship with Dell comes to an end.

 

PassMark - LITEONIT 512GB LCT-512M3S - Price performance comparison

"My M18xR1 shipped to me with two Samsung PM830 256gb SSD's"

That line is confusing. The M18x-R1 only sold with the following SSD:
79RJH Samsung PM810 256GB SSD-S2
4K2C3 Samsung PM810 256GB SSD-S2
PVGPX Liteon 256GB SSD-S3
GYG3M Samsung PM830 512GB SSD-S3
I see no reference to Samsung PM830 256GB SSD on the M18x-R1?

Now the M18x-R2 sold with both:
T5YVC Samsung PM830 256GB SSD-S3
GYG3M Samsung PM830 512GB SSD-S3

 

Well, do you want me to show you an uploaded Intel RST shot? - I think I have one somewhere on this little Ultrabook I'm using right now - obviously the M18x R1 is currently "missing in action"...I can verbally confirm though that upon physically dismantling the machine the other day, the drives are indeed PM830 drives. They show up in RST as such and also show as PM830 at post, too....and in the Raid configuration options during boot.

I have not changed these drives fro factory configuration since I got the machine, which is most certainly an R1, due to my 2960xm and 580m's.

Oh, and Passmark is not really a good indication of anything. I'd go by "real world" figures or at least figures provided direct from the manufacturer. The links I posted earlier clearly show that the Samsung Drive is quite superior over the LiteOn variant. Just look at the manufacturers suggested random read/write tests (IOPS) - there is no way that passmark can say that the LiteOn is a better drive. LOL. Sequential speeds are kind of like a "drag race" - high figures aren't always an indication of how the thing works in real world scenarios - that's why manufacturers just love to show high sequential figures over random compressible and incompressible data tests.

 

i think your poll is confusing people..

 

I think so, too. I t was late last night and I was annoyed as hell. I've already PM Brother Fox to see if he can amend the options. Bear with me.

 

It's sad to see that you've had so many problems. I've definitely seen problems like that, such as Dell sending a tech three times with a broken mobo. The last time, the mobo was still broken, but not visibly at the time, as the only issue was that the iGPU was disabled. Someone played around with the unlocked BIOS, then flashed it back to the stock bios. I had to flash the unlocked, reset to the defaults, then flash back.

All I can really say is, I sympathize with you and the issues that arose. It's a little silly that they even sold them when TRIM wasn't enabled, but there is a sort of shared responsibility on that in my opinion, especially with someone so technically capable. This would've been the first time I'd check.

Also, the 830 might not be available because they're not sold anymore. Have you asked about getting an 840/840 Pro?

Check this article out regarding Raid0 SSD performance. I know I'm buying a 512gb instead of 2x256gb next time.

One SSD Vs. Two In RAID: Which Is Better? - Are Two SSDs Any Better Than One?

 

Thanks guys. I do take onboard the "shared responsibility" thing. Up until not long ago, I was pretty clueless regarding these kind of things. I only really started rekindling my passion for computers when I joined this forum, and became an Alienware owner. Sure, things move on pretty fast....if you'd have asked me 3 years ago what TRIM was, my likely response would have been "huh?" - so, from that perspective, I do think that some of the burden of disclosure should be on the seller.

Having said that, once bitten, twice shy. I would not purposely set up any Raid on a machine without proper TRIM support - unless I was on a suicide mission to turn my drives into paperweights.


**** poll edited **** (hopefully, it makes more sense now - thanks Katalin)

 

I understand your frustration. Problem is the tech support for anything other than AW US. Even in Australia, dell tech support is horrible, I went through same thing with dell/aw tech support when my wifi card wasn't working, I had no idea it was my wep setting on 6yr old router, but they will not believe me that wifi card wasn't working, finally I requested tech support to Remote Desktop and then suddenly when the tech disabled USB wifi stick, they would disconnect, he even tried to blame his software rather than admitting the card is faulty.

I have learn`t my lesson, something goes wrong with laptop, just turn a blind eye and keep saying the part is faulty and is not performing as intended, let the monkeys fiddle with it 3-4 times and get you a new laptop. Yes I would prefer older laptop to be repaired as is the quickest but sometimes it's not worth the frustration.

In your position, I will get them to replace both ssd's with 256gb ones and then keep calling and keep saying ssd's are giving errors in windows, that they are about to fail, dell can only replace ssd's so many times and will get you a new laptop.

Yes, some might think of this as being dodgy, but stevie paid for a laptop with DELL price for ssd's to run them in raid, if he cannot do this with proper performance, then it's only fair, that he gets updated laptop that actually does what it's suppose to do, which is to perform at raid with 2 ssd's while keeping performance. It's only fair that he gets what he paid for and if dell doesn't wanna come to party then they need to send a new laptop.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. I kind of agree with you, regarding the above. Of course, I am in no position to demand or request such an exchange. What would be my IDEAL solution to this problem? - well, you've hit the nail on the head. A machine that will run the raided drives that I paid for, without the performance hit of doing so without TRIM support. I mentioned/proposed for the single larger SSD because at the very worst case scenario, it WILL maintain itself - unlike my raided drives. The consequence to me on accepting ANY single drive is that I lose out on the raided performance that I paid for. That was ME trying to make a compromise off my own back, to show that I WAS willing to work with Dell amicably. However, not good enough that I lose the performance of a raid setup, I am also now being asked/told/given a poorer performing single drive, which only infuriates me more. Not bad enough that I've lost the raid performance I paid for, I now get the pleasure of having a much slower single SSD too, just for fun, or for Dell's sick attempt at some kind of weird logic.

If Dell had put up a disclaimer next to the option for raided SSD's on the website configuration page to something like "Warning! - running two SSD's in this configuration can lead to potential performance degradation over time, that may or may not be recoverable" then I would NOT have bought that particular set up. Period. The websites have been quick enough to point out PSU incompatibilities with certain configurations...heck, not too long back, they even warned you that configuring an M18x with 680m and a Dell SSD resulted in a compatibility error - anyone recall that little nugget??

I'd love to have the capability to carry on my raid set-up, but this is going to be a futile exercise which will only end in a re-occurance of this exact same problem with my current machine. Would Dell swap my machine on this basis? - nope. Would I like them to? - yes. Is that a realistic option for me? - probably not - Why? - because it would be far cheaper for Dell to simply give me a single drive than to change my whole machine to an M18x that does support TRIM for raided SSD's. Would I be happy with the single drive. Kind of. It's not exactly what I would have liked, but who am I to make demands......I'm just a customer, and a very small one at the end of the day. Dell will do what they will with me, move on and forget about it. I, on the other hand, will be left to deal with whatever they decide - whatever that may be.

Someone (a good friend, whom I've known for years) recently said to me "Hey Steve, you've got complete care, right? - well, you know what to do, dontcha? " - sure, I do know this. I know that the accidental damage section could possibly provide me with a new laptop, heck, maybe even an M18x R3 - worse case scenario, I'd get an R2, right?....well, the reason I will not take this approach is twofold. One - I thought (mistakenly) that my warranty would cover this crap. Two - I'm an honest guy, and I couldn't live with myself if I tried to fraudulently obtain something that I am not entitled to.

Whilst I know that this person's (who shall remain anonymous, just like everyone else that I have spoken to or dealt with will remain anonymous) suggestion was mentioned to me with my best interests at heart, and born out of thoughts on how I can overcome this problem, I can't agree with that approach - no matter how unhappy I am. To the person who intimated that to me (if you are reading this, you know who you are) I thank you for thinking of ways out of this mess for me, truly. You are a good friend, and I appreciate your kind thoughts.

So, things are in the lap of the gods - I'll roll with the punches, I'll take the blows - whatever they might be. At least at the end of the day, I can hold my head up high and walk away from this crap. Dell probably will not miss my small bit of business one iota, but principals go a LONG way in my book. If I can live with myself, I'm happy.....

I wonder how Michael Dell sleeps at night........(and please, don't say "a lot better than you, in his million dollar yacht or whatever luxurious setting he might be in off the back of robbing decent people like me out of what they paid hard earned money for!)

EDIT: Wow, I just looked at the poll and there are two votes for "This level of service from Dell is totally acceptable and I don't have ANY issue with it." - some interesting voting going on, for sure....don't quite understand why those two voters thought this was perfectly normal service, but each to their own - that's why I put the poll up, so I can't complain or mock the results....they are what they are....keep voting!

 

I agree this is unacceptable; in the past I had also been given a major runaround by Dell so I can understand your frustration.
With regards to your situation, I am sure there is something you can pull out of the Sales of Goods act 1979 in your favour to get Dell to listen instead of just fobbing you off. If you are in the right, and you know exactly what you are saying, you will be bound to get their attention I can tell you from previous experience.

 

Thanks for the support, prank1 - much appreciated. Myself and the Sale of Goods Act 1979 are good friends through past experiences. I'm going to be talking to my "old friend" soon enough...

 

Whatever it takes to make them do what they suppose to do!

 

Thank you for your support, I totally appreciate it. We'll see what gives, I'm not holding out any hope whatsoever for things to change, or for Dell to adopt a new stance on this - I'm just a little fish in a big pond, at the end of the day.....and Michael Dell is holding the fishnet that I'm stuck in.

 

Im sorry to hear this man, hence best option I guess is to buy cheap combo and buy upgrade parts individually, at least they have proper long warranty service included for free + are cheaper than from DELL, like RAM/SSD's/Optical Drives etc etc... I hope Alienware is reading all this and is going to grab whole situation and take a good care of it. For all mess-about you've ran trough Id at least expect you be reimbursed with equivalent spec M18X R2 or even R3. This is totally unacceptable the way EMEA DELL/ALIENWARE handles things...

I wish yo all the patience you can get, and dont loose all the hope, It may be just some time before they take real action and get you sorted and reimbursed.

Im gonna share this thread in my SIG from now on, and I would encourage everyone to do so, so at least word gets spread widely and saves valuable time and money of those not wanting to go trough such hell-of-an-experience

BR

 

Again, thanks for the support and kind words, Brother GSM. It's really, really good to get some feedback from my friends here - you all mean a great deal to me and I thank you all for your comments. It remains to be seen what does or doesn't get offered as resolution from Dell - as I've mentioned before, I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that "things are what they are right now" and that ain't gonna change. I'll probably end up with the LiteOn SSD, then sell the machine whilst I have a couple of years warranty on it. Hell, even if I get the Samsung, I'm still likely to get shut of my machine, and that won't be to upgrade to the next level of Alienware for sure. If anyone wants a pair of Dell 680m's complete with heat sinks and new Sli Cable, shoot me a PM LOL (mod's, that wasnt "really" a sales pitch, was it? hahahaha!)

Anyway, my little Z830 is doing me proud just now. Great little machine that has been a godsend. The £5k Alien is as much use as a chocolate fire guard right now.....I've typed on my "baby PC" all day long on battery and just like me right now, its starting to fade as my evening draws to a close.

To everyone who has either voted or commented thus far, thank you all for your support and kind words so far - I'll be back in the morning, having charged up my UltraBook

 

I understand your frustration and all the time you spent over the phone / gone through the troubleshooting and unfortunately the disturbance is eating you up…

But believe me and you will mark my words. Nobody will leave you behind; THEY will take care of you. Alienware / Dell team have been and they are one of the best in the world (Yes, I take their side here), for the support they provide always.

If I look back at ASUS, HP, Lenovo lately (which they are even lying about their products to have the sale as much as they can; ofcourse those are working on commission and they have no clue what they are selling) and many others, Alienware / Dell team are by far one of the best and they are following Apple’s path in this regard.

 

Sorry to hear about your issues brother stevie. Hope you can get it all sorted out!!

 

Sorry to hear that. Didn't receive the best support myself from both Dell Singapore and Dell Australia myself a few years back. The first time, the motherboard on my desktop broke but the replacement were not up to scratch and the part broke soon after within a couple of months. By then I was out of warranty. The second time it took more then a month for them to replace a faulty part on my xps laptop. Although my experience wasn't as bad as yours, I still expected more from Dell as many of us have to fork out more buying from outside of the States so I really expect service to match up to the positive feedback you get from customers in the US. Asus customer service which seems to get much grieve here has incidentally provided me with the best service when it fixed a laptop of mine that was out of warranty for free. Still, if the upcoming M17 refresh meets what I'm looking for, I'll probably give Dell another shot since none of the other makers seem keen to make a desktop replacement primarily from aluminium that also carries a 780m.

 

Thanks juliant & bigtonyman - I hope I can get it sorted too!

I think one of my MAJOR gripes has to do with the absolutely HUGE differences in "standards of service" that I've seen. I've gone from one extreme to the other. On one hand, I reached out to AW here on NBR and was pretty much instantly taken care of - No questions asked, nothing would have been too much trouble and I "would" have been sorted, done and dusted, job done a LONG time ago. That's if I was a US customer.

Unfortunately for me, and a lot of other guys, I'm outside of that "catchment area". Still, the huge disparity on how the same problem has been dealt with is quite disconcerting. It has taken me many weeks, coupled with lots of phone calls and emails, Tweets etc etc to even get close to the same resolution that would have been afforded me had I been within that US "catchment area".

Will Dell take care of me? - who knows. I'm not putting any money on anything right now. What I DO know is this: It should NOT take such high levels of customer effort and exhaustion to achieve the same end result. I know this is not an uncommon experience for many EMEA customers, but I've been passed from pillar to post, transferred, hung up on, mis-informed, ignored, lied to, had my time wasted....the list goes on. I also appreciate while this kind of experience is not just limited to EMEA, it IS a lot more commonplace to find this kind of experience - you've only just got to read the forum boards to see how many threads (like mine) crop up from those customers outside of the States.

Whilst I have had many encounters with Dell UK support, I have never had a "plain sailing" experience...wait, I tell a lie. I had one incident where I called up for a replacement power lead for my PSU - they guy I got through to sent me one out free of charge and all it took was to just ask. For everything else, it's been a case of many, many weeks of phone calls, emails, tweets etc. before anything was resolved. In fact, most of the resolutions that I have experienced have, at some point, involved the external intervention of Dell US staff associated with this forum. They have had to liaise with Dell EMEA to get things resolved.

I was speaking to one of those "Dell guys" the other day, and he was telling me that US Dell support are completely fed up of dealing with Dell EMEA (probably because of Tweet's to Dell from Non-US customers worldwide that get dealt with by US Dell Twitter staff, who then have to try and deal with Dell EMEA. The problem, I think, is that Dell EMEA is it's own entity - completely separate to Dell US, and as such, they make up their own policies etc. Those policies are probably nothing like Dell US and that's where half the problem lies. If EMEA actually "sang from the same Dell US hymn sheet", the levels/disparity in customer support would more than likely be more on a level playing field.

I probably sound like I am complaining - I know, it sounds quite childish to sound like "urgh - it's NOT fair!!! - I want the same service as you guys get *stamps feet*" but, I do want the same kind of service. I think it should be paramount that the service standards/procedures are kept as uniform as possible accross the board. At the end of the day, I probably ended up paying a LOT more for my machine than many US customers, given the UK pricing and conversion rates. Yes, I do know that this is a somewhat moot point, but it exists regardless. My £5k (equating to around $8,000usd) still ends up in Michael Dell's wallet, at the end of the day and I'm sure as hell that the difference in UK vs. US is not totally swallowed up in taxes/import fees etc.....

 

I do not agree with you stevie, never let other control your choice mate. You paid for a certain product which was advertised, dell advertised RAID0 SSD's and charged premium for it, you did not assume the performance, it was advertised, now the product doesn't work as advised, you need to step up and do whatever it takes to either get a replacement product or get FULL REFUND, nothing less. Its not dell's choice, its your right as a consumer.

If dell doesn't wanna come to party, either rely on the expensive accidental warranty or get law involved.

 

Hey Brother Stevie, your story is a disappointing one so far.

I too have also felt the frustration of the outside US Dell Merrie-go-round. I don't like the fact customers (such as in your instance) need to jump through 'twitter' hoops to be heard or taking seriously. That itself belittling,unacceptable, and unprofessional.

I see your predicament in a very open/close manner. Your machine was sold to you in a Raid 0 configuration with such, the performance as a feature. If the performance has significantly degraded by x% (can't remember the exact figure) then this feature obviously isn't working as it should - Regardless of the cause .

The problem is quite clear here. If your GPU was rapidly decreasing in performance each day, all the same, that would be a big problem. The is no difference.

It seems that SSD raid 0 (regarding Trim) wasn't thoroughly thought through by Dell, and it would be an expensive mistake to rectify for everyone, but you shouldn't be wearing this error. Dell is unfortunately at fault for their poor configuration, as it's beyond 'wear and tear'.

I hope the situation gets rectified with a bit more enthusiasm on Dells behalf.
I won't go into what I think is an acceptable outcome.
I'd like to add its also very frustrating when a international company that benefits from global sales, decides they can only operate domestically with customers.

*Stevie, I'll keep following this thread. Thanks for letting us know your situation in detail. I hope things can be put to rest very soon.

*To the US Dell crew here. I hope you don't take what I've written personally. We know you do the best you can, I assure you it doesn't go unnoticed.

 

Thanks, bud. You've got the same logic as me when it comes to the above. Of course, I'm still in limbo. I should say that there are several people from Dell who are actually now working on a resolution. What that resolution is, or wether or not there is actually anything "new" brought to the table which is different to the current proposed "resolution" from my Twitter escapades, is yet to be seen. I'm keeping optimisitc, but in the same breath, I don't hold out much hope - but time will tell.

Regarding the "accidental damage" cover, d'ya reckon the video below would constitute "accidental damage"? (notice that the people who made the clip mention at the start about tech support being terrible - and that's from US/Ca by the sounds of the accents!). Kind of a weird trend emerging, dont'cha think?. Worrying to think that if that is an example of the "end result" of Dell Support from within the US/Ca, imagine what us EMEA customers end up doing!



Personally, I'd never do that to a machine, no matter how frustrated I got with things - but it sure is fun to watch, especially to help vent my frustrations without knocking seven bells out of my own beast

Side note: I reckon those guys must have HAD to send that one into the deopt for repair, no "on-site" support for them!

Thanks, Bro.

I'd just like to add here, as you brought it up, that I too think that ALL of the Dell/Alienware staff that frequent these forums do an absolutely STELLAR job in doing so. If I could give each of them a feather for their proverbial caps, I'd be doing so, as they do offer excellent support and advice for us guys in general - just a shame that their remit does not extend further than it currently does - had it done, I'm presuming that I wouldn't have had to deal with any of this crap - one of our "Alienware Tech Support Brothers" would have just got the job done. This I know, because it's exactly what would have happened had I had a US Service Tag.

Yes, the machine was bought/sold under that exact impression - raided SSD's for ULTIMATE performance. Nowhere did its say "ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE - but read the tiny little small print that really translates to ultimate performance for a bit, then poop performance thereafter" - as for the actual slowdown itself, my AS SSD figures went from just under 1600 down to around 700. That's quite a big performance hit, right?

What would be my ideal resolution? - I'd like to be able to run raided SSD's for ultimate performance without an issue, as that's pretty much what I thought I was paying for. I'd be happy doing that in my R1, had the support been there.

You're also spot on with the whole "International Company" theory. Sure, it might be "easier" for Dell to provide domestic/local support more readily, but there really should not be such a disparity from Country to Country. Dell will quickly take your pound, rupee, yen, euro or whatever, but only electing to offer "decent" support to it's own Country of origin is far from acceptable behaviour. At least that's how I feel.

 

Did my reply get bumped? Boo.

I was saying something along the lines of how best to... 'amplify' the issue.

 

Don't fret, Bro - I caught it beforehand. Thanks for the idea anyways!

Oh, I was just digging around for some of my old SSD benches taken when I first got this machine. You recall I said they were good at the outset? - well they were! (my PM830 4k figures were always a little 'sucky' in comparison to it's Retail brother equivalent - that's down to Dell's 'sucky' firmware, I imagine - given that technically, it's probably the only difference between OEM and Retail. (I shouldn't get my self started on FW - there's plenty that's been said on that here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware/638053-updating-samsung-pm830-firmware.html, where I've already been quite 'vocal', and all over the WWW)



So I got to comparing my raid setup performance (which I obviously bought for that exact reason - SPEED!) with the two drives I had been offered - well, kinda offered and than retracted and left with once "choice" only. It got me to thinking that even with EITHER drive, the performance is gonna be kind of drastically reduced. I posted up some links on the first page to the Retail 512gb 830 and the Retail LiteOn 512gb. Looking at EITHER of the singles vs. raid, it's like night and day.

LiteOn 512:

Seq. Read - 500mb/s
Seq. Write - 430mb/s
4k Random Read IOPS - 56,000
4k Random Write IOPS - 27,000

Samsung 830:

Seq. Read - 520mb/s
Seq. Write - 400mb/s
4k Random Read IOPS - 80,000
4k Random Write IOPS - 36,000

Okay, the only area that the LiteOn has a slight edge on the 830 is in 4k writes, which is obviously a straight "1/4 mile drag race" kind of test (sequentials, likely compressible data) that manufacturers just love to list/advertise, but the 830 blows it away where it matters - 4k figures - everyday "bread and butter" figures that ACTUALLY count for something. However, compared to my raid, wow - I didn't realise that running a single would have such a performance hit, when compared to my nice shiny new raid array above - MASSIVE hit on performance. I have a feeling I'm gonna feel robbed either way here. it makes me almost want to start sobbing at the prospect of losing my raid performance.

Like a few of you have mentioned, why should I have to compromise on overall performance, and be forced down the route of a single SSD, simply because that's the only way the drives will not degrade.

I feel like crying :cry:

 

That hammer might not be considered accidental damage, but I know a photographer who was having constant issues with express card on m1730, whose laptop ended up under the rear wheel on a r34 in mid drift at track and was considered accidental damage.

 

Mate you shouldn't have to compromise at all. It's disgraceful the way Dell UK treated you, It's one thing to have a valid reason not to comply with a customer's request, but brushing you off the way they did is seriously getting on my nerves.

You said there are people still working on this matter and hopefully that will come to fruition. But in case it doesn't I would seriously consider legal action if I were in your shoes, the whole treatment you've been given is not only unprofessional but also disrespectful and even snob. They are trying to rob you of what's rightfully yours thinking that you're just an average consumer who will eventually concede and let it go, so don't let them get away with it.

Cheers mate

 

Hey Ryan, thanks for the support, mate - again, I'm truly appreciative and actually quite overwhelmed by the level of support from all you guys here on NBR. To be honest, half of me was expecting the opposite kind of comments like "get over it, dude" and "stop whining". No matter what happens, I know that you guys would have had my back if at all possible, and I will take solace in that in the worst case scenario.

Of course, I fully take on board the legal arguments - something that I will certainly look into in due course. For the time being, I am giving Dell the benefit of the doubt - although I feel my treatment thus far has been far from admirable, I still hope that they will do the right thing without me having to resort to even MORE stress and heartache, as that is something I could REALLY do without right now, for a lot of personal reasons which I won't go into here.

So, again - thanks mate, and thanks for everyone continuing to back me in my epic quest for justice!

Cheers to you all. Actually, +rep to you all, when NBR let's me dish out "a whole lotta luvvin'

 

Just thought i'd hop in here. Have you tried e-mailing Michael Dell? When tech support have given me issues in the past one e-mail explaining the situation to his e-mail address gets you straight through to the executive team who are really good, they swapped out my M11x battery when it failed outside of the year warranty.

 

Hi Simon. Thanks for dropping by - much appreciated, buddy. Whilst I haven't emailed Mr Dell just yet, I am aware, through previous escalations that I have had to endure, that this is the route to go to get in touch with Dell Executive Customer Resolutions Team. Whilst it's not something that I particularly like "advertising", I've probably been in touch with them more times than there are days in the week during the past 3 years. Sometimes they have come good, sometimes not. They way I like to think of that "team" is the very final option before any other course of "external action" is taken.

Like I said, I'm giving Dell the opportunity to resolve this BEFORE it gets that far. That isn't meant as a threat on my behalf, it's just meant to mean that I still have some faith left that Dell WILL do the right thing. I am giving them (Dell USA, as the 'parent' subsidiary) the chance to do so, because Dell EMEA are about as much use as a handbrake on a canoe.

If that fails, my only two recourses would be Dell ECRT or external action. However, I'm going to remain calm and polite and see what gives. Me actually writing this whole thread was probably as close as I wanted get before exploring those remaining avenues, if all of the routes I'm currently exploring fail.

 

The odd thing is that, by now, they should know that you're vocal, respected in various consumer circles (especially the NBR AW forums), and you're going to make a fuss until it's right.

Have you tried asking for 840s as mentioned earlier, by the by? 830s are basically impossible to find retail now, and that may be some of the issue on replacing them.

 

My experiences with Dell EMEA customer services have been tedious at best. It was a while ago now, maybe 3 years, but when my brother's m15x arrived, the HDD failed out of the box. Took me four days and a whole lot of phone calls for the customer service people to actually believe me that the drive was busted. Finally, 2 weeks later, a tech called round to replace the drive and that was that. A process that should have taken less than a week ended up taking 3 weeks or more. So I sympathise with you wholeheartedly! That kind of service is totally unacceptable, especially when the service is so fantastic across the pond. Your treatment was appalling and I hope you at very least get an apology from someone high up in the company (as unlikely as it probably is) and maybe some discount off your next AW product, if you choose to buy one Good luck!

 

I hadn't asked about 840's - primarily because having two drives in raid on the R1 seems to be a futile approach, as I found out the hard way. Those drives would only degrade in the same fashion as any other SSD's in an array. That's probably why I initially thought that a single drive would eradicate the maintenance factor, and a drive double the size of my two 256gb SSD's would simply have to suffice - some of the comments made here are making me change my way of looking at the whole deal....especially when I look at the post I made on the previous page comparing performance of the proposed single SSD to my raid when it was new. I paid for that kind of performance, yet I find myself being in the position of having to (or thinking of having to) compromise. Other peoples views on this compromise are starting to make me think if I shouldn't make that compromise at all...

Thanks, TeenSpeed. I'm sorry to hear of yet another EMEA call that should have been so simple to sort out, turning into yet another long-winded, lame excuse for good service experience. Yet another example of the differences between EMEA and US. Thanks for posting, again your feedback on my experience is truly appreciated.

 

With regards to how this issue was handled, I agree that Dell didn't handle it very well. As usual, it seems the left hand(s) didn't know what the right hand(s) were doing. In particular them not sending you the Samsung part as requested.

As to how this started in the first place (and I'm probably going to get flak for this) I'm sorry to say, but that's on you. Your huge mistake was "Dell not telling [me] RAID SSDs wouldn't support TRIM". C'mon, you've been a member here long enough to know that the low-level techs (and even a lot of the L2s) know absolutely nothing, and are perfectly happy to lie to get a sale. If you google "SSD RAID" you'll find plenty of articles mentioning pretty quickly that TRIM isn't supported, and the implications of this.

I'm not saying Dell didn't handle this badly (they did), I'm just making the point that as ever, it falls to the individual to do as much research as possible before buying. CSRs are not a viable resource. It sucks that this has happened. Hopefully your story helps future buyers.

 

I can't say I agree with your logic, because I don't. What you are saying is that you condone the actions of 'big business' against the unassuming individual. Forget about my case for two seconds, it doesn't matter if I was up on the latest news about TRIM or not. What you are sanctioning is for goods to be mis-sold, regardless of the end consumers knowledge.

I hate to say it, but this probably isn't the first thread that you have posted in with inflammatory posts that are aimed or seem to be aimed at trying to agitate a response. It's almost as if you like to try and stir up commotion when there is no need to do so.

If you read further back, maybe you would have caught the bit where I mentioned that I had rekindled a passion for computing after a long absence. I'd never had raided SSD's before, so I was kind of oblivious to the importance of TRIM. I've educated myself a lot since, in an effort to catch up. That doesn't mean it gives Dell "free licence" to sell without adequate warnings .

Whilst I appreciate your own individual right to express your opinion, I would kindly request that you did so elsewhere. Thank you.

 

I don't agree with Dell as all! I said so above - How they handled your case, especially shipping you the wrong part, and then not logging any information at all, was completely sub-par. Nowhere did I condone this. My point was simply that TRIM being a function of the Intel chipset is not Dell's fault, nor is it right to expect a teenager making $5 an hour to know this.

 

I'm sorry, you pretty much said it was my fault.......if I'm not mistaken.

 

Ok, let me try and rephrase this then:

Dell's at fault for everything you accused them of in your post - the wrong parts, losing information, bumping you around, etc. all of that, all on them. Except for one point, which is where all of this came from: RAID SSDs and TRIM.

Going by your first post (and it's not clear, so if I'm wrong please tell me) but you didn't know about TRIM and RAID prior to buying the laptop, right? And one of your points was that Dell didn't tell you about it. My point was that 95% of L1 techs at Dell know nothing. Usually they're put through two weeks of training, then another 2-4 of "training wheels" type calls, and that's it. They're given only the bare essentials to get through calls. The majority know nothing about the products outside of what they're told, and they don't care about them, so they'd have no reason to want to know.

The only part I'm saying is wrong with your post, is blaming Dell for not telling you. The tech you talking to won't know, and it's up to you to research this stuff. That was all. I'm sorry if it came across harshly.

 

Try this on for size, if you think Google is so great and informative:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5136/intel-to-add-trim-support-for-raid-0

Intel release TRIM for RAID | bit-tech.net

http://phys.org/news/2011-11-intel-trim-ssds-raid-arrays.html

http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/21/trim-or-raid-0-ssd-owners-will-no-longer-have-to-choose/

http://www.techspot.com/news/46364-intel-adding-trim-support-for-ssds-in-raid-0-with-rst-115.html

And notice the dates, which ALL were prior to me getting my current machine. End of story. So don't presume that I did not research this. Once again, your are found wanting......I could find more posts that were made before I got this machine, but I'm not gonna waste my time trying to entertain you.

 

I'm obviously upsetting you, so I'll just leave it at that...

 

Yeah...you do that....no offence intended, but before you start casting stones that I should have researched this, and that it is MY fault for not doing so, it's blatently apparent that sources on the internet indicated that TRIM would work and would NOT be an issue. Apology accepted, btw.

Thank you and goodnight.

Oh, and apologies to you too - it's a stressful time for me right now, and I am hyper-sensitive regarding this issue. Maybe I reacted to quickly, so I'm sorry if I did.

 

Whether TRIM is supported or not is not the point. Yes the lack of TRIM support is likely the cause.
If you buy a Ferrari that has been advertised as performance vehicle because it has x,y,z and features a dual speed gear box. Then that gear box is dropping half of its gears and loosing 50% of the cars performance potential. That's a reason for concern. And Ferarri should make things right, especially considering its under warranty.

 

Yup agree wholeheartedly. I think some of the people who voted such service is acceptable may not have realized stevie's laptop is currently under extended warranty he paid extra dollars for. This is not a case of wear and tear. If Dell is happy to charge us a premium for this service, they should be willing to back up all their hardware during that period.

 

This has not been the first time where he come in to stir the water with dirty spoon tbh, however, it wont be the last from the attitude I keep seeing from him over the boards. Not getting in to it.

oh boy this really got my blood boiling, how on earth have you got guts to come with such statement in public weighting assuming how much money who makes or call someone in such way?? No regards , this is just out of lines. Stand on the side of either without FULLY READING ENTIRE THREAD FROM THE TOP TO THE BOTTOM!!!??? You clearly didnt read it all well looking from what you've been posting!

You Clearly didnt read everything trough or understood everything, or have been skipping words/sentences? Do you by any chance take words you see or understand most and then throw them in to view as the only ones? I cant stand people doing this.

How in the world it was his fault on not knowing more than the DELL told him prior sale? MISS-SOLD PRODUCT! Thats all I can say!

for an example - yea you try go buy lighter and then find out there are enough gas in them just for 5 cigarettes and damn thing was advertised as high performance lighter with pricetag 5x the other lighters on the shelf, do something about researching that! Hmmm Why did the gas ran out so quick? Is it your fault buying product with some imperfections,leaking valve/nozzle, not fully filled or filled with wrong gas? Hmm ... What will you do if you've just bought a container of such lighters? Yea I assume you'd just live with it, hence you dont understand the meaning of the thread.

Exactly the point!

BR

 

Thanks again guys for your continued support and kind words.

I agree that wether TRIM is supported on not is kind of irrelevant, but probably IS the cause of my issues. The articles that I did read (and posted above) obviously indicate that TRIM will be supported for my configuration. Articles from the likes of Anand Lal Shimpi, Tom's Hardware etc tend to be pretty reliable sources, and as so, I felt that this wouldn't be an issue anyway. See, I DID do some research....

I could also "flip the coin" and look at it from a different angle. Those articles indicate TRIM support "to be available" which means prior to that, it was not. Don't tell me that Dell were unaware of that fact. I'm pretty sure that they speak to Intel on a fairly regular basis. Of course, as it was NOT available prior to those dates above, Dell were fully aware of the impact of the absence of adequate self maintenance, but they still elected to sell such configurations without adequate warning that buying such an expensive configuration from them could/would impact on SSD performance. They (in my eyes) were far too quick to "sell first, deal with issues later" without any warning to the end buyer.

When you consider that these SSD's are roughly equivalent (or were, at the time at around £850 from recollection) to the cost of the two of the high-end GPU's at that time (580m Sli for around £1,000), I'd say that it's a pretty important part of the machine to ensure does not have faults. We're talking of £800 worth of SSD here.....if there is ANY possibility that my investment is gonna nose dive, I WANNA KNOW ABOUT IT!!!.

One thing I will say, In Dell's defence, is that they have NO control over what Intel do or don't do. The fact that Intel chose only to include 7 Series chipsets in their fairly recent update that allowed Raided SSD's to benefit from full native TRIM support whilst in a raid membership, is beyond Dell's control. I appreciate that. However, they (Dell) did (or should have done, anyway) known, or been aware of the full limitations of the existing 6 series hardware that they were selling at that time, and they should have acted accordingly in letting people know of those limitations.

I guess wether they told me or not is now a moot point. The hardware has failed because of this, replacing said hardware with like for like is only going to end up in a vicious circle, and the other option of a single drive is going to result in my losing the performance that I paid for. Either way, I'm kind of getting "sucker punched".