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Ordering the Soft-Center Reader
http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=36091
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Author:  Minho [ November 18th, 2017, 18:36 ]
Post subject:  Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

Hey everyone! Following the suggestions from the board members http://forum.hddguru.com/viewtopic.php?p=252700#p252700, I am going to order a NAND reader from Soft-Center. However, when I started filling things out, I noticed that the shipping charges on a $260 reader are $115. That seems a bit much to me...

Is there anywhere else this reader can be purchased or is it only direct from SC?

Author:  pcimage [ November 18th, 2017, 18:47 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

Only from SC

Author:  Minho [ November 18th, 2017, 19:36 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

pcimage wrote:
Only from SC


Thanks pcimage!

Author:  data-medics [ November 19th, 2017, 12:41 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

Yeah, I was seconds away from ordering one of these myself when I saw that obscene shipping rate. I ended up buying VNR instead.

Author:  Blizzard [ November 19th, 2017, 13:13 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

data-medics wrote:
Yeah, I was seconds away from ordering one of these myself when I saw that obscene shipping rate. I ended up buying VNR instead.
Did you order from Rusolut? My shipping charges were $96 about a year ago, although I did get extra adapters. That's not too far off from the $115 I paid Softcenter which also included multiple adapters. Softcenter sent via DHL and I had no issues. Rusolut sent via FedEx and I had issues with the FedEx customs personnel. It was worth the extra $19 to not have any shipping hassle :)

Author:  Blizzard [ November 19th, 2017, 13:44 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

I almost forgot, FedEx sent an additional bill for $58.52 (Duty), so the Rusolut shipping cost was actually $154 in the end. DHL did not send any additional bills for the SoftCenter shipment.

Author:  Minho [ November 19th, 2017, 16:18 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

Blizzard wrote:
I almost forgot, FedEx sent an additional bill for $58.52 (Duty), so the Rusolut shipping cost was actually $154 in the end. DHL did not send any additional bills for the SoftCenter shipment.


Don't you just hate that! International shipping on these niche solutions is a killer, especially the hidden customs fees. However, I use DHL occasionally and I get a super discount so I really don't believe that shipping one reader and the wire adapter really costs SC $115. I've sent bigger and heavier boxes to Europe and Asia via DHL for around $35 CAD.

As a consumer, I would just prefer that the "real" cost of the product be upfront and that the true shipping cost is passed along instead of making a product look inexpensive and then tacking on ridiculous shipping fees. This is not a knock on SC per se, I see this a lot with Chinese vendors as well (I work on mobile phones too).

Author:  Minho [ November 19th, 2017, 16:20 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

data-medics wrote:
Yeah, I was seconds away from ordering one of these myself when I saw that obscene shipping rate. I ended up buying VNR instead.


If I were ordering all of the adapters, I could probably deal with the shipping cost because it works out to ~10% of the total cost. But for just one reader and wire adapter :shock:

Author:  Orizarrb [ November 22nd, 2017, 13:46 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

What about asking them to ship the reader with another delivery? Have you tried?

Author:  Minho [ November 22nd, 2017, 17:55 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

Orizarrb wrote:
What about asking them to ship the reader with another delivery? Have you tried?


Actually I did. However because of the nature of international shipments, they use DHL only. However I did propose to Sergey that instead of billing me $115 that he charge it to my DHL account instead. He agreed and that is currently in process. I'm curious to see how much I'll save...maybe nothing at all :shock: but I can't imagine it'll cost as much as $115.

Kudos to Sergey for working with me on this and I'll let the group know if it's a worthwhile option.

Author:  hddguy [ November 24th, 2017, 6:38 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

I have both VNR and Flash Extractor from soft center - more often than not I will end up assembling and recovering with the FE, even when dumps are made with other software. In my opinion, FE is worth every penny, even the $115 shipping :D

Author:  pcimage [ November 24th, 2017, 14:31 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

hddguy wrote:
I have both VNR and Flash Extractor from soft center - more often than not I will end up assembling and recovering with the FE, even when dumps are made with other software. In my opinion, FE is worth every penny, even the $115 shipping :D


Totally agree.

FE is my “go to” tool for data assembly, although I also have pc3k (v4 upgrade and spider board arrived today!) and VNR but mainly use those for chip reading, dump cleaning (re-reading to correct ECC errors) and software bad-byte removal.

Author:  Amarbir[CDR-Labs] [ November 25th, 2017, 14:03 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

pcimage wrote:
hddguy wrote:
I have both VNR and Flash Extractor from soft center - more often than not I will end up assembling and recovering with the FE, even when dumps are made with other software. In my opinion, FE is worth every penny, even the $115 shipping :D


Totally agree.

FE is my “go to” tool for data assembly, although I also have pc3k (v4 upgrade and spider board arrived today!) and VNR but mainly use those for chip reading, dump cleaning (re-reading to correct ECC errors) and software bad-byte removal.


Well,
In That Case i Am Happy To Use PC3K Flash I Was On Ver 4.0 a Year Ago And In this Year I Have Done Good Work On The Tool ,The Recent Advancement In The Tool if That Once You Read The Chip ID And Read Chip And Correct ECC ,You Just Execute One Command Now " Link is Here -> http://blog.acelaboratory.com/pc-3000-f ... -mode.html " And It Does The Rest Of The Work Read Retry , Work With Different Voltages . I Just Cleaning a Nasty Read To Perfection With The Tool .Just Last 3 Days Solved 2 More Cases ,I Am Planning To Add These Two Cases Soon To My Website www.nandflashrecovery.com Were i have started to document cases that i have been doing recently .Its interesting when i add stuff as i have learned so much .But now i wonder how much stuff you guys know who have been using FE since donkey ages .I am Collecting Money For The Two Tools I Do Not Have VNR And FE ,But i Have No Idea Which One To Buy First VNR Or FE I Already Have PC3K .

Author:  hddguy [ November 27th, 2017, 9:24 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:
.I am Collecting Money For The Two Tools I Do Not Have VNR And FE ,But i Have No Idea Which One To Buy First VNR Or FE I Already Have PC3K .


If you want to learn about flash recovery and structures and have a serious amount of control over what you do, and really jump into it, then you need VNR. If you want a solid tool with a huge library of solutions that is very user friendly and with many automated 'models' then you need FE.

Author:  data-medics [ November 27th, 2017, 10:40 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

Blizzard wrote:
data-medics wrote:
Yeah, I was seconds away from ordering one of these myself when I saw that obscene shipping rate. I ended up buying VNR instead.
Did you order from Rusolut? My shipping charges were $96 about a year ago, although I did get extra adapters. That's not too far off from the $115 I paid Softcenter which also included multiple adapters. Softcenter sent via DHL and I had no issues. Rusolut sent via FedEx and I had issues with the FedEx customs personnel. It was worth the extra $19 to not have any shipping hassle :)


No, I bought a slightly used one from a guy who'd only had it a couple months and wanted to unload it. I guess he realized flash wasn't for him. So I didn't pay their shipping rate.

I guess we're spoiled here in the USA to have USPS. I can ship a box across the world for well under $100. Unless it's going to Canada, which for some reason costs more than shipping to China or Malaysia, despite the fact that you can actually drive there in a day. Maybe it's all the empty shipping containers we're constantly sending back to Asia to get refilled with plastic toys and crap we buy here. Probably keeps shipping that direction cheap.

Author:  Amarbir[CDR-Labs] [ November 27th, 2017, 11:23 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

hddguy wrote:
Amarbir[CDR-Labs] wrote:
.I am Collecting Money For The Two Tools I Do Not Have VNR And FE ,But i Have No Idea Which One To Buy First VNR Or FE I Already Have PC3K .


If you want to learn about flash recovery and structures and have a serious amount of control over what you do, and really jump into it, then you need VNR. If you want a solid tool with a huge library of solutions that is very user friendly and with many automated 'models' then you need FE.


Well,
Due To this Reason i Am More Inclined Towards FE Initially .But Once FE is There i Will Work With It For a Quarter And After Then Buy VNR .Because I Think VNR More Like a Research Tool And Should Be Used In Advanced Stages Of Flash Learning .

Author:  HaQue [ November 28th, 2017, 7:12 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

The tools are what you make them. You can research with FE, though it is not intended for it.
VNR on the other hand, is, but I would not limit it to being a research tool only, it is also a very serious DR tool, and in fact is its major function.
I would argue that if you try and wait until you are at the "Advanced Stages Of Flash Learning", to get VNR... you won't actually get there. If you are using point and solve tools, you will only be able to do this. In flash you will only learn by doing. There really is no other way.

Author:  hddguy [ November 28th, 2017, 7:57 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

HaQue wrote:
The tools are what you make them.


I agree, but with some small steps to learn its possible to save a considerate amount of time per job with minimal knowledge in FE - this is the case since V6 core. I have VNR because I want to learn more and I want to spend time learning more.

VNR is very powerful and through it I have learned more about Flash structures and their operation than I ever thought I would need to, and I am still constantly learning from it - but I have the time to allocate to it which I appreciate many people do not have.

Despite this, any assembly that needs to be done I generally make in FE after any analysis or bad byte removal etc.

Author:  Minho [ January 3rd, 2018, 20:20 ]
Post subject:  Re: Ordering the Soft-Center Reader

I thought I would bookend this post by letting everyone know that I ended up ordering the Reader from Soft-Center. Sergey agreed to use my DHL account rather than charge the upfront shipping costs. In the end, it cost me ~55$ instead of the 115$ normal shipping fee.

So something to keep in mind if you have a DHL account...

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