Steve said:
Actually, I have had good luck with Maxtor's RMA process. It was fairly
efficient and painless. This is probably because they have a lot of
experience with RMA's. I haven't bought Maxtor drives for a couple of
years now because I had to send back a good percentage of the drives.
I agree. It's certainly one of the easiest (from the UK, at least) and
as you say, they have vast experience of returns.
Seagate are amongst the best (my personal favourite) provided you don't
end up with one manufactured in China. These, I rate on a par with
Western Digital and Maxtor - i.e. to be avoided.
The drives I have been getting to replace the Maxtor's have been the
Seagate 7200.10's. I haven't had a failure yet so I don't know what the
RMA process is like. I have had about 50 of these drives going for
almost a year now. I also have 32 Hitachi drives that have been going
for two years without a problem. These came in RAID arrays and I didn't
have a choice. When I do have a choice I get the Seagates. You can't
beat the 5 year warranty.
In the UK, it's possible to get an advance replacement (subject to
supplying credit card details) which means your replacement arrives
within a few days, and you are then obliged to return the offending
drive within 30 days.
I don't pay much attention to a warranty; I prefer to go on
reliability. I'd rather purchase a reliable drive with a 12 month
warranty than a drive that has known issues but comes with a 5 year
warranty.
Just my 2p.
Odie
