Does hard drive quality differ with warranty offered?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ace Pope
  • Start date Start date
A

Ace Pope

I am considering purchasing a laptop hard drive with a one year
warranty in Thailand. The dealers here also sell what I think is the
same hard drive (Hitachi) with a three year warranty. I'm wondering
whether there might be a difference in quality between the drives
based on their warranty length. Do you think that the ones with the
one year warranties might be "factory seconds" or refurbished drives
or something? Or do you think they are of the same quality but just
offer a shorter warranty (which means a lower price)? I think dealers
here cannot be counted on to tell you if there is something wrong with
the drive (though all the drives seem to be factory packaged in that
shiny metallic foil).

The warranty will quickly become meaningless to me as I am leaving
Thailand soon and the warranties are only good in Thailand and only
available through the dealers. I know that the chances that a hard
drive will fail are slim--but I just want to know whether that chance
might be higher with a one-year warranty drive. Would appreciate your
opinions.
 
In comp.sys.laptops Ace Pope said:
I am considering purchasing a laptop hard drive with a one year
warranty in Thailand. The dealers here also sell what I think is the
same hard drive (Hitachi) with a three year warranty. I'm wondering
whether there might be a difference in quality between the drives
based on their warranty length. Do you think that the ones with the
one year warranties might be "factory seconds" or refurbished drives
or something? Or do you think they are of the same quality but just
offer a shorter warranty (which means a lower price)? I think dealers
Click to expand...

I doubt it.
OEM hard drives typically have a one year warranty backed by the vendor.
Retail packed hard drives are typically 3 years, backed by the maker.
 
I doubt it.
OEM hard drives typically have a one year warranty backed by the vendor.
Retail packed hard drives are typically 3 years, backed by the maker.
Click to expand...

Me too, In fact the hard drives I bought recently all had only one
year warranties but now they offer you the option of extending it for
a few bucks more. So its not like they are putting inferior drives in
the one year boxes rather they reduce the initial retail price on the
same drives by giving you one year warranties to entice you to buy ,
but then try to sell you on the idea of extending the warranty by
paying $20-30 more. My drives had cards inside offering the extended
plan. Retail stores also try to sell you extended warranties for a few
bucks.
 
Perhpas the warranty is based on what the manufacturer how quickly a user
will replace the drive. Would a user replace the drive within a year or
less ? Maybe a user will keep the higher end drives that won't get
replaced often with a 3-5 year warranty. In my experiences, I have
replaced 1 year warranty drives rather quickly and the higher end drives
with the longer warranties were active much longer in the servers. Not
sure if it is totally followed in that matter, but I think it is.
 
Perhpas the warranty is based on what the manufacturer how quickly a user
will replace the drive. Would a user replace the drive within a year or
less ? Maybe a user will keep the higher end drives that won't get
replaced often with a 3-5 year warranty. In my experiences, I have
replaced 1 year warranty drives rather quickly and the higher end drives
with the longer warranties were active much longer in the servers. Not
sure if it is totally followed in that matter, but I think it is.
Click to expand...

I'd have to disagree... Generally it seems to me that drives are
replaced for either end-of-life issues or capacity issues, not "high
end/performance" issues.


Dave
 
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