SCSI HD: Maxtor or Seagate?

[Ar Q]

I am looking for a bigger SCSI Hard Drive for upgrade. After researching
EBay, Yahoo Stores and Pricewatch carefully, it is my observation that
although Maxtor is cheaper than Seagate, its warranty service is a mess.
Most drives in the market are OEMs. If I need service, I can only return to
the vendors. And the warranty periods vary from 30 days to 2 years depending
on the vendors and many of them omit the information when making the sales.
On the other hand, Seagate honors the drives warranty no matter whether it
is OEM or not. Is my observation correct? Thanks.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

I am looking for a bigger SCSI Hard Drive for upgrade. After researching
EBay, Yahoo Stores and Pricewatch carefully, it is my observation that
although Maxtor is cheaper than Seagate, its warranty service is a mess.
No.

Most drives in the market are OEMs. If I need service, I can only return to
the vendors.

Who says? Define OEM carefully.

And the warranty periods vary from 30 days to 2 years depending
on the vendors and many of them omit the information when making the sales.
On the other hand, Seagate honors the drives warranty no matter whether it
is OEM or not. Is my observation correct? Thanks.

For SCSI probably not.

 

[raihankibria]

P

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I am looking for a bigger SCSI Hard Drive for upgrade. After researching
EBay, Yahoo Stores and Pricewatch carefully, it is my observation that
although Maxtor is cheaper than Seagate, its warranty service is a mess.

Most drives in the market are OEMs.

Says who? Or do they say that themselves in their offerings?

If I need service, I can only return to the vendors.

Yup, usually.

And the warranty periods vary from 30 days to 2 years depending
on the vendors and many of them omit the information when making the sales.

About the OEM thing or the warranty period?

On the other hand, Seagate honors the drives warranty no matter whether it
is OEM or not.

Don't think so for the drives that clearly state that they are for an OEM.

Is my observation correct?

Maybe for the drives that weren't specifically made to order for an OEM.

 

[Ar Q]

Says who? Or do they say that themselves in their offerings?

Says I. Most Maxtor hard drives I found using EBay, Yahoo stores and
Pricewatch.com are OEMs carring no manufacture warranty. The warranty
honored by the vendors varies from 30 days to 2 years if they have ever
mentioned it.

Yup, usually.
sales.

About the OEM thing or the warranty period?

Both. But they are related. I suspect most omitted the information are OEMs
without Maxtor warranty since the price are below $220 while those
specifically saying they carry 5 years manufacture warranty have price tag
above $350 (regarding 73GB 10k rpm SCSI drives)

Don't think so for the drives that clearly state that they are for an OEM.

It is quite odd that there are almost no Seagate OEM products in the market.
The cheaper Seagate drives are specifically marked "refurnished drives" and
carring 6 months warranty from Seagate while it seems that Maxtor sells
their refurnished drives to vendors and ask the vendors to service
themselves.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

Says I. Most Maxtor hard drives I found using EBay, Yahoo stores and
Pricewatch.com are OEMs carring no manufacture warranty.

The issue is SCSI vs ATA.

The warranty
honored by the vendors varies from 30 days to 2 years if they have ever
mentioned it.

What about Maxtor SCSI?

 

[Ar Q]

The issue is SCSI vs ATA.


What about Maxtor SCSI?

I restricted my search on SCSI drives. All my discussion are about SCSI
drives only. Bottom line is that Maxtor has very lousy SCSI business
strategy, (lousy for consumers, but good for the company short term).
Consumers need be very careful buying Maxtor SCSI hard drives. Maxtor has
sold all their remaining 10K line SCSI drives and cut the relationship, so
its 15K line price will stay firm.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

I restricted my search on SCSI drives. All my discussion are about SCSI
drives only. Bottom line is that Maxtor has very lousy SCSI business
strategy, (lousy for consumers, but good for the company short term).
Consumers need be very careful buying Maxtor SCSI hard drives. Maxtor has
sold all their remaining 10K line SCSI drives and cut the relationship, so
its 15K line price will stay firm.

Can you cite any references?

 

[Ar Q]

Can you cite any references?

No. As I said in the beginning of my original post, this is my observation
after I searched more than 100 vendors selling Maxtor SCSI drives. The goal
of my original post is to seek confirmation for my observation.

 

[Tod]

What ever hard drive you purchase, you should be able to use the serial
number to check with the manufacturer
on what the duration of the warrenty is.

Also some hard drive manufacturers will offer to extend a warrenty for a
small fee.
When I got my WD 200GB with one year warrenty,
WD offered to add two years for $15.

If you want a good SCSI drive with a long warrenty,
then you are going to have to pay that higher price.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Says I. Most Maxtor hard drives I found using EBay, Yahoo stores and
Pricewatch.com are OEMs carrying no manufacture warranty. The warranty
honored by the vendors varies from 30 days to 2 years if they have ever
mentioned it.
OK.


Both. But they are related. I suspect most omitted the information are OEMs
without Maxtor warranty since the price are below $220 while those
specifically saying they carry 5 years manufacture warranty have price tag
above $350 (regarding 73GB 10k rpm SCSI drives)

There is of course the small problem that you can't give a full (5-year) war-
ranty on drives that have been sitting for several years already in a ware-
house even though they originally had a warranty. The differing warranties
as offered by many may simply be the mfgr remaining warranty on the drives.

It is quite odd that there are almost no Seagate OEM products in the market.

Maybe not 'surplus' but I found a few second hand/dead ones at a computer
fair that I might have bought for exchange if they hadn't been labeled OEM.

The cheaper Seagate drives are specifically marked "refurbished drives"
and carrying 6 months warranty from Seagate

Maybe in the cases you experienced. Doesn't mean that if you find a drive
with a "Seagate Factory Repaired" label on it that it has a 6 month warranty.
It may simply be a drive from a system that was replaced once through the
OEM and on checking the warranty you would get:

"The product you identified was sold as a system component. Please contact your place of purchase for service. Seagate sells many
drives to direct OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) customers. These products are usually configured for the OEMs only, as
components for their systems. You must contact your place of purchase for any warranty support on these drives."

 

[Ar Q]

If you want a good SCSI drive with a long warrenty,
then you are going to have to pay that higher price.

I know that. I just want to remind people that there are vendors charging
higher price but offer no manufacture warranty, also vendors auctioning
Maxtor SCSI drives on EBay hoping to get good selling price by omitting the
fact that there are no manufacture warranty. I did request the serial
numbers. After submitting them to Maxtor website, I got response that
"contact vendors for service" that did not happen with Seagate SCSI hard
drives. Maxtor and those vendors getting bulk discontinued Maxtor SCSI hard
drives are bad bad companies.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Please setup your newsclient properly.

There are claims on this thread that OEM drives carry little or no warranty
from the manufacturer.

Depends on what is meant by OEM. With IBM that's something quite differ-
ent, i.e. an OEM labeled drive was a drive intended not for own use, i.e. retail.
An IBM OEM drive (the ones for their own use) can usu-
ally be recognized by having a part PN and FRU number.
Those fall within the warranty that comes with the machine that it was sold with.

Nearly every drive I've purchased over the past 5 or 6 years has been OEM,

Well, obviously, if all were IBMs. Not so obvious, if not.
How exactly did you know that they were (sold to) OEMs?

and checking all that I still have (about six) show they all have or had
warranties from the manufacturer for the duration, usually three years.

My Raptors, both OEM, have five-year warranties and
they show up on the WD website as still being in warranty.
Am I missing something?

So whom were they OEM-ed to?

I've been fortunate to have owned reliable drives over the years, and the only
warranty adjustment I've made in the past few years was one IBM 75GXP,
a notoriously unreliable drive series.

It was purchased as OEM

Which is the norm for IBM.

and IBM sent me replacement drive (a 60GXP, statistically just as
unreliable but still running) after about one year.

I was always under the impression that HD
warranties were the same for OEM or retail,

Nope.
And it depends on what is meant by OEM, an OEM drive (for consumers,
i.e. retail) or a drive sold/manufactured exclusively to/for an OEM.
That is different for IBM and say the rest although for external drives
Seagate et al may be their own OEM too.

 

[Bob Davis]

I am looking for a bigger SCSI Hard Drive for upgrade. After researching
EBay, Yahoo Stores and Pricewatch carefully, it is my observation that
although Maxtor is cheaper than Seagate, its warranty service is a mess.
Most drives in the market are OEMs. If I need service, I can only return
to
the vendors. And the warranty periods vary from 30 days to 2 years
depending
on the vendors and many of them omit the information when making the
sales.
On the other hand, Seagate honors the drives warranty no matter whether it
is OEM or not. Is my observation correct? Thanks.

There are claims on this thread that OEM drives carry little or no warranty
from the manufacturer. Nearly every drive I've purchased over the past 5 or
6 years has been OEM, and checking all that I still have (about six) show
they all have or had warranties from the manufacturer for the duration,
usually three years. My Raptors, both OEM, have five-year warranties and
they show up on the WD website as still being in warranty. Am I missing
something?

I've been fortunate to have owned reliable drives over the years, and the
only warranty adjustment I've made in the past few years was one IBM 75GXP,
a notoriously unreliable drive series. It was purchased as OEM and IBM sent
me replacement drive (a 60GXP, statistically just as unreliable but still
running) after about one year. I was always under the impression that HD
warranties were the same for OEM or retail, unlike Intel CPU's, which carry
a three-year warranty only for boxed retail processors.

 

[Ron Reaugh]

There are claims on this thread that OEM drives carry little or no warranty
from the manufacturer. Nearly every drive I've purchased over the past 5 or
6 years has been OEM, and checking all that I still have (about six) show
they all have or had warranties from the manufacturer for the duration,
usually three years. My Raptors, both OEM, have five-year warranties and
they show up on the WD website as still being in warranty. Am I missing
something?

No, your experience is typical.

 

[Arie Bant]

I am looking for a bigger SCSI Hard Drive for upgrade. After researching
EBay, Yahoo Stores and Pricewatch carefully, it is my observation that
although Maxtor is cheaper than Seagate, its warranty service is a mess.
Most drives in the market are OEMs. If I need service, I can only return to
the vendors. And the warranty periods vary from 30 days to 2 years depending
on the vendors and many of them omit the information when making the sales.
On the other hand, Seagate honors the drives warranty no matter whether it
is OEM or not. Is my observation correct? Thanks.

No.
Seagate only honours warrantee when the drive is bought as a retail
Seagate product. All those HP, Compaq, IBM and other drives made by
Seagate and sold through computer manufacturers have to go back to the
OEM for servicing.

If you want to know whether a particular drive is under Seagate
warrantee or not you can find out on their WEB-site.
(http://support.seagate.com/customer/warranty_validation.jsp)
All you need is a model or part no. and serial number.
Try some drives offered on eBay and draw your own conclusions.

Arie Bant.