[TriLUG] Hard drive advice

[Pat Regan]

Cristobal Palmer wrote:
> I'll echo Joe's comments and give an endorsement to Intrex, especially
> since they give discounts to TriLUG members. That said, if you don't
> _mind_ keeping shipping supplies around and are meticulous about
> keeping records (such as receipts), then you can safely go with an
> internet bargain that includes a nice (eg. 3-5 yr.) warranty.

Keeping shipping supplies around shouldn't be an issue.  Every time I
have RMAed an IDE drive I have used "advance RMA," or whatever the
particular vendor calls it.  You give them your credit card number, they
ship you a drive.  Swap the drive and put the old drive in the new
packaging, then send it back.  As long as they get the drive they don't
charge your card.

As has been said already, any brand of drive has the same chance of
failing.  Hopefully, though, the drives with a longer warranty passed
more tests :).

For my purposes, the best reason to choose a manufacturer is their RMA
policy.  I have recently had to RMA both Maxtor and Western Digital
drives, both brands connected to my 3ware IDE controller.

My Maxtor drive started throwing errors like crazy.  In order to RMA a
Maxtor drive you have to run MaxBlast on the drive, which means I had to
put the drive on an IDE controller.  This wouldn't have been terrible...
 Except that MaxBlast claimed that it was able to repair my problem.  I
had to go through this garbage 2 more times before I could get the code
that would let me get the drive replaced.  I do not ever want to deal
with that again, so I will never buy a Maxtor drive again.

Western Digital doesn't ask any questions, it seems they will RMA
anything.

I would like to know what Seagate's policy is, if anyone knows.

Pat


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