OEM maxtor SATA hds 3 yr. warranty/retail is 1 yr warr.

[budz]

I noticed at newegg.com for the OEM MAXTOR SATA HD 160 gb the warranty is 3 years but the retail version of it has only 1 year warranty. I found that strange. Anyone know why OEM has a longer warranty than a retail version. I always thought MAXTOR HD's all had only 1 year warranties on all their hd's.

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-322&depa=1

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=22-144-352&depa=1

:/ :/

[IAIHMB]

Read this.

http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/?epi_menuItemID=a14629af82eff9461400585760b46...anty%20Periods

[budz]

Thanks for that link now I understand. Then it would be best to purchase a OEM from Newegg.com.

[freestyler]

Some of that info may be inconsistent - it almost sounds backwards. I would contact Newegg to see what they say. I have a Maxtor SATA 250gb drive that I bought in May that for some reason has Write Verify enabled on it and I can't for the life of me get it to turn off. It's been this way for about 3 months and writes are very slow (because of the "error correction") and there's no user-executable utility that you can switch it off with.

It slows writes to a crawl and is very annoying, and turning my PC off 10 times as recommended wont fix it, and the warranty says that only my OEM manufacturer can repair it

???

I will be giving Maxtor a call soon as I've been too busy to care, but I didn't buy this one from Newegg though, it was a place called US-Depot.

[budz]

freestyler wrote:

Some of that info may be inconsistent - it almost sounds backwards. I would contact Newegg to see what they say.

Yes it did sound backwards. I contacted Newegg this morning and even the customer service rep was just as amazed as I was. He said paying retail you would think the warranty would be longer. He wasn't aware of this OEM Hard drive 3 year warranty vs RETAIL 1 year warranty. He checked with the Product Specialist and was told that is the way MAXTOR wants their products sold. With that in mind I will be ordering a 160 gb SATA hard drive OEM since the warranty is 3 years.

[freestyler]

Thanks for the info Budz

[budz]

Your welcome!

[ViRaL1]

Other hard drive manufacturers are also offering longer warranties on OEM products than on retail boxed drives. WD is also this way with most of their drives (3yr OEM / 1yr RET) excluding the Raptors which get 5 years in either version. I guess they figure if you can install the drive without a kit, you're less likely to screw it up, who knows.