Maxtor: Retail Box versus OEM

[PeteJ]

I'm again in the market for a new hard drive. I have selected the Maxtor Diamondmax Plus D740X at 40 gigs to upgrade my current HD, but I find that the price searching engines are all coming up with OEM versions. My local dealers have box versions at higher prices. My question is: is there anything important in the retail box to justify the higher price?

 

[bacillus]

<< My question is: is there anything important in the retail box to justify the higher price? >>


the longer maxtor 3 year warantee & an ide cable!
that being said, I would still go oem.

 

[John]

No need for retail HDD's unless you collect the pretty boxes.

 

[MrBond]

<< the longer maxtor 3 year warantee & an ide cable! >>

I thought the only maxtor OEM drives w/o the full warrenty were system pulls from Dell/HP/IBM pcs?

 

[RJS1000]

Typical no difference - just cheaper and less pretty packaging

(some cdburners for example, will not include as much software, but as your talking about a Hard Drive you wont be missing out an anything)

So get the OEM

 

[RanDum72]

Retail and OEM maxtors have 3-year warranties. The only difference is the packaging, retail maxtors have cables, brackets, manual, installation guide (like you really need it).
But there's also the possibility that retail Maxtors are less prone to DOA's or damage since they have the box and almost two inches of foam around them. The only Maxtor that I ever had to RMA was OEM and it was probably handled badly.

 

[yourharddrive]

they both the same

 

[CubicZirconia]

I just picked up a maxtor 40 gig oem about a month ago and everything worked out fine. Go OEM.

 

[bozo1]

You (and many websites) confuse the difference between a 'bare' drive and an 'oem' drive.

In the drive world, a 'bare' drive is what you buy from places like newegg, mwave, etc. The drive has the same warranty as the retail boxed version but just doesn't come with a cable, screws, partitioning software, etc. 'OEM', in the drive world, are drives that are sold to system manufacturers like Dell, Gateway, HP, Compaq, etc., to install in a new PC. They have no warranty whatsoever. Dell/Gateway/HP, etc., warranties the drive along with the system and once that warranty is up, that's it.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

sometimes you can get the retail even cheaper than oem when there is hot deal,
but you don't know what model exactly is inside the retail box, it could be new D740X, Quantum Fireball Plus AS or DM60+.

 

[eplebnista]

OEM

 

[tornadobox]

yeah if you get the retail box, you've got to watch out because you could get a Quantum drive instead of a Maxtor drive (happened to me twice so far ) cause Maxtor bought out Quantum and is using their surplus now.

 

[RanDum72]

yeah if you get the retail box, you've got to watch out because you could get a Quantum drive instead of a Maxtor drive (happened to me twice so far ) cause Maxtor bought out Quantum and is using their surplus now.

So whats worng with that? Quantum IS Maxtor now, former quantum models are just as good,if not better than Maxtor. And the newer Maxtors seems to be based on Quantum designs ( just check out the PCB board under the drive) so nobody is really losing anything at all.

 

[tornadobox]

sometimes it's just a bit disappointing to some to open the box expecting a maxtor and getting a quantum. also i've heard of people who have gotten DOA quantums in the maxtor boxes and stores won't take them back because they're not maxtor drives.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

actually, the Quantum Fireball Plus AS has better spec than DM+60.

if you're buying at a retail store, you can know, the DM+60 has big box, Fireball has small box.

 

[Bad Dude]

The differences is only with the IDE cable and the mounting racks. The warranty is the same for both.