OEM Hardrive question

[Abe777]

Anything wrong with buying an OEM hardrive as long as the specs and warranty are the same? Or are they of lesser quality?

 

[dirtboy]

In a retail box you get an ide cable, mouting kit and misc other things in addition to the drive, which is identical to the OEM version.

 

[LXi]

There is nothing wrong with OEM hardware, the specs are the same because the retail kits contain the same drive with the same serial number, no way there should be any performance or quality difference. As long as you know which one you're getting, and know its serial number, you shouldnt get a drive thats different from a retail a package. And of course, you wont have a fancy box, IDE cable, partitioning/diagnostic software, mounting brackets, et cetera.

 

[Syborg1211]

i would say the only category where oem or retail is a question is in CPUs.

 

[LXi]

Video cards as well, since some of the have lower specs than retail ones.

 

[Abe777]

Anyone else?

 

[PCAddict]

Be careful. Sometimes, you cannot return an OEM drive to the manufacturer of the drive if you have a problem. I remember seeing a post on there a while back where someone had an IBM drive that was dead. He called IBM for an RMA and when he gave them the serial number, they told him that it was an OEM drive and the warranty was through the OEM.

 

[LXi]

Wow... that sounds scary. Does that apply to bare hard drives as well? Is OEM same as bare?

 

[Auric]

OEM in that case means it was purchased from a computer company like Dell so the warranty is up to them. If a bare drive is purchased from a reseller like buy.com then the warranty is up to the manufacturer. As I understand, IBM warranties bare hard drives just the same as packaged ones. Some manufacturers might have different policies but I would also assume that anything bought from a place like buy.com (and thus distributed by Ingram Micro) is going to be covered by the manufacturer in contrast to shady gray market sales. If the warranty is the same you can usually save a significant amount of money buying bare but occasionally I have seen a kit for only $10 more or so. But even then a cable and screws and pretty box ain't worth that much to me.

 

[Dan]

IMHO, OEM HDD's are the way to go. Speaking from personal experience, I've never had problems getting an RMA on Western Digital or Seagate OEM drives. And maybe it's just my good fortune but I've never had to RMA an IBM drive.

 

[DaddyG]

My 2 cents,

OEM hard-drives frequently are 'handled' without care. They ship from the manufacturer fairly well protected but when the boxes are split up into single drives they get bounced around some. If you look at the Hot Deals forum you can find retail drives for the same money.

 

[Abe777]

Bump

 

[Edski]

The OEM drives that you have to watch out for are sold by a company called "PC Periphials" (SP?). They claim to have manufacture drives but they are NOT covered by the manufactures warrantees. Most OEMs are covered by the manufacture.