It seems like a lot of people have problems buying OEM drives, they buy 5 and 2 weeks later 2 of them fail etc. I've heard that new egg buys some of their OEM drives in auctions and that they don't have the warranty that other OEM drives have, then of course there is retail. Are standard OEM drives that are not bought in auctions made to the same standard as retail drives? I would think this is the case but then where can you buy OEM drives that are new and aren't refurbished? I would like to be able to buy a drive and put data on it without having to worry that in a couple weeks it's going to fail on me, I guess there is always a chance that it could happen but it would be nice to have lower my chance of that happening.
OEM vs Retail drives.
- Thread starter btcomm1
- Start date
I used to subscribe to that philosophy until my recent WD Raptor adventure.
Long story short, bought a "new" OEM Raptor X in Jan 07 from NE and bought a new retail Raptor X from BB in Feb 07 and noticed the mfg. dates were a year apart. Jan 06 for the NE, Jan 07 for the BB drive. No biggy, until I booted up and started installing stuff and noticed the BB drive was signficantly quieter with a different pitch as well. I'm talking 2-3x quieter and the difference in pitch akin to a garbage disposal vs. the pitter-patter of footsteps.
Felt bad because I made it well-known in some of the BB Hot Deal threads that the drive was excessively loud. Many came back with reports the noise was exaggerated. I posted a review on NE detailing the difference in drives and of course, they censored it! I've wrote tons of glowing reviews for NE products, many of which are featured on their main product page, so that was pretty annoying. The funniest part was when I got a random e-mail out of the blue from a NE CSR apologizing for [random sku for WD Raptor]. He stopped replying and I'm going to end up getting the drive replaced through WD, but it definitely changed my mind about OEM and Retail being "the same."
Chizow, you seem to be attributing the difference purely to OEM v Retail, but you've already shown that they were from different vendors, different ages (serials) and also probably different revisions. Or it's possible you just got a bad drive by chance: your sample size doesn't tell us much statistically.
Of course the sample size doesn't indicate much, however, any attempt to publicize and obtain feedback on the distinction on NE's site would be censored. If you look at the existing reviews however, the overall tone is FAST and LOUD, but LOUD is OK because its really FAST. Without a frame of reference, these people know no difference. I suppose ignorance is bliss.
On the other hand, if you look at some of the BB Hot Deal threads here on AT, the overwhelming feedback about noise is that reports of the drive being excessively loud with a low pitched garbage disposal-like sound (like mine) are exaggerated.
Common sense would indicate a large online e-tailer like Newegg has no business carrying 1 year old drives due to their high sales volume and inventory turnover rates. However, one has to wonder what type of agreement or bulk purchase plan NE has with WD in order to offer these drives at a lower price point and perpetual exclusive rebate offer. These are all issues I raised with the mysterious CSR that decided to randomly e-mail me, but ofc, I got no reply.
I see enough NE bashing threads to not make a big fuss over it. I'll just keep it in mind when I buy OEM-anything and I definitely won't blindly purchase from NE in the future simply expecting the latest and greatest, because that's simply no longer the case. This isn't the only recent instance either btw, the BenQ 241W w/out updated firmware and one of the Intel965 boards shipping extremely dated revisions stick out in my mind.
Where is the best place to make sure I get a new OEM drive and not a refurb or auction drive that doesn't have a warranty?
- Mar 4, 2000
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Buy from a reputable dealer. I get most of mine from Zip Zoom Fly - formerly Googlegear. Their free shipping is attractive, and I have always gotten new OEM drives seald in mylar bags with the dessicant bag inside.
Have gotten them also from NewEgg and CompuPlus in upstate NY.
Have gotten them also from NewEgg and CompuPlus in upstate NY.
If they send you a refurb when it's advertised as being new, it's a fraud.
When you send in a drive for replacement, they will probably send you a refurb back, when you buy a new drive, it should be just that, new, OEM or Retail.
And yes, OEM and Retail are the exact same drives.
So they are the same drives, but what about inspection? I've heard that retail have better QC then OEM. Also looking at reviews I don't see reviews for retail saying the drive failed after 2 days. Of course, this could be because fewer people buy retail therefore there is less chance that someone buying a retail will get a bad one. I don't know, I just think that QC should be improved with HD manufacturers, I would pay 20 bucks extra if they could keep the failure rates down, however for some reason retail drives seem like they are like 100 bucks more then OEM. It's just frustrating that you have to buy twice as much storage room as you would need otherwise because 7 months down the road the drive might just fail on you.
Supposedly Western Digital SE drives are supposed to last over 100 years before it fails on average but that obviously is a total lie, I bet not a single SE hd drive they make would last 100 years with use.
http://www.ciao.co.uk/WD_Caviar_RE2_WD5000YS_500_GB__6464278
Says 1.2 million hours that is 136 years!
I don't think any of these HD's would last 50 years so I don't know where they are getting this number.
If hard drives lasted at least 5 years, then there wouldn't really be a big problem, 4 years after you purchase the drive they would probrably have drives with 4x the storage, so you could then buy one of those and put all your data on it plus have room left over and not have to worry about your drive crashing and losing all your data.
Supposedly Western Digital SE drives are supposed to last over 100 years before it fails on average but that obviously is a total lie, I bet not a single SE hd drive they make would last 100 years with use.
http://www.ciao.co.uk/WD_Caviar_RE2_WD5000YS_500_GB__6464278
Says 1.2 million hours that is 136 years!
I don't think any of these HD's would last 50 years so I don't know where they are getting this number.
If hard drives lasted at least 5 years, then there wouldn't really be a big problem, 4 years after you purchase the drive they would probrably have drives with 4x the storage, so you could then buy one of those and put all your data on it plus have room left over and not have to worry about your drive crashing and losing all your data.
Actually I can't say I mind yours as it's only 4 lines, and they easily fit on my screen without wrapping
It's actually worse to not buy OEM HDDs. For some reason OEM drives usually have longer warranties. Maybe they think only techies/non-retards will install them?
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