Viable option or bad idea?

[krnmastersgt]

With the recent soon to be failure of one of my storage drives, I now see that drive warranties are a bit more important.

Anyways to the point at hand, I'm looking to add a bit more storage space to my primary system. I have a GoFlex 3TB external drive which I know for a fact just houses a standard Seagate Barracude 3 TB drive inside. The reason I bring this up is that when I checked for 3TB internal drive prices, the cheapest drive is around $150 plus the hassle of online ordering (which I'm fine with, just saying its an added point).

However I can pick up the GoFlex from my local CostCo for something like $125, just crack it open and bam I have I believe the cheapest 3TB option available. While I don't mind opening up the actual externals, this does bring up the fact that doing so voids the external's warranty and the internal drive itself has no warranty to begin with. Is it worth the savings or do you guys think that the fall-back of the warranty is worth the extra cost?

 

[Blain]

The reason I bring this up is that when I checked for 3TB internal drive prices, the cheapest drive is around $150 plus the hassle of online ordering (which I'm fine with, just saying its an added point).

However I can pick up the GoFlex from my local CostCo for something like $125, just crack it open and bam I have I believe the cheapest 3TB option available. While I don't mind opening up the actual externals, this does bring up the fact that doing so voids the external's warranty and the internal drive itself has no warranty to begin with. Is it worth the savings or do you guys think that the fall-back of the warranty is worth the extra cost?

As long as the drive doesn't fail before the warranty expires, you're golden.

 

[corkyg]

Somehow, I am getting the impression that these humongous TB drives fail at a higher rate than our older ones of less than 250GB. That couyld also lead to shorter warranties, no? I may be wrong, but that is a perception.

 

[bbhaag]

Somehow, I am getting the impression that these humongous TB drives fail at a higher rate than our older ones of less than 250GB. That couyld also lead to shorter warranties, no? I may be wrong, but that is a perception.

I would actually agree with that. Makes sense anyway. The more moving parts you have the higher the chances are for failure. Just look at GMs DOHC 3.4l engine as an example.

 

[hhhd1]

use it as is, with the usb.

why do you need it internal ?

 

[thelastjuju]

Somehow, I am getting the impression that these humongous TB drives fail at a higher rate than our older ones of less than 250GB.

Exactly.

The higher the capacity, the faster the thing is going to die on you prematurely. Seems like 3-4gb drives are just too risky.

I don't buy drives over 1tb now that the Samsung 2tb F4 is being made in Seagate's factory under their supervision, and had its warranty chopped in THIRD.

HDD warranties are very important to me. That's why I always suggest people consider used WD Blacks off ebay with 2-4 year warranties remaining out of their total 5. Not that you'd ever even have to warranty a WD Black outside some rare cases..

But the whole point is how the warranty offered reflects the manufacturers confidence in the product. Seagate was once an industry leader here, now they have the shortest warranty around. :\

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/139489-32-seagate-introduces-year-warranty-internal-compute


(2004 link to Seagate announcing 5 yr warranties on all internal hdds) :hmm:

 

[StarTech]

As long as the drive doesn't fail before the warranty expires, you're golden.

I love the way you worded the fact that he would be voiding the warranty

 

[krnmastersgt]

use it as is, with the usb.

why do you need it internal ?

Because it has an incredibly slow start-up as an external, doesn't really fit anywhere well on my desk and the high-gloss cover is annoying as hell. I'm keeping this one as just an external, this is a back-up unit.

I'm asking if others here would pick up the 3TB external then just crack it open in place of just buying an internal for ~$30 more but have the warranty in place (though it's only 2 years now I believe). I am on the fence due to the fact that they shortened the warranty so much for such a high capacity drive but at least it has a warranty as opposed to the opening an external method :\

 

[Scoobyboo]

I would go for the internal myself.
It's only ~$30 more and at least you'll get a little bit warranty, which is better in my opinion than totally nothing.
Just my 2 cents though

 

[Blain]

I would actually agree with that. Makes sense anyway. The more moving parts you have the higher the chances are for failure. Just look at GMs DOHC 3.4l engine as an example.

The Seagate 3TB has no more moving parts than much older drives.
There have been 3 platter HDs for a long while.

What has changed is the platter density. Since moving from longitudinal recording to perpendicular, platters have been packed tighter and tighter.
The older less dense longitudinal drives were more forgiving, thus they tended to last much longer.