I am very displeased with Samsung. My 750 GB drive I paid $179 a couple years ago crashed and lost quite a few files. After much fuss I finally got a replacement. It was clicking with every read or write. They finally sent another replacement and it was a "refurbished" drive. They insisted that they have the right to send refurbs as warranty replacements. After paying near $200 for a new drive a refurb is not acceptable to me. Consider with caution the purchase of Samsung products.

If you read almost any warranty, you will see that they can send you the same item, or a better item. They can also send you any type of working equipment, even used& returned stuff.

thanks for the headup

Every hard drive manufacturer does it. Samsung does it, Seagate does it, WD does it, Hitachi does it, Maxtor used to do it before they got bought out by Seagate. Occasionally they will send you a new drive, but that would be a very rare exception. In general you should always expect a refurb when you RMA your hard drives and yes, every single manufacturer will send you refurb. If you don't like getting refurbs, get an extended warranty from newegg. Personally I don't bother with the extended warranty because by the time hard drive fails it's won't be worth much. You could have picked up 1TB replacement for $50-60 today. I still RMA the drive, but I do not use RMA'ed drives for anything essential, backups maybe or give them away, I always buy new replacement for a failed drive.

My old company (now self employed) but still do work for them currently have 4 seagate "warranty repair" drives in stock.

It would be much less of a problem for the retailer if they kepts the same labels, how does the retailer get rid of them.? The only answer is to sell them as "used".

As far as the buyer is concerned, be aware that people will try to sell you stuff that they shouldnt, only ever buy new unused equipment unless you enjoy risk taking.

Essentially its the drive manufacturers that win because many dont bother returning them because of cost and hassle, others dont even realise they have a warranty, some give up after retunfing the drive a few times and keep on getting dudds. The manufacturers who treat their customers well will keep them.


Andy