At 03:41 PM 13/05/2007, Greg Sevart wrote:
for a given model, there is no difference in reliability or quality between a drive sold with a 1 year warranty vs. one sold with a 3 or 5 year warranty. A good example is WD: internal retail packaged drives, regardless of model*, carry a one-year warranty, where the OEM models carry a three-year warranty.
That should be true. Assuming that the JB retail really is the same model as the JB OEM. One would assume so, but there is no way of being sure.
And just for clarification...as of July 2005, WD's OEM BB drives carry a 3 year warranty, same as JB, JD, KS, AAxx, etc.
Well, don't buy one, regardless . :)
Thane, you also mentioned that most of the failures you see are in big-vendor boxes...is it possible that those machines outfitted with WD's JB series drives are also mounted better, or ventilated better, or are fitted with a better PSU? I don't know one way or another, just suggesting the possibility that there could be additional variables at play here.
We carried (for about three months) the BB line for people who wanted a cheaper drive. We had about a 50% failure rate on these (out of about 40 drives.) Perhaps it was lack of surge protection, poor cooling (although Google's reports discounts overheating as a failure factor) or mounting, but I'd still be concerned.
T
