HD warranty... 3 vs 5 years. Does it really matter?

Richdog

Richdog

Richdog

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I've been looking at getting a 1TB drive to replace my numerous smaller ones, and have been torn between the new Samsung F1 drive which is the fastest around due to the new platter tech but with a 3 year warranty... or a slower and tecnically inferior Seagate 7200.11 with the longer 5 year warranty. My heart is crying out for the Samsung but i'm just a bit put off about the shorter 3 year warranty, as on a 1TB drive I think this might be important due to their cost and the amount of data they hold.

I can't remember ever keeping a HD for longer than 3 years, but I guess with a larger drive I might do. So... does the warranty REALLY matter, and should it be a major factor in a 1TB drive purchase? Discuss. :)
 
You know i dont think it has an easy answer as in 3 years time that 1tb drive will be a complete turd anyway. yet i bought seagate drives because of the 5 year warranty in the past.

i think the key point here is does performance really matter? if not, might as well just get the 5 year warranty IMO. but -2 years warranty would be a good trade off if performance was important.
 
I found if the drive is faulty, it'll fail in the first couple of months. Then after that it'll last years. Although I guess if you're buying the largest capacity drive now, in a few years 1TB is still plenty. So if it did fail in 4 years then I guess happy you're still covered, but then I guess it's unlikely to fail anyway.
 
if its a drive for storage of data only ,get the longer warranty however if the drive is going to be used for the OS or other things where performance is important get the drive with the higher performance rating
 
Yeah it will be solely used for data storage... movies, music, apps etc etc. I guess performance isn't THAT important as it won't be doing much traffic besides downloading or swapping to a USB drive. Hmm...
 
if performance isn't a concern consider the WD RE2 drives, enterprise class drives with 5yr warranty and no doubtedly more reliable than either the samsung or seagate 1TB's.

they're actually no performance slouches either despite the 5.4k rpm
 
for me, it doesnt really matter. i mean a 5 year warranty on a drive? what does that mean? If it fails after 4 years 10 months you either get the same class drive back (unlikely as probably wont be made anymore) or whatever the lowest end drive is at that point that they can give you that equals or exceeds your original.

what would make a warranty worthwhile is if they backed it up with data recovery. that to me would show confidence in their product.
 
marscay said:
if performance isn't a concern consider the WD RE2 drives, enterprise class drives with 5yr warranty and no doubtedly more reliable than either the samsung or seagate 1TB's.

they're actually no performance slouches either despite the 5.4k rpm
Click to expand...

Hmm I read the huge and detailed review on them over at Tech Report and they are pretty much the slowest drive they tested, in several departments. While performance isn't the highest priority, I can imagine it causing a biof time on large transfers etc.

tomos said:
for me, it doesnt really matter. i mean a 5 year warranty on a drive? what does that mean? If it fails after 4 years 10 months you either get the same class drive back (unlikely as probably wont be made anymore) or whatever the lowest end drive is at that point that they can give you that equals or exceeds your original.

what would make a warranty worthwhile is if they backed it up with data recovery. that to me would show confidence in their product.
Click to expand...

Hmm yeah I hear you, and when all is said and done if the drive dies i'll still have lost my lovely data regardless of warranty. Backups will be essential with any 1TB drive. I'm really leaning towards the Samsung for the performance/speed/quietness aspects of it... I guess I can live with a 3 year warranty. :)
 
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