Kalab wrote:I never had a Samsung drive fail on me yet, so I am not too bothered. The drive's capacity usually becomes redundant before any failure at any rate. Scan give the following details of warranty for these drives:
Duration: 36 months
Type: Direct
DOA Period: 28 days
RTB Period: 1 months
So I don't really understand the warranty issue. I would rather by a Samsung HD than a Western Digital or Seagate, both of which have failed for me. The Z4s cannot be refurbished, I can't believe that. I bought them as new.
As long as Scan is in business, you are fine, they are a very good reseller (I often buy from them). This is just an issue for the Samsung drives, and in the UK only. OEM doesn't mean refurbished or second hand, it means they come from a stock which is not meant to be bought by the end user (like a stock from Dell, or a stock from another country).
I used to buy WD, but not anymore given all the problems I had with the EADS series, and the fact that when they send you a replacement, it may be compatible or not depending on the f/w.
So I agree with you, if you're in the market for > 1TB drives at a reasonable cost, I would avoid Seagate or WD at the moment, and I'd rather buy Samsung drives, which is exactly what I did. The Samsung do have a good reliability reputation, but when I buy 8 drives it is not unusual for me to get at least one DOA, sometimes two.
This Samsung warranty thing is UK specific, and not a problem if you don't mind having no warranty if your reseller goes bust. I do, which is why I suggested for buyers to check before buying if they mind too.
I still have some WD-1000FYPS which are a bit more than 3 years old, I still use them as backup drives, and I will get them replaced by WD should they fail within the next 2 years, whether the reseller I bought them from is still in business or not (in fact, I don't even need to remember who the reseller was).
Also, I prefer to send the drives directly to the manufacturer as it means I will get a faster turnaround. Although Scan are very good, they do take some time to check the drives, while I want to get a replacement ASAP to protect my RAID array. Some manufacturers - like WD - even offer an advanced RMA, where they send the new drive before even receivng the defective one, which is great if you have a drive with a growing number of bad sectors, but if it hasn't failed yet. That way you really minimise the downtime of the redundancy in your array, and the risk of losing your data.
