hard drives-oem vs retail

[ripken204]

im looking for a hard drive on newegg.com and most of the say OEM only and tyhe other say RETAIL, what is the difference and can i use either one?

[Drewdatrip]

Topic Clean up

OEM vs Retail:

-Some oem drives have limited warrenties

-Oem generally only come in static bags. No box, cables, or instructions

Side Notes:

All Maxtor drives are 1 year limited warenty retail and oem

All Western digital JB aka Special Edition drives have 3 year warenties oem or retail

Seagate oem have 3 year while their retail has 5 year (typically)

|Drew|

[ripken204]

thx again drew, so retail would be better off getting then?

[Drewdatrip]

Depends.

First off...just DONT get Maxtor.

If your getting a WD id say no..OEM and retail both get you a 3year...but if you really want the drive format tools on floppy and and ide cable, then get the Retail...but then again you will pay more.

Segate Retails generally do have thye extended 5 year however segates that DO have them are generally more expensive..and in all honestly i rarly keep drives longer then the 3 years....

However, bottem line its up to you.

|Drew|

[IcemanND]

Just be sure to verify the warranty no matter what you get. OEM and Retail are exactly the same other than warranty issues, and you normally get a cable and a disk manager with the retail box.

[SiMoNsAyS]

Just be sure to verify the warranty no matter what you get.  OEM and Retail are exactly the same other than warranty issues, and you normally get a cable and a disk manager with the retail box.

just to confirm it and add often those cables and extras from retail don't worth the money.

@Drew why don't get maxtor?

talking from my personal experience i've had 3 Maxtor HD on my home (3GB IDE66, 10GB IDE100 and 120GB SATA), no problems at all with'em

[Drewdatrip]

@Drew why don't get maxtor?

talking from my personal experience i've had 3 Maxtor HD on my home (3GB IDE66, 10GB IDE100 and 120GB SATA), no problems at all with'em 

Cause Im a tech/sales and in the past 3 years I have seen about 500% more Maxtors fail then WD or Seagate.

Just going off numbers not personal pref or brand loyality

|Drew|

[SiMoNsAyS]

ok, suggestion achieved

[Blam-O!]

I love Maxtor hard drives, and I have been a IT Computer Tech For 10 years. Although 7 years ago WD was the better one over Maxtor, and (so was IBM at the time.) But now I prefer WD first and Maxtor second.

Side Note: Maxtor has gotten a lot better over the years, while others have gotten worse... So it just depends really.

OEM hard drives are also good for saving money, since they don’t come with extra hardware, and some people don't need it. You can buy an extended warranty From WD up to 3 years I believe for about $8.00 a year for most hard drives. Some OEM Hard Drives are not the same Identical disk though. Some small differences can sometimes be seen. Theses Differences will Only affect you if you really need the Extra Performance. (Extreme Gamers, Servers, Crazy People....)

Example: Retail, 80GB, 7200RPM, 8MB buffer, ATA 100-133, 2 40GB Palters. Avg seek time 8.1ms.

Example: OEM, 80GB, 7200RPM, 2MB buffer, ATA100-133, 1 80GB Platter. Avg seek time 9.5ms.

Also sometimes Companies will use lets say, less quality parts to full-fill the order on OEM's. Not always true and there is always plenty of room for "Other", but this is just an Overview - if you will.

In the long run all hard drives die eventually, a lot depends on how it was used, and the environment it was used in, and also Maintenance on the drive, cooling, formatting, Shocks, etc........ But really any hard drive will work.

My 0.00001 cents worth.

[prathapml]

Where I live, Maxtor gives the best value for money. (i.e., good performance at a decent price)

But as said above, their failure rate seems quite high. But the saving grace is that any new hardware component will normally show any problems within the first week it is bought - after that (*touch wood*) it runs quite fine for many years.