Wow WD 250 Gb Sata Hard Drive $59

[mylanta]

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp?ref=CJ&pfp=cat3&product_code=338173&Pn=Caviar_SE16_250GB_Hard_Drive

[Dan18960]

I wish CompUSA would list the warranty (of course then they would not have the opportunity to try to sell you THEIRS!).

[mylanta]

WD's are all 3 years now except for Raptors that are 5 years...

[casey]

Newegg has the same drive for $119.99. It is the same number drive but only has a 1 year warranty. It seems that the OEM 's get 3 years and the retail only 1 year. At Least that's what Newegg has them at.

[Dan18960]

Newegg has the same drive for $119.99. It is the same number drive but only has a 1 year warranty. It seems that the OEM 's get 3 years and the retail only 1 year. At Least that's what Newegg has them at.

Hmmm, usually it is the other way around - OEM are 1 year and Retail is 3 - 5 years. Strange!:confused:

[mylanta]

Something funny is going on and I think the "oem" term here is being confused.
"Oem" to me in a drive means it is licensed and sold by someone else i.e. Dell in which case the drive must be returned to Dell, and "lotsa luck if you bought it on ebay".....Zip Zoom sells all "bare drives" and they are simply a retail drive without the box and have the 3-5 year warranties spelled out, but the heading is "oem".
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/Service/OEM.jsp
I guess we need to be very careful here as they are playing games and saw this on Maxtor recently as well with 3 year warranty on oem and 1 year on retail.I must admit I have always thought the boxed versions were specially produced junk for retail "brick and mortars" anyway,which is how they can give them away every 6th week with rebates and the like selling the drive for less than the box costs to make.But since I never buy in them, I wouldn't really know!
You know a thought just hit me and that is when I stopped buying drives in stores, that also coincided with the last hard drive I ever had go down also. More ammunition!

[casey]

I seemed to remember we had a discussion about this before. I also thought it was funny that the retail box was 1 year and yet the bare OEM was 3 years. But after checking it out, that is the way it was. Seagate has the 5 years on retail and OEM(bare drives).

[mylanta]

yeah I think we played this record on Maxtor drives a while back....but now I am thinkijg I had a different idea of what oem meant then as I wrote above. Curiosity why newegg says 1 year though and Zipzoom says 3 and they are both shipping "bare drive".

[casey]

yeah I think we played this record on Maxtor drives a while back....but now I am thinkijg I had a different idea of what oem meant then as I wrote above. Curiosity why newegg says 1 year though and Zipzoom says 3 and they are both shipping "bare drive".
__________________


Newegg on says 1year on the retail box hard drives and 3 years on the bare OEM drives. I always thought OEM was Original Equipment Manufacturer. I just came back from Best Buy and Circuit city. The retail boxes all have 1 year warrantys. Even the notebook hard drives.

I think our conversation was about WD and I had seen somewhere that they had a 1year warranty for retail and 3 year for OEM and it was commented on outside of KH. I was surprised and posted to find out if it was true.

[Dan18960]

So basically sale schmale - PURCHASE the warranty because you KNOW they aren't putting their best foot forward on a 1 YEAR warranty drive.

:croc:

[mylanta]

Exactly Dan like I always thought. The come-on's in "brick&mortars" are all secondary promo crap...that's where they clear the junk. Nice deal no need to have outlets near canadian border like cloting mfgrs do, they can do it in every major city! Then they suck you in with phoney rebates. I was in retail for many years and the game the hardware guys played was i.e. make a TV to look exactly like Model XYZ but then cut the guts out of it..and add an "S" to the model number. I.E.take out the bass and treble controls, no one would ever notice that and they save bucks doing it. Then run it on sale as if it's the same thing. Same deal department stores do. Have a garment made for you for $10, put it out as $40 and if you sell any at $40 you are ahead then take it to 20% then 40% and finally at 50% it hits normal markup...the small shop owner cannot do that as their $20 garment is legit markup. That's what all these "super stores" are doing to you guys that sucker into the BB and Circuit City's and buy marked up promos with rebates and the like at normal prices when they are done with you.

[casey]

$59.99
SAVE $80 after:
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Rich,

The hard drive you are showing here is the same hard drive you would get if you went to a store. In fact Compusa is a store and that is the same hard drive you would get at BB or CC. So I really don't get your point.

[casey]

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Western Digital - 250GB Internal Serial ATA Hard Drive (http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7615967&type=product&productCategoryId=pcmcat33200050001&id=1130985130674) WD2500KSRTL
Serial ATA interface; SecureConnect connection; data transfer rate up to 300MB/sec; 16MB buffer


This is the same drive according to the numbers as the one Compusa has and this one is at Best Buy.

[casey]

While reading a different forum I just happened on this and it sure opened my eyes. Not sure I ever checked this close on the oem drives.

This guy bought a seagate 300GB Sata and when he got home saw that the box and the drive were different. The
box was a300-9 and like he said he was happy to see a 300-10 inside. But when he checked seagate to see what warranty the drive had he got this:

The product you identified was sold as a system component. Please contact your place of purchase for service. Seagate sells many drives to direct OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) customers. These products are usually configured for the OEMs only, as components for their systems. You must contact your place of purchase for any warranty support on these drives.
If you purchased this unit directly from Seagate, please return to the previous page and verify your Seagate customer number, because the customer number you entered () does not match our records.


Now he's worried if he has any problems will the drive be covered...

[mylanta]

While reading a different forum I just happened on this and it sure opened my eyes. Not sure I ever checked this close on the oem drives.

This guy bought a seagate 300GB Sata and when he got home saw that the box and the drive were different. The
box was a300-9 and like he said he was happy to see a 300-10 inside. But when he checked seagate to see what warranty the drive had he got this:



Now he's worried if he has any problems will the drive be covered...



Now you are starting to see what I know has to be out there...I spent 35 years in retailing.

[casey]

All I was trying to do was show you the difference between OEM and Retail....

[mylanta]

All I was trying to do was show you the difference between OEM and Retail....

Well there is more than one difference and they do "bait and switch" you in the B&M's.