<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On Apr 17, 2007, at 10:15 AM, ryan patterson wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV><BLOCKQUOTE class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><BR> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR>A five year warranty is not marketing. A five year warranty is a five year warranty. I can't talk about seagate in particular, but I have gotten six different hard drives replaced under warranty. I switched to SCSI years ago primarily because of the longer warranty for SCSI drives. The longer warranty is the primary reason why SCSI is more expensive not hardware cost. For a harddrive that will be powered on as much as a MythTV drive the longer warranty is very important. <BR></BLOCKQUOTE><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>For you it apparently is. For me, if an 80 or 120GB drive that I had purchased 3 or 4 years ago failed I would just replace it with a larger one, even if it was still "under warranty". It's just not worth the hassle, plus the shipping cost, for a drive I could buy today for $35. The shipping might cost me $20 so I would be "saving" $15 in order to get an obsolete small-capacity drive, just not worth it. Remember too, if you read your warranty, that the maker has the right to "replace" your drive with a used one, not a new one, and you do not get any additional warranty beyond your original purchase.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Today's 500GB drives might be different, but I doubt it. I suspect that in 3 to 5 years they will be available just as cheaply as the 80-120GB units today.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>There might be factors that change this picture. Small form-factor drives carry a price premium, and if you are outside the USA the financial situation might well be different.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>There are certainly differences between high-end SCSI drives and consumer IDE/SATA units other than the warranty. You could start with a 15,000 RPM rotational speed. If you wish to believe the differences are only in the warranty then there's not really much I can do to change that belief though.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If you have had to replace 6 drives under warranty I'd seriously consider another vendor.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>The bottom line is that I don't want a warranty replacement, I want a drive that doesn't need to be replaced, and I'm happy to pay for that.</DIV></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>Brian Wood</DIV><DIV><A href="mailto:beww@beww.org">beww@beww.org</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>