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Re:Farming hard drives: 2 years and $1M later by ZoFreX on Tuesday November 26, 2013 @01:28PM (#6803130)
I repair computers for friends and families and the majority of the time I get a broken external to look at, it's the enclosure that's at fault and the drive is absolutely fine.

I encourage people to buy their enclosures and drives separately - it's a little more expensive, but this way you can RMA just the enclosure if it fails. With an all-in-one, you either void your warranty to get the data back, or ship the whole unit back for a replacement.

Re:Farming hard drives: 2 years and $1M later by jotm on Wednesday November 27, 2013 @02:00PM (#6810283)
That's an interesting point, since I have a Samsung hard drive I took OUT of an enclosure and out of curiosity I checked the warranty on it - it's a 3 year warranty that is still active and the web page said I could initiate a return.

So, technically, I could RMA the drive myself if it fails... or would they notice it and not process the return?