RMA - Retailer or Manufacturer?

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

Have a 200Gb Maxtor Drive for a system build which is basically DOA, throwing up errors in the Maxtors utilities and says its time to RMA it.

It was bought from Dabs but would I be better going through Dabs or straight to Maxtor for the replacement? I'm thinking Maxtor but is there anyone with any experience that could shed light on the situation?

[dodgybob]

I don't know how good Dabs are these days at returns but about 3 years ago I had a faulty CD-RW drive from them and it took them months to replace it. But that may have been down to stock issues as I bought a 32x drive and the eventual replacement was a 52x drive. I think it was the time when speeds were shooting up and stock was changing rapidly so they never had a direct replacement available and bit the bullet in the end sending me the 52x drive.

I had a couple of faulty seagate 120gb sata drives in the summer from microdirect which were pretty much DOA and they replaced them in house very quickly as they were recent purchases like yours. So I guess it might be worth trying Dabs as they are recent purchases although I'm quite new here so I'd wait until someone more senior advices you. Good luck with replacements

[skattrd]

I always RMA straight to the manufaturer - Maxtors RMA is in Ireland and the service is quite quick, my last RMA to them was under 2 weeks turn around, which is not bad.

https://www.maxtor.com/en/support/service/rma/create/

They also do an "Advance RMA" where they will send you a new drive before they receive and test the faulty one (they require cc details for this but don't charge it unless they don't receive the drive within 30 days) received an advanced drive from them in 2 days last time

edit: just seen, you're in N.Ireland, RMA to Maxtor would prob be quicker than dabs then.

[RoGuE|SaBeR]

Ta for the info