Wouldn't the retail unit be the boxed version with the warranty card and some accessories and the oem in just a plastic shell?

For those external drives, they're packed with proper plastic or good looking boxes but not for those internal 3.5" drives that I have seen.
Best I have seen is Samsung internal drives and it also includes some screws.
Probably for the sake of cutting down the cost of producing the super-good-looking boxes or included accessories, that's why the internal drives that we bought usually only has simple static bag or just plastic shell (Samsung).
Either way still can check if it's under OEM or not, Seagate or WDC RMA check is good way to determine that.

This post has been edited by wildwestgoh: Dec 28 2013, 09:15 AM

hi guys. i want to know what is your recommendation on 4/3 tb hdd? wd or seagate. right now im using 1 tb samsung 2 tb seagate. this two hdd still works fine with me. no problem. so i really need to know your experience from using wd or seagate ^^ thanks guys.

Let me share my experience with WD, i had 2 Black 320GB, 1 500 GB, the trio was very durable but noisy, lasted me for 5 year i eventually sold them off while there was no single bad sectors or SMART error.
The nightmare started afteri bought WD Green 1 TB, Black 2TB and AV-GP 3TB, i have 5 of them all went RMA just over 12 months of usage, all have bad sectors.
the Latest one is AV-GP 3TB, just rma-ed a few weeks ago.
Now using Toshiba 3TB RAID0

I seriously doubt it.
Externals are always packed that way because they are all retail units and there are no oem versions which make sense because it would be expected for the end users to buy that product.

You can see from the warranty support info that certain products are not available like barebones externals. And there are no retail versions for the common desktop models in the AP region so the reason why all those drives come barebones is because they are barebones. Only the really old WD drives has a retail version.
http://support.wdc.com/country/country.asp?c=malaysia

My WD Green 1 TB long last one year only...the worst HDD I ever bought..

My old Maxtor 8GB...already use 13 years...still strong...never never give me trouble...

All I can say, computer parts that we buy nowadays is about luck...

Those WD hard disk dont die, problems like firmware problem(Seagate), clicks of death, or head crash; They are indeed durable, it's probably high density platter caused the high amount of bad sector developed in short time. the WD green was the most terrible drive i've had, the drives was filled with bad sectors.

My Black 2TB and AVGP only have small amount of bad sector i think, or some other problem i wasn't sure, cause the transfer rate dropped significantly out of the blue.
That's the sign of hard disk with bad sectors begin to appear.

Im want to ask,
i'm just bought new internal HDD and there is warning about do not cover any hole on the hdd,
im confius about which hole did i must not cover.

my HDD is WD Green 2TB,

i knew that there are about 3 holes that are already covered when purchased,
should i uncovered those holes before running it??

The hole is for the HDD breathing, to maintain the same air pressure with atmosphere iirc. just don't mess with your hdd sticker ect.
http://www.howtogeek.com/127433/what-is-th...on-hard-drives/

aiks...i am planning to get the black 2TB OEM, someone selling real cheap, if failure rate is high then not worth it

WD? i bought 2x 1TB Green, 2x 2TB for data backup, four HDDs also fail @ bad sectors, at the same time, my 5th drive also fail, all of them Made in Thailand.Get something else other than WD

No need to Buy the black one, they are much more expensive, performance difference is hardly noticeable, and longer warranty means nothing if the drive failed within 12months of usage. Buy green or AV-GP, buy 4 of them and run RAID 5 or 10
OH, and dont buy WD, too much fail. lol

This post has been edited by 1024kbps: Dec 29 2013, 03:56 PM

At my local retails, the only and possible options is WDC, Seagate is over-sell, not sure why, the price different does not really justify it so I went for WDC (oh well.) but goes for the AV-GP only if available, 1 more year only cost RM20~30 more depends on supplier.

As for getting the OEM drives, erm... wonder if the seller is willing to give you the serial numbers for you to check its details at WDC support, just to make sure it's really OEM unit, and if it's OEM then you need to refer back to seller if there is any problem, quite risky I would say, you never know when will it fail and the seller already not more to be found by then.

AV-GP to run RAID5/10, erm, kinda risky setup since the drives is not intended for such, RED is designed for this instead.
As for the Made, lots of Seagate parts from Thailand as well, so it's all just darn luck. Constant monitoring and experience can really save lots of precious data; my WDC Black went dark after only 4 years, just suddenly the wallpaper appear corrupted, and then I cannot access the drive normally (really slow), I ran HDDScan and it's really a darn sectors, I quickly turn off the whole PC, unplug and buy a new HDD just to clone over all data (corrupted or not don't care first, just ignore!). Then used the WDC Diagnostic tools, wipe, scan, fail, RMA, that's it!

As for experience, I faced with 3 drives from Samsung before they acquired by Seagate (HD204UI), all have same situations, and forced me to buy new HDDs just to backup the data, lucky enough to copy them all before it went dark, talk about luck... wonder when will my luck end.
Oh, I think 1 did went dark before I can copy out the data, half way through and it just EOL, lucky the anime that I lost can be easily obtain through a darn good community (BakaBT) so I got back the 1.6TB in few months time... tough luck!!

thanks for the story maybe i will stick with seagete for now

another WD Black user here...Had RMA a WD 1TB just after 1 and half year of usage
Really need to pray to god so that they can be as lasting as my good old 60GB laptop HDD (touchwood).

WD Black 1TB user here, use it for BT for 5 years non stop. still running strong.

Like I posted earlier, from the warranty info, AP doesn't seem to have retail version for caviar green/blue except for really old pata models. The only retail versions are for externals.
http://support.wdc.com/country/country.asp?c=malaysia

in 2008 this I'm using Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 750gb & dead, then seagate report that all that series HDD have factory defect & can be return for waranty. From 750gb only 40gb was free space & if i return all my DATA will gone!!!! that drive still with me even waranty gone, call 3rd party data rec ctr, need RM600 for that. $$$$$

From that day no more seagate in my list.

Now I'm use 2TB WD Green as primary & 3TB WD Green as logical.

Tips, when you buy hdd, check DOM (date of manufacture), if you buy more than 1 make sure all date is same.

Also you must know what data will be store in yr HDD and offcoz to store movie blu-ray(2gb above) file is not same like you safe *.doc file.

more speed (rpm) HDD more heat will present.

sorry too long writing with bad inggeris.

This post has been edited by wane_gamok: Dec 31 2013, 12:31 AM

owh thanks guys. BTW im using old mobo. how i can know my motherboard can support 3 tb or more for data not for BOOT?

1. If mobo support AHCI, UEFI is optional
2. OS is Vista, or newer
3. 64bit OS, optional, but 64bit + EFI is require for support booting from GPT.
IF mobo too old, like from 2008 or older, you may have trouble using the 3TB drive, you can always email the mobo maker, before buying the 3TB hard disk.

for reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/218619en
http://www.pcworld.com/article/235088/ever...ard_drives.html

As long as you don't use it for boot drive (install Windows, Linux, etc.), it's fine to use 3TB as a whole volume/partitions on any systems (legacy or new).
If you insist on use it for boot drive then you need to do some reading on 1024kbps posted links.