Differences in hard drives

M

McDork

Gawd
Joined
Nov 13, 2007
Messages
589
I am starting my first build, and I need to know what the differences are between a bare hard drive and a retail hard drive. What does the retail version have that the bare drive doesn't?
 
Retail drive will come with a manual, sata cables, maybe a drivers disk or something of that nature .... bare is just the hdd
 
If you're buying a new motherboard, you can go with an OEM hard drive. Any software that's provided by the retail package can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website.
 
a new motherboard will come with all the sata cables you need to hook up the drive. OEM is the way to go cause it easily saves you money.
 
tiraides said:
If you're buying a new motherboard, you can go with an OEM hard drive. Any software that's provided by the retail package can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website.
Click to expand...
What software would I need to download?
 
Depends on the manufacturer.

But in most cases, the software isn't needed -- it's unnecessary for installing the hard drive/OS.
 
I would only be careful of packaging on OEM drives from certain e-tailers. This may be improving, by some accounts, but Newegg was developing a bit of a reputation for poorly packaged (ergo, damaged) OEM drives.
 
one thing that retail drives also come with, usually, is a better (longer) warranty than OEM disks

questian: do I even want to ask for the story behind the "damaged OEM drives" statement? haha

-bob
 
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Thanks for the help everybody. I'm just starting to plan my build, so I'm sure I'll have more questions.
 
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