[X4U] Applecare and hard drives

[Jon Warms]

Applecare extends the hardware warranty to a total of three years.

Without any supporting data other than my own experiences,
I hypothesize that within the last two years of an Applecare
contract, something like half the laptop and mini drives will fail.
If this is true, it would seem that AC provides a useful insurance
against the cost of a likely drive replacement.

But the costs of drives are continuously going down, and their  
capacities
and performances are improving. At some point in the three years, the
price of a significantly better drive may decline even to the  
original cost
of the failed drive.

Also at some point in the three years, your hard drive is going to start
bulging at the seams, and you're going to long for a bigger drive.

Does the AC contract replace like with like? If they charge extra for a
bigger drive, how competitive is that charge? Would it be less than  
going
to a third-party to buy and install a bigger drive?

I don't know the warranty status of a new drive if you replace the
original drive with a larger one before the original drive fails
(a fairly common upgrade). Many replacement drives have two year
manufacturers' warranties but I suspect they won't cover labor.

Anyone have any experience with AC replacing a drive with a larger one?

Jon
=============
On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 11:16:42 -0700, Ted Burton <egburton at cableone.net>  
wrote:

>>  I purchased a mini the day they were announced ...
>>
>>>  Thus it was just over a year old when the hard disk died
>>>
>>
>> The Mac mini was announced January 11, 2005. So it could not have
>> been just over a year old when the hard disk died. As Jon said,
>> currently all Mac minis are still withintheir one year hardware
>> warranty.
>>
>
> Ah .. remembering the time a PowerBook hard disk died.
>
> Ergo this hard drive was within product year.
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