What would your data be worth?
What serves a warranty when you don’t want to spend the time and energy negotiating with a company? Could this be part of the plan?
I’ve got a small collection of external hard drives. After all, the price continues to drop, and my data needs continue to rise. Crossing curves, reminiscent of a math class (bad memories). This evening, I decided to free up some space on the laptop, and found that two of the five drives did not respond. Fault of a power supply? Fault of an interface board? Fault of a drive? No easy way to tell, when I’m reluctant to devote more than a few minutes to the task.
The terms of the warranty are clear. Contact the company, send them the defective product and wait for a replacement. Note how the terms completely waive any responsibility for your (my) data. Given that there is no other reason for ever buying their product, I pause. Do I really want to “kiss my material goodbye”, in return for another chance to do the dance? Not bloody likely!
Instead, I’ll return to eBay and purchase another couple of external drive boxes (also cheaper than a good meal at a fast food restaurant). In all likelihood, the drives are fine. I’ll put the extra cost down to (bad) experience, and life will go on.
We’re into a thaw, and that means that the next round of bitter cold had better come with a lot of snow. Else, this is going to be slippery country.
I watched one of the rare outside hockey games (NHL) this afternoon, played in a wonderful storm in Buffalo. Hockey, reduced in speed, is actually entertaining. Yes, this was an “encore” from 2008, but don’t most hockey games look the same to the untrained eye?
