Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Purchased with Amazon Prime, fulfilled by Amazon, seller was Platinum Micro Inc. So I purchased 4 of these in 4tb flavor for a clients RAID array in a pinch (since a certain eggy online tech boutique has gone so abysmally downhill the past several years). SOP for my shop is hard drives get S/N checked with manufacturer before getting extended SMART testing and then finally deployment or shelved. Right off the bat, first S/N comes up short with Seagate. Oof. Second, no dice. Well, time to give the old Amazon chat a try. I got a hold of Millena with Amazon support, and to her credit, she was extremely motivated to help with this issue once it was explained to her. Eventually this led to a conference call with a Seagate rep. Now the oh so enjoyable reading of the serial numbers with foreign support. You know the deal. Eventually we muddle through and sure enough, 3 out of 4 of these drives are OEM. For those not in the know, OEM hardware must be supported through THE SELLER not the manufacturer. After pressing for an answer as to whether or not the warranty would still be honored if say the seller happens to disappear or otherwise become unavailable over the course of the warranty period, I was assured in a rather hand wavy fashion that in such a circumstance Seagate would take care of the problem. In my experience, this is rather considerate of the rep to claim as most manufacturers are going to tell you to kick rocks on an OEM product. I'd hazard a guess this MAY be different in this case if the time ever came because Amazon isn't you or I in regards to leverage in such a matter. TLDR: 3 out of 4 drives purchased were OEM products. 1 was retail. Decent chance you'll be up the creek on a defective product warranty claim which should factor heavily into your purchasing decision for such a product (such a product being a hard drive that isn't selling much higher for retail elsewhere and is also an enterprise grade storage device, so warranty is kind of a big deal).