Ref warranty. Why I'm not particuarly concerned over 3 yr vs 5 yr warrenty.
The reason may simply be a cost reduction, especially with the finanally challeging times. For example say the know the drive should last 6 years, it cost them more to sell with a 5 Year warrenty than the same drive 3 year warrenty. It has to do with the stock levels of parts that are required maintain. Use to repair TVs, needed to replace a Picture tume for a customer so when to the warehouse and bought one. They brought it out set it on the counter. The price for the boob tube depended on the lenght of warrenty. Exact same tube was 40% higher with a 5 year warrent than with a 3 yr warrenty.
WHAT I am concerned about is that Seagate continued to sell a defective (-11) drive and tried to downplay the problem! the -12 looks like a return to a quality product - BUT insuffient same number/and lenght of time on the market to verify.
Only 24 newegg reviews on the -12's, But only 2 (8%) = 1 egg, Both for DOA's which could be do to poor handling/shipping as I seen a rise of comments to this effect (Other drives included). Disregared the 1 (4$) = 2 eggs as I think he was refering to a -11. said he owned it for 7 Months - don't think they have been out that long.
The WD black 640 G (32 M cache) is probably a safer choice. 240 Reviews, 15 (6%) = 1 egg & 4 (2%) = 2 eggs. Same comment on pis***poor packaging.
In terms of performance - I think the Seagate -12 wins. Have not seen any reviews comparing the -12 750Gig 32 Meg cache to the WD 640 w/32 Meg cache.
Here is more info in a Toms' thread. Unfortunatly it compares a single platter / 16 Meg cache to the WD 640, 2 platter, 32 meg cache.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/forum2.php?config=tomshardwareus.inc&cat=32&post=248630&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0"e_only=0&new=0&nojs=0