Where do you buy optical drives?

I was looking for a new optical drive and was browsing the Egg as usual. Unfortunately it seems they've stopped having a 1-year exchange for defect policy (basically a 1 year warranty) on optical drives meaning you would have to go through the manufacturer. So with an OEM you only get 30 days warranty, on top of that finding the warranty length for retail kit drives on manufacturer websites is a royal PITA (seriously, try it some time) plus for some brands retail can be twice the price. I liked Newegg for opticals because there were always some good ones with free shipping that were decent and the 1 year Newegg exchange warranty was great.

Sooo...where is another good palce to buy optical drives?

I usually get mine at Microcenter or Fry's, though if you're wanting a return policy like that, neither of those do you any good

You'd probably have to go to a major retailer like bestbuy for that.

With that said, you'd have to pay at least twice the price of an oem drive on newegg. Unless you're dropping alot of coin on a Blu Ray drive, it's not worth it. I mean, what's $20 for a new dvd burner if it fails after a year?

It's $20 more than it used to be when Newegg had the 1 year warranty I guess I'd just been used to being reassured by their no hassle policies. It's the downside of them being so cheap - they're cheaply made too. The number of drives that last less than a year is pretty high ('worked great for 7 months then died') I guess there are a few not too expensive retail kits.

sno.lcn said:

I usually get mine at Microcenter or Fry's, though if you're wanting a return policy like that, neither of those do you any good

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Not really looking for a return policy, just a warranty. If I could find the warranty on the drive manufacturers site without feeling like I'm searching for Egyptian tomb treasure it wouldn't be so bad I think before Newegg acted as the OEM when warranting them but it must have become too much of a hassle for them to keep up with.

Maybe CC warranty protection/extension would cover these..hm

It would be different if you were purchasing a blue-ray drive, but at $20-$30, I consider DVD burners and the like to be disposable. With the cost of shipping and the hassle of filling out the forms, it just isn't worth it to me to RMA something in that price range.

I get mine from newegg usually

burningcpu said:

It would be different if you were purchasing a blue-ray drive, but at $20-$30, I consider DVD burners and the like to be disposable. With the cost of shipping and the hassle of filling out the forms, it just isn't worth it to me to RMA something in that price range.

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Yea I've said almost the same thing before. But when the option is there I use it, partly because disposing of dead drives is not simple for me. Anyway that' not really the question I asked, so far aside from B&M one person said Newegg heh, so I wanted to know if there was anywhere else that had good terms for replacements. If not I'll just suck it up and go the disposable crap way

Well I realized Newegg has replacement plan things for optical drives. I suppose that's an option but I'd have to read the terms to see.