Western Digital Understands Warranties

   I have a hard drive which seems to be going bad on me.  It's a Western Digital SATA drive.  So far, no data loss but the drive has a tendency to disappear after my computer has been on for a long time.  It also tends to start making a clicking noise during the BIOS RAID screen during a warm reboot.  Needless to say, a clicking hard drive that just stops underneath the OS is not something I want vital data on for long.  The drive is still under warranty so I head to the Western Digital web site to figure out how I need to handle the warranty.  Right off the support page there is a link to check on the warranty status of a drive.  Just type in the serial number and it will tell you when the warranty expires.  Slick.  I type that in and find out I have about 9 months left.  Good.  Now, to get an RMA to return this.  Often this is like pulling teeth.  Call someone, send an e-mail to customer service and just hope they pay attention, post to a web forum and wait for a response, these are all options I have had to do in the past.  Not for Western Digital.  Right on the check warranty results page is a box to type in the reason for the return.  They don't seem to really care because they only give you 30 characters to type.  After that, you pick a few options about how you want your return handled and you are done.  Shortly you are notified with an automated e-mail to your account with the RMA number and tracking information.  They'll even ship the new drive before you return the old one.  How cool is that?  I've dealt with my share of warranties over the years but this one is by far the easiest and best to date.  They don't try to hold a profit margin up by making warranty service hard.  The drive only costs $70 these days so their entire profit margin would be eaten up in just one phone call anyway.  Instead, they just let you return it.  No hassle.  Kudos to Western Digital for truly making the customer king.