Discounted iMacs

I was checking the Apple Store website this evening and came across the first of the 27 inch Quad-Core i5 and i7 iMacs in the refurbished Mac section for some significant discounts.  I know I was ranting about a refurbished hard drive just last night but this is different, and as I said last night there are some cases when I don't mind buying refurbed products and this is one of them.

The Core i7 iMac is going for just $1849, a savings of $350, while the Core i5 iMac is going for $1699, a savings of $300.  Keep in mind these are both refurbished machines but they do carry the full Apple warranty as if they were purchased brand new.  

Considering just how many of the 27 inch iMacs had video problems I figured that the quad-core machines would start to show up soon in the refurb section of their website, I just wanted to see what the discounts would be.  Now that I know, I can be patient and wait for the right moment to make a purchase of one of these babies!  I figure that between now and the window of opportunity I forecast in my budget around the May/June time frame there should be more available.  For some savings like that I'll wait until I have the right combination of saved cash and the model I want showing up there.

Western Digital FAIL!

Last week I finally got my third replacement drive from Western Digital and today I finally got around to opening up the box it came in and found something that just burned up the last little shred of good will that WD may have had with me.

They shipped me a refurbished hard drive!

If it's not bad enough that the first drive failed in less than three months and I had to pay to ship the defective drive back to Western Digital.  Then I had the replacement drive fail in less than four months and AGAIN had to pay to ship that defective drive back to them.  Now I get my third drive and they ship me one that failed on someone else!  This is very much a WTF moment!

There are some things I do not mind buying refurbished, but I buy it knowing it's been refurbished.  In this case I paid for a NEW hard drive.  Not a retread from someone else!  I NEVER buy refurbed hard drives for a very good reason.  I use hard drives to store data, pictures, videos, music, and what not.  This means I want something that is reliable, hence not purchasing refurbished hard drives.  And frankly, based on my experiences with Western Digital drives recently getting a refurbed drive is not instilling a whole lot of confidence in me right now.

I've ordered an external hard drive enclosure that is due to arrive this week and my plan was to install this replacement drive into that as I'm tired of having to open up my computer case to yank out defective drives.  At this point I do not even know if I'll bother with this one.  I may call Western Digital tomorrow and let them know just how unhappy I am with them at the moment.  I'm already planning to research Lemon Laws here in North Carolina to see if I can seek any sort of relief on that front.

What really frustrates me about this whole deal is that up until last year when I started having problems with this model drive I was a fan and frequent buyer of Western Digital products.  At this point I cannot imagine buying from them ever again.