{ I use IBM as a reference
here only because my lawyer has a real crazy idea that money
grows on trees }
IBM is one of if not the largest
manufacturer and distributor of hard drives in north America
if not the world. They control a happy 60% of the market maybe
more.
When IBM manufactures hard drives,
they like all manufacturers have good ones and bad ones. In fact,
they separate these units into three categories. Tier 1, 2, and
3.
You probably know where this
is going...
Tier 1 - drives are pre-ordered mostly for
internal IBM requests for things like their own computer systems
like the IBM Aptiva and the like. Dell, Gateway and other Clone
resellers also put in orders for for these drives as well as
many government offices for use in mission critical applications.
As you guessed it, these drives have the fewest errors and are
in mint condition, almost perfect. If you call up IBM and ask
to purchase a Tier 1 drive, you are not going to be offered any
discount, and you're most likely going to pay full retail. These
drives have a return rate of almost nothing. About 0.1% of these
drive ever fail.
Tier 2 - drives are sold to resale outlets
like Costco, CompUSA, On-line resellers like Buy.com and others.
These drive are the largest lot of this 3 tier system. You most
likely have a Tier 2 drive in your system right now. The tier
2 drive will most likely not fail at all. They have a return
rate of about 4%. Tier 1 and tier 2 are also referred to as boxed
units in the CPU world.
Tier 3 - drives are the bottom feeders. They
are the ones that these clone shops sell in the window. They
have a return rate of an estimated 20%. They will most likely
work just fine... for a while... but chances are, you're going
to be sending that puppy back real soon. Most likely 1 day after
that tail-light warranty.
Get the picture?
