A RETAIL product will have the the drive or part, the fancy box, cables, software, and whatever other stuff the manufacturer wants to put into the box to make it more consumer friendly.
An OEM is is just the drive, nothing else.
OEM is the way to go if you can download the drivers yourself, and have the proper cables and such. Oh... and know what you are doing will help.
Also, oem will usually limit your warranty to 30 days or take it away all together, where retail could be 1 or 3 years. In some instances the retail version of a product may be better, like in my Samsung DvD/CD Rom RW combo drive. Only the retail version has 8mb cache and oem has only 2mb, and a lot of people miss this. I've seen these on eBay asking questions and getting wrong answers and/or correcting the seller. Just make sure you research the item thoughouly before purchasing to make sure you know what you are getting.
I also worry about shipping the product, if I were to buy an oem hard drive there would not be much protection while shipping (none from the manufacturer). Now I've never bought one of these so don't know if the seller compensated, but it is still something I think about.
Comments
An OEM is is just the drive, nothing else.
OEM is the way to go if you can download the drivers yourself, and have the proper cables and such. Oh... and know what you are doing will help.
I also worry about shipping the product, if I were to buy an oem hard drive there would not be much protection while shipping (none from the manufacturer). Now I've never bought one of these so don't know if the seller compensated, but it is still something I think about.