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Why is it unreasonable to expect the customer to buy their own hard drive and back up their own data?

I think because this was part of a product recall. Apple says "hey, we screwed up, we need to replace your hard drive", so you'd think they'd provide the new one and do the back up themselves, instead of "we screwed up, you should drop $100 to fix the situation we put you in".

He really should have been backing up his own data anyway. And if you really have important data on your computer, why would you send it off to strangers to back up anyway? I'd format the drive and zero it out before returning it.

I do, but you still need to back up the last days or so right before replacing the drive. That is also why I didn't want to buy a HDD - I already have a back up solution.

That's not Apple's responsibility.

Try out hourly backups with Time Machine. The incremental backups are quick and comforting.

Except that the email (I also got one) clearly states:

Apple recommends replacing your affected hard drive as soon as possible. Before you go in for service, please back up your data. Learn more about backup options.

So instead of assuming they would do a backup for you, you should actually follow the advice from the official instructions.

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