IMO your better off buying OEM drives and putting them into an external enclosure. Longer warranty, easier to salvage a damaged drive, and if the electronics in the enclosure go bad, you can just get a new one (vs. sending the drive back and risk losing data).
I'll have to keep an eye peeled this weekend for Black Friday specials. It might be nice to have a couple of extra new drives in the closet in case of an emergency, especially if it's going to be a year or more before things get ironed out.