The first Hitachi Deskstar 2TB 5K3000 drive I bought arrived DOA for whatever reason (not recognized by the BIOS or OS).  Perhaps it was shipping since I bought only 1 hard drive.  When I bought 4 through another Vendor, all 4 checked out fine.

I was worried about the RMA process because a lot of people have complained about Hitachi taking weeks to send out their hard drive and almost implied the warranty is useless.

I'm happy to report that my experience was great and quite easy.  Hitachi's system e-mailed me and their on-line status shows the progress of the RMA, whether or not they received the drive, and if they've shipped a new one back.

RMA number: 3xxxxxxx

The returned defective hard disk drive was received and the replacement hard disk drive was shipped.

RMA issued on 2011-09-09

Defective hard disk drive received on 2011-09-14

Replacement hard disk drive sent on 2011-09-15

Here's a convenient link to Hitachi's RMA Process

http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/site/en/support/warranty/

Step 2 is handy to lookup your warranty status (shows if the product is under warranty and when it expires).