I think it's unfair to say the drive is defective. It's still running at maximum performance despite the louder whining noise (it's not that loud anyway), there's no bad sector, in fact, there's nothing unusual about the drive. Yeah, my data in my HDD is more valuable than the HDD itself!
Well, getting louder means its bearing is somehow worn out and out of my POV that's what I'd call seriously defective, even if it's still running. A bad sector would not prevent it from running, a dead bearing would. And 'bout the "fair"-thing .. sorry, I did not mean to offend your HDD. ^^
