off topic but -
speaking of warranties I would advise you have a really excellent backup method for you laptop, preferably not just an external hard drive kept in the same backpack - mine was stolen in med school
med school, middle of a busy rotation, is the last time you want a presentation, etc to be gone
loss of data vs loss of device tends to be the real issue to worry about
I kept my med school papers and presentations, often I was able to recycle them in various ways (not in a cheating/plagiarism way, just saying)
IF YOU WANT DETAILS
-comp geeks have a saying, "if the data doesn't exist in triplicate, it doesn't exist." Doesn't have to be every file you own, just the ones you can't bear to live without
-ideal is to have a backup in the Cloud, an off-site backup (why I said not in the same location as your comp), and a 3rd option (possibly an "on-site" back up, this often allows for more data backup for less $ than Cloud, and is more quickly accessed than the off-site back-up). Some might consider the device itself as being your 3rd data copy.
-the Cloud isn't bad, just consider space, money, and how stable the company is, it's possible for a Cloud service to go kaput, hence the need for other backup, there are options & software that will auto backup your data. This is best because the #2 issue for data besides not having a backup method is having a service that just wasn't used.
-you can set up an external hard drive, and set it up to do this automatically. 2 ways:
-a pre-made external drive such as one by Western Digital or Seagate, can be easier to configure for auto-backup, and some come with some amount of Cloud storage as well -HOWEVER- the drives are built so that the enclosure itself, the bridge between the drive and your computer, auto-encrypts your data. This means if something does wrong with the enclosure, but not the drive, (the most common scenario, how many times did you have an electronic that was essentially dead via the micro/usb connection??) you cannot pop out the drive and recover your data. These have been termed "Terminator" drives as they can be a dead end for your data. In conjunction with another backup method this may be fine, but just beware.
-for about $5-20 more than a premade version, about ~$160 I was able to build a 4 TB external drive using a WD Blue desktop drive & an Armer enclosure with a fan (I used the one with the temp sensor but there's one slightly cheaper just as good). I highly recommend a fan because heat is the ultimate enemy of all electronics. You're going to be a doctor, read online how to put one together, that year of physics you did, more than prepares you to handle this all correctly and not short the drive. You could save money with a smaller drive, but 4 TB is the cheapest per TB cost, and these drives have a lower failure rate than ones that are larger (the 8TB drives are not likely to be of benefit for your purposes, they are archival and not meant to be written/re-written as often as you likely need to backup/update your data files). The benefit to building as I did, is that this drive can always be popped out for any IT work it may ever need, it was economical compared to any other method especially for the size. You might not need this much space (I have tons of TV & comics on it), but they say in computers buy more space than you need, you often end up needing it. Desktop drives can often be reused in various ways.
-you will have to get more clever than me in setting up plugging in and auto-backup, which can be done with software, some of which is free online, otherwise this method is manual
-you could get fancier and more expensive with NAS or DAS, the setup above isn't NAS so don't leave them on all the time if they are your main backup unit.
