I just picked up a Western Digital WD3000JBRTL 300 GB internal 7200 RPM disk for home use and realized the warranty period is only 1 year. I've traditionally used Seagate with their 5 year warranty and I've been somewhat lucky to not have disk issues where my data is not recoverable even though some of my Seagates have become unreliable in less than 1 year.

So my question is: Would you gamble on a 1 year warranty or return the drive assuming it won't last much longer than 1 year?

well, you are lucky, taht you can return the drive. in my country if you bought it, you bought it, so we look at warranty before we buy it my maxtor 8324OD3 (3GB) 5600RPM just ended yesterday its serving me after 8 years. (it has got bad sectors), but information is still extractable. another maxtor (20GB 7200RPM 2MB) is still serving me fine for about
5 y. so yes i would gamble for 1 y. warranty, if it is maxtor. as for WD i hate it from 3 months ago- i got one (120GB 7200RPM 8MB) it lasted 5 month, and they didn't cover my warranty saying that i did something wrong, but at that moment i was just looking at my monitor deciding what to do with my PC, when i heard, that it stopped spinning... my pc shut off, tried to boot up, but pc did nothing... so i had to buy new one, so guess what did i buy 3 months thogh

I personally wouldn't gamble on a Maxtor, I was very lucky to get an RMA on a S-ATA 80GB DiamondMax 9 that was 2 weeks out of warranty. . . actually, I called back about 20 minutes after being refused the first time
And another 80GB Maxtor DiamondMax 9 barely lasted a year, overclockers.co.uk were very nice in sending me a DiamondMax 10 replacement, with true S-ATA

Everybody has different experiences.

But if I were you, I would backup

Backing up is a given since I have disks in other machines that I rsync my data too. The gamble is more on the financial side.

I remember a couple years ago there was specific issues with IBM Deskstar drives and was hoping to hear feedback on Western Digital good/bad experiences as they might relate to this [short?] warranty period. I've not owned anything Western Digital since their pre-3.0 GB drive days and ran Maxtor disks until the 40 GB Seagates introduced me to a quiet pc.

yes, everybody have their own experincies, but those warrantys are calculated for drive to work without any pc shutdouwn, and as i do not go to sleep as long as i do not shut down the pc, it lasts longer. my friend thogh, had his own url, so he didn't shut down his pc 24/7, but used seagates. he kept his domain about 8 years. every september his seagate went douwn. as that there where no same models as he delivered for warranty service, he had to cover the price diferences for the new one, and get new warranty period, and so happend 7 years in a row... he said that those dealers after 3rd time they where already prepared a new seagate for him...
as for dimondmax 10, i think it will last longer than 3 years, i don't know, but some how i have feeling on hardware