It is possible to avoid wasting your money and time, only if you assess abilities of measurement systems. Don't select technology without assessing. In many cases, you can see data sets measured by the candidate platform.
You probably cannot get the data as "good" as sales persons show you. But you'll very likely to get as "bad" as other researchers produced. It's worth to know "real" quality you'll get by yourself. Compare data sets from multiple platforms to select a right one that can produce data as good quality as you really need.
We help your assessment with Data Analysis Service .
Example 1: How to assess gene expression platforms?
Example 2: How to assess CGH platforms?