Western Digital and Seagate reducing warranties on HDDs

[Gigantopithecus]

DailyTech article.

Great. Western Digital's Scorpio Blue, Caviar Blue, and Caviar Green lines will have 2 instead of 3 year warranties and Seagate's Momentus, Barracuda, and Barracuda Greens will go from 5 to 1 year.

Welcome to the duopoly.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

I'd be hesitant to purchase one of the drives with the downgraded warranty, odds are they were shortened for a reason.

Thankfully due to both the increase in hard drive prices and SSD price drops they are finally starting to become cost effective as storage drives.

 

[Gigantopithecus]

I'd be hesitant to purchase one of the drives with the downgraded warranty, odds are they were shortened for a reason.

I don't think it's due to the quality of the drives. I would be more willing to believe it's due to:
1. WD & Seagate not wanting to keep such large stockpiles of legacy drives for warranty purposes.
2. Quality/reliability/durability on the mass storage drives is already lower than what smaller capacity drives were a few years ago IMHO.
3. They're doing it because they can, and they'll simply make more money. $40 500GB, $50 1TB HDDs, and $60 2TB HDDs before the floods were likely not yielding the margins these companies wanted...

 

[Burner27]

So a drive purchased before December 31, 2011 will retain its warranty (Let's say you purchased one with a 5 year warranty), but drives purchased after 12/31/2011 will come with the new warranty policy-correct?

They won't 'reduce' your warranty on a drive purchased before 12/31/2011, correct?

 

[Gigantopithecus]

So a drive purchased before December 31, 2011 will retain its warranty (Let's say you purchased one with a 5 year warranty), but drives purchased after 12/31/2011 will come with the new warranty policy-correct?

They won't 'reduce' your warranty on a drive purchased before 12/31/2011, correct?

Correct.

 

[corkyg]

I don't think it's due to the quality of the drives. I would be more willing to believe it's due to:
1. WD & Seagate not wanting to keep such large stockpiles of legacy drives for warranty purposes.
2. Quality/reliability/durability on the mass storage drives is already lower than what smaller capacity drives were a few years ago IMHO.
3. They're doing it because they can, and they'll simply make more money. $40 500GB, $50 1TB HDDs, and $60 2TB HDDs before the floods were likely not yielding the margins these companies wanted...

Agree! Not only because they can, but because they need to in order to make up for lost revenue. That is their fiduciary duty and obligation.

 

[fuzzymath10]

Seems like many drives fail quite soon (from out of box to maybe a few weeks) or pretty much run forever (i.e. becomes useless capacity before it fails) so doesn't sound like a huge loss. I suppose the five year warranties were nice to have (I have two Seagates supported with 5 year warranties)

 

[Rvenger]

My WD Blue from May 2008 had a 1 year warranty. I found that out last week

 

[bryanW1995]

So a drive purchased before December 31, 2011 will retain its warranty (Let's say you purchased one with a 5 year warranty), but drives purchased after 12/31/2011 will come with the new warranty policy-correct?

They won't 'reduce' your warranty on a drive purchased before 12/31/2011, correct?

My understanding is that it's based upon the manufacture date, so they'll actually be selling identical drives with different warranty side by side for a while.

 

[Elixer]

Seems like many drives fail quite soon (from out of box to maybe a few weeks) or pretty much run forever (i.e. becomes useless capacity before it fails) so doesn't sound like a huge loss. I suppose the five year warranties were nice to have (I have two Seagates supported with 5 year warranties)

I just got done with a RMA to seagate on one of those 5 year drives, and I had it for about 4 years, but it failed on about year 3, but I just now got around to shipping it back to them.
Lots of things are changing with them, before, they would send the drive back in a big box with tons of foam padding all around (2" thick foam). Now, they send the drive back in a really small box, with no foam or anything but the plastic support "bookends" type thingy.
The warranty of the 'recertified' drive is now only 90 days, so you end up losing your remaining warranty from the HD you bought as well.

Lots of cost cutting going on with them.

 

[greenhawk]

Welcome to the duopoly.

Crap

Caviar Blue not a issue as WD has basically been leaving that out in the rain as it's sizes were not moving very fast. IIRC Green and black got to 2TB way way way before blue got to 1TB.

I went away from seagate when they dropped from 5 to 3 years (I was reasonably happy paying the extra for the longer warrenty).

Now though, with seagate going to 1 year, WD is still better, but not by much

guessing I will not be buying new drives if I can help it for a long time (or find some enterprise grade drives that are at a good value).

 

[greenhawk]

1. WD & Seagate not wanting to keep such large stockpiles of legacy drives for warranty purposes.

That was not a issue before. Both have always just upgraded the customer when their was no stock for RMA. Does not seem like a reason to change that policy.

edit: though from reading the link, the excuess given for dropping the warrent is rather crappy since most of those you could say are using "industry standard" are OEM buyers so have no direct warrenty compariable to the manufacture. Unless that is the point and the manufactures do not want to deal with the end users directly. Just sell everything though places like dell.

 

[pitz]

I don't see the big deal. If you want a longer warranty with your $80 hard drive, simply buy a pair of them, or stick the money in the bank.

Remember, it wasn't too long ago when a decent entry-level hard drive was $300-$400. I still have a 320gb drive that's under warranty here (Seagate) -- when 2Tb drives were $70, if it were to have failed, would it really have made a lot of sense to RMA a 4.5-year-old hard drive (at a shipping cost of $20 + gas + time), or to simply go out and buy a new one?

 

[Blain]

Warranty periods seem to be one of the least important features for people around here.
Price & benchmark performance come in a clear 1st and 2nd.

 

[code65536]

Warranty periods seem to be one of the least important features for people around here.

That's because, like all things, warranties have diminishing marginal values. Looking at extreme examples, most people would not care about adding an extra year to a five-year warranty. But most people would care about adding an extra year to a zero-year warranty (where your only recourse is a 30-day store return).

I am mostly indifferent between a thee- and five-year warranty. But a warranty of just one year? That's unacceptable. I have seen plenty of drives fail after one year. And keep in mind that this is from the date of manufacture, so you may have lost several months from the drive sitting in a warehouse or store shelf.

And isn't it interesting how WD and Seagate announced these reductions almost simultaneously, to take effect at virtually the same time? Collusion is so much easier when you effectively only have one competitor.

 

[beginner99]

Remember, it wasn't too long ago when a decent entry-level hard drive was $300-$400. I still have a 320gb drive that's under warranty here (Seagate) -- when 2Tb drives were $70, if it were to have failed, would it really have made a lot of sense to RMA a 4.5-year-old hard drive (at a shipping cost of $20 + gas + time), or to simply go out and buy a new one?

This. but i guess it might not be true in the future. heck i bought a 2 TB drive for like 99.- in summer and now they are about 180.-

 

[greenhawk]

Warranty periods seem to be one of the least important features for people around here.

depends on what you are after.

If a performance drive, I want a reasonable price and reliability that businesses pay for.

Personally, a short warrenty tells me the company has no faith in their product, so why should I buy if even the manufacture has no faith in it (ie: the one person/group/business that should all the data about the drive).

edit: as to the 1 year. Not sure about other countries, but in this one it is a legal requirement for 12 months from sale (but as most do not bother to keep the receipt, it falls back to date of manufacture). A seller only doing the bear minimum is not setting itself apart as someone that wants my business.

 

[Blain]

Warranty periods seem to be one of the least important features for people around here.
Price & benchmark performance come in a clear 1st and 2nd.

depends on what you are after.

If a performance drive, I want a reasonable price and reliability that businesses pay for.

Please note, I was speaking of "people around here".
Read back through the "Which HD should I buy" threads and you'll see "warranty" is an afterthought at best.

 

[SuperSix]

Here's the official announcements

 

[Idontcare]

I could not care less about warranties, I care about reliability. Whether its 5yr warranty or a 6 month warranty, what I value is the drive that has an expected operating lifetime that is at least 2yrs.

I have lots and lots of drives die on me over the years, I've never bothered to rma/warranty one. By the time they die it literally has always cost me more to ship the dead drive to the warranty center versus buying a new one when I pro-rated the $/GB for a new drive shipped.

When my current 1TB drives die I bet I'll be able to buy 4 or 5 TB drives for $100 or less, making the 1TB drive worth about $20 new. Not gonna spend $20 on UPS ground to ship my 3yr old 1TB drive back to the warranty center. Just gonna buy a new, faster, replacement drive.

But I don't want my drives dying every 3 months, regardless the length of the warranty period.

 

[BTA]

I just had a Seagate 1.5tb die on me again (it was RMA'd once before already). It's still under warranty so I'm gonna RMA it again. It is about 3 years old.

Should I go pay $129 for a new one instead of $20 to RMA?

 

[Elixer]

I just had a Seagate 1.5tb die on me again (it was RMA'd once before already). It's still under warranty so I'm gonna RMA it again. It is about 3 years old.

Should I go pay $129 for a new one instead of $20 to RMA?

Don't you mean $10 ? Seagate's Advanced RMA option costs $9.95 + tax in certain states...(They ship you a drive + a packing label for your returned unit)
So is $10 worth it for another 'recertified' drive which has a warranty of 90 days ?
You make the call, most people would take the gamble.

 

[code65536]

Read back through the "Which HD should I buy" threads and you'll see "warranty" is an afterthought at best.

Yea, that was back when it was a choice between 3 and 5 years. Cut that down, and people will start to care. As I mentioned already, I didn't care back when it was 3-vs-5. But now that it's down to as little as 1, it does matter.

 

[code65536]

I could not care less about warranties, I care about reliability.

Of course we'd all love reliability. But that's very hard to control for, and there is so much randomness and dumb luck involved, much more so than any other computer component.

 

[SonicIce]

maybe because they make more parts in China and not Taiwan now. and they know the parts are garbage