Now HD warranty changes coming ???

Heliospherez · 16 Dec 2011 at 09:40

Has anyone noticed that WD yesterday announced a reduction in it's warranty period for Caviar & Scorpio drives from 3 to 2 years (from Jan 1st) - Scorpio Black remains 5 years.

Now funnily enough, today Seagate have just announced the following (effective from 31st of Dec to authorised distributors) - Some Barracuda and Momentus warrantys reduced to 1 Year ????

Drives affected by new warranty changes....

- Constellation 2 and ES.2 drives - 3 years
- Barracuda and Barracuda Green 3.5-inch drives - 1 year
- Barracuda XT - 3 years
- Momentus 2.5-inch (5400 and 7200rpm) - 1 year
- Momentus XT - 3 years
- SV35 Series - Video Surveillance -2 years
- Pipeline HD Mini, Pipeline HD - 2 years

Reducing a warranty to a year is pretty dire to be honest and considering the price increases recently & the fact that most people are trying to make every material possession last as long as possible these days. What the heck are they playing at ?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/16/seagate_cutting_warranties/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/15/wd_warranty_period_cuts/

Bradley8988 · 16 Dec 2011 at 10:47

Trying to save some money?

lurkio · 16 Dec 2011 at 11:30

w anchors

BigAndy87 · 17 Dec 2011 at 21:18

stinks of cartel behaviour, both annoncing same thing near enough short time apart. wont be surprised when Hitachi annoce same.

Hyburnate · 17 Dec 2011 at 21:21

Does someone know when the drives will go back down? I remember when you could buy a 500GB HDD for around £35

Commala · 19 Dec 2011 at 12:26

This is surely a stupidly short-sighted move from the point of view of perceived brand quality. If I am going to spend (currently) upwards of £130 for a large storage drive I wouldn't feel too secure putting irreplaceable items (family photos, home movies, work documents) on a drive that the manufacturer will only stand over for one year.

Of course, as I'm sure they know, where else will we get our drives considering WD and Seagate are cornering the market? And isn't there an EU directive that allows electronic goods a warranty of at least 2 years, or is that only with the point of sale?

panyan · 19 Dec 2011 at 13:10

Hyburnate said:
Does someone know when the drives will go back down? I remember when you could buy a 500GB HDD for around £35

i bought a 1tb caviar green for my parents build in july for £37 on special offer!

JustBen · 19 Dec 2011 at 13:11

Annoying for them to lower it, if there product is good and likely to last a long time then give it a decent warranty.

kmetek · 19 Dec 2011 at 21:08

bad bad decision!

Justintime · 19 Dec 2011 at 21:45

We'll be switching brands at work due to this and finding a better manufacturer, my bloody decision. I remember using samsung a lot back in the day when all otheres were cutting their warranties, and they were very reliable. Usually only about 40-50 in a year, not even a drop in the ocean but i'm doing my part

Surveyor · 19 Dec 2011 at 22:10

Justintime said:
We'll be switching brands at work due to this and finding a better manufacturer, my bloody decision. I remember using samsung a lot back in the day when all otheres were cutting their warranties, and they were very reliable. Usually only about 40-50 in a year, not even a drop in the ocean but i'm doing my part

Remember that Seagate are buying Samsung's HDD division and WD are buying Hitachi's HDD division.

Justintime · 19 Dec 2011 at 22:20

lol! Oh well.. guess we're getting shafted no matter what eh?

hominid · 19 Dec 2011 at 23:10

I think I'll wait it out until 2TB drives are back to £65 or less to make my next purchase as this reduced warrantee is actual reduced value for me. Infact I'd go as far to say that drives that were worth ~£65 before are now worth ~£50 taking into account the reduction in warrantee.

They can't have it both ways, higher ASP's and lower warrantees - it stinks a bit TBH.

opstrat · 19 Dec 2011 at 23:17

how are companies handelling rma/warenty with the lack of stock?

Surveyor · 20 Dec 2011 at 00:02

opstrat said:
how are companies handelling rma/warenty with the lack of stock?

You'd hope they'd always have some stock put aside for this purpose.

bhavv · 20 Dec 2011 at 05:05

Time to snap up a £500 Crucial M4 512 Gb or two?

Prazynothh · 20 Dec 2011 at 11:55

It's not a very good news to hear from you guys as my Seagate 150gb hard disk got exchanged recently by them after 3 years of complete usage. Now if I purchase a new one they are not offering 4 years warranty.