Seagate Lowers Warranty Period from 5 to 3 Years

MJA · Member Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Location: IL

December 12 2008 kinda old news

bad news to consumers Seagate Lowers Warranty Period from 5 to 3 Years on Some Desktop Hard Drives

Seagate, the biggest hard drive manufacturer, has announced today that effective January 3, 2009, the company will be making some important changes to its limited warranty terms for selected drives. The warranty period for consumer electronics (Seagate Barracuda 7200 included), notebook (Momentus 7200 and Momentus 5400 included) and personal storage bare drives sold to Seagate Authorized Distributors will be changed from 5 years to 3 years. Seagate believes that the new warranty period and terms better reflect current industry standards. Seagate enterprise class drives and Seagate and Maxtor external retail products that have 5-year warranty periods will not be affected by this change. Please take a look at the Seagate Warranty Matrix for more information.

http://www.techpowerup.com/78659/Seagate_Lowers_Warranty_Period_f ... rives.html

zoobie · Posted: Jan 01, 2009 19:44

Comcast just upped their prices with the same gibberish
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samijubal · Member Joined: 25 Jul 2004

It's because Seagate's MIC HDDs aren't as reliable as they used to be. Look on any site with Seagate reviews, they used to get excellent reviews, not so much anymore.

lordsmurf · Posted: Jan 02, 2009 02:29

Every time a company wants to slash warranties (some of which were ridiculously long to being with), out come the often-wrong accusations of lower quality. It just isn't so.

When it comes to tech like hard drives, in 5 years the technology tends to be so vastly different (IDE hard drives from 2003, vs SATA of 2008/2009), that it's just not feasible to try and keep old stock "just in case a warranty needs one").

It's also not fair to replace a 80GB drive with a 1TB drive, broken or not.

That's the truth of the matter. Its economics and logistics, not quality.
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MJA · Member Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Location: IL

Seeker47 · Member Joined: 20 Jul 2005 Location: A State of Mind, USA

redwudz · Mod Neophyte Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Location: AZ, USA

I've only had one or two HDD failures in the last couple of years. Previous to that, I had two to three a year for several years with Maxtors, Seagates, WDs, Hitachis and a couple of other brands. And just about all of those drives failed in the first three years, more often the first year. Outside of possibly inspiring confidence and also helping with sales, a five year warranty doesn't really seem to mean increased reliability.

Just my observation, but it seems like the engineering quality of HDDs has been improved quite a bit in the last few years, while the manufacturing quality has decreased a bit. Considering that HDDs are not really dependable devices, I can live with that.

Most hard drive manufacturers also have a 'server grade' drive available. And those should have better quality control and may have a bit more dependability, at a price.

samijubal · Member Joined: 25 Jul 2004

lordsmurf · Posted: Jan 02, 2009 15:59

A lot of people like you strike me as whiners. A product failed on you and now the evil corporate world is out to get you with shoddy-made items. Give me a fucking break. Your one experience is such a tiny percentage compared to the many happy customers out there.

What's "full of it" are these bullshit conspiracy theories.
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PuzZLeR · WiLd CaRd Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Location: Toronto Canada

Can you feel the love folks?

Anyway... here's my love input. Not sure about professional-ware, but for consumers, I find any of these guarantees for hard drives totally and completely useless, whether it's 100 years, 5 years, 3 years or even a weekend.

When a drive fails, all they do is basically replace it. Who cares? It's the data you want back, which can be $1000s to recover. The last thing you think about at this point is the $100 they save you for a new drive.

I had a crash after 2 months once. Yeah, they were willing to replace it, but the data recovery was another thing. They even wanted my old drive back as replacement - and I had to bitch with them to leave it with me for the recovery process. I didn't need this additional pain on top of the $1350 in recovery costs it ended up costing me later for their faulty product! (PS: If a drive is "clicking" on you - be prepared.)

And they always say the same thing with a sneer, "As long as we make sure you have a working drive we've honored the warranty Sir."

Yeah, and what's the point? My data is worthless as long as you make sure the internal little wheels keep spinning on your product - as if it's entertainment to me?

I did end up telling them in the end where I'd like to shove both their failed AND working drives to watch the wheels spin...
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samijubal · Member Joined: 25 Jul 2004

At over 20 gigs per $1 to backup to DVD, only a fool would keep stuff they don't want to lose on the HDD alone. Everything dies sooner or later.

Anything important I have I keep on two HDDs, if one fails, no big deal.

zoobie · Posted: Jan 04, 2009 14:40

copy that...
I also spit edited HDV & DV productions right back to new tape for further back-up
I've had HDD's fail twice in 2 years...just used the 3-5 year warranty to replace something I knew was going to fail anyway
but nobody seems to do anything until it's too late
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DereX888 · **Banned** Joined: 24 Aug 2002 Location: beautiful

1
Companies are there to make profit for their shareholders/owners, not to make "great" or "reliable" products.
Yeah, sometimes they do make excellent products, but it is done so only for the purpose of being better than competition, and only if it is feasible (profitable enough) - certainly NOT for the sake of making great product itself.
(Times of philantropists like Howard Hughes and such are gone long ago, and modern rich "innovators" like Gates rather waste their fortunes on something else than spend it on making their own products better...)
2
Consumers want to pay LESS for everything.

Add 1 + 2 = cheaper products of lesser quality *
Its that simple.

Warranty terms are already very generous with 3 years for hard disks.
Most of less technologically advanced electronics cost much more than hard disks and they come with only 1 year warranty nowadays, so quit bitching... I mean wait until they slash it to 1yr as well...

* usually, unless technology have advanced enough to make better quality at lower cost, which unfortunately doesn't happen most of the time.
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Seeker47 · Member Joined: 20 Jul 2005 Location: A State of Mind, USA

This is a bit confusing. Seagate announces that 5 years drops to 3 for most of their products, effective a certain date that is now. I was just in Fry's and Best Buy, where there is a huge amount of their product on the shelves, all saying 5 years on the box. Must be the same story everywhere else. I bought a portable HDD that stated 5 on the box. BB staffers said as far as they were concerned, it's still 5 for purchase of these items. If you buy one of these boxes that states 5 years, well . . . which is it ?

Save that slice of the box, plus the UPC code / serial #, along with a copy of your receipt, and maybe it will give you an argument to make, just in case ?

However, the poster who said the refund or replacement is trivial, compared to what gets lost when a drive fails, got it exactly right. Back those puppies up !
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PuzZLeR · WiLd CaRd Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Location: Toronto Canada

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jadeblue · Member Joined: 30 Dec 2008 Location: India

Its sad news man!

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elduco · Member Joined: 04 May 2009 Location: United States

The real cause is ROHS = Lead-Free Solder.
Using this stuff causes "tin whiskers" to grow between circuit leads that make a short circuit.
End result is shorter product life. Planned obsolescence. Early failure.

Nelson37 · Member Joined: 14 Aug 2001

They don't warranty your data for a very simple reason - they can't afford to. No one could guarantee thousands or hundreds of dollars in data for a drive that costs less than $100.00. It just is not possible.

If you buy a box that says "5 year warranty", you have a 5 year warranty. No brain surgery here.

As for the return drive, I have done this many, many times. They ALWAYS ask for a credit card number to guarantee the return drive, and ALWAYS grant two weeks to 10 days shipping time for the return drive. Not once have I ever had a problem with this, WD, Seagate, Maxtor, everybody. The credit card is never charged unless the original doesn't show up.

redwudz · Mod Neophyte Joined: 07 Sep 2002 Location: AZ, USA

Nelson37, that's been my experience also. I've had at least one HDD failure a year for quite a long time, and three this year already.

(Two Seagates and one WD.) The drive companies have always honored their warranties and I usually end up with a bigger and newer HDD. But I also keep nothing on my HDD's that I can't afford to lose.

handyguy · Member Joined: 25 Mar 2003

But if you have a 5 year old HD & turn it in chances are they don't have that size anymore. So what are they going to do?

AlanHK · Member Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Location: Hong Kong

handyguy · Member Joined: 25 Mar 2003

Another thing, they take the guarantee date from the serial number of your drive. So, if a drive has been sitting in the store for a year that counts as a guarantee year.

AlanHK · Member Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Location: Hong Kong

DereX888 · **Banned** Joined: 24 Aug 2002 Location: beautiful

Steve Stepoway · Member Joined: 12 Mar 2004 Location: Texas, USA

Nelson37 · Member Joined: 14 Aug 2001

That is exactly correct. Date of purchase, verified by receipt, is the date your warranty period begins. If the date of purchase cannot be verified, then and ONLY THEN is the serial number used to establish a date.

It has been this way for 10 years or more, no change or new policy.

Got a computer? Got a printer? Can you think up a name of a company that might be in the business of selling hard drives to consumers? Can you make a reasonably accurate guess at the date the HD was purchased?

handyguy · Member Joined: 25 Mar 2003

I looked for guarantee service recently & went to the website. They asked me to enter the serial number of the hd which I did. Then they said it was out of guarantee period. But they did have some nice special offers on new HD's & for that I just have to give them the serial number of the old HD.

I wonder if you get a new HD or a refurb when you send it in under that guarantee program?

jagabo · Member Joined: 09 Dec 2005 Location: none

Nelson37 · Member Joined: 14 Aug 2001

Pretty sure a warranty has to be from date of purchase, and it does state in the Notes section -

"In the United States, some states do not allow limitations on how long implied warranties last, so the above limitation may not apply to you. "

This comes right after a second "date of manufacture" limitation.

I have never had this quoted to me when a purchase receipt was available. Never heard of a Warranty being enforced this way.

Yes you may get a refurb drive, also may get a newer, larger one.

When I do RMA's, I always get a human on the phone, quote the receipt date, describe clearly how the drive has failed, return it to them in the same packaging the new one comes in. Have sometimes check the date of manufacture and been several months out of warranty according to that. Replacement still shipped cause the purchase receipt was within the time period.