Western Digital last week announced plans to slash warranties across the board and offer customers the chance to buy these back. It was a below-the-belt cost cutting method that could even turn around to make them a profit. Seagate has reportedly been up to the exact same thing. An extract from Seagate to its partners states that:
"Effective December 31, 2011, Seagate will be changing its warranty policy from a 5 year to a 3 year warranty period for Nearline drives, 5 years to 1 year for certain Desktop and Notebook Bare Drives, 5 years to 3 years on Barracuda XT and Momentus XT, and from as much as 5 years to 2 years on Consumer Electronics."
The hard drives which get massacred the most are the Barracuda Green drives which decline from a 5 year warranty to just a 1 year warranty. The 2.5" Momentus drives also suffer the same fate. The full list of warranty alterations is as follows ( remember they all previously had 5 year warranties):
- 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
What is the meaning of this? Well some would say Seagate and Western Digital have to follow each others moves, if Western Digital cuts warranties so must Seagate to remain cost competitive and vice versa. Will the customer actually see some benefits of these cut costs in terms of lower hard drive prices and better hard drives? Probably not.
Source: The Register
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