Hard Drive Manufacturers Slash Warranty Periods

[Jack]

Seagate and Western Digital are cutting back on hard drive warranties, in some instances from five years to one, in order to save money or redirect it to product development.

Seagate's warranties on certain drives will be reduced as of Dec. 31, and WD will follow beginning Jan. 2. All drives shipped prior to those dates will continue to carry the current warranty term associated with the products.

The warranty period reductions, first reported by The Register, mean some of Seagate's and WD's most popular drives for desktops and laptops will no longer carry three- or five-year warranties.

In an email response to Computerworld, Seagate said it was reducing warranty periods as a way to standardize its terms "to be more consistent with those commonly applied throughout the consumer electronics and technology industries.

"By aligning to current industry standards, Seagate can continue to focus its investments on technology innovation and unique product features that drive value for our customers," the company said.

In other words, Seagate is redirecting money previously spent on upholding longer warranties in order to invest in product development.

Seagate is even cutting back the warranty on its hybrid drive, The Momentus XT, which combines NAND flash-based solid state storage with spinning disk.

Read more >>

 

[Jack]

The result of the world wide economic crisis , all the companies are trying to lower their costs in an effort to survive to this new economic climate.
A possible solution would be for the customers to have the option to pay extra if they want a extended warranty period......I'm sure that their will be a lot of people who would go for this option...