Seagate cutting HD warranties

[GGD]

"Mission-critical and retail products are not affected by this change. The new warranty periods will apply to shipments from 31 December."

I wonder what this actually means, could it mean that the retail boxed internal drives will still have a 5 year warranty? Is this just bare OEM drives that have reduced warranties?

[deckeda]

It means stuff still in the retail channel still has a 5 year warranty. Beginning in January, new boxes will arrives that no longer have the big "5" on them.

[deckeda]

the rest of the computer industry offers 3 year

I never knew that. I can buy a Dell, HP, whatever, and they come with 3 year warranties?

[clay]

deckeda wrote:
the rest of the computer industry offers 3 year

I never knew that. I can buy a Dell, HP, whatever, and they come with 3 year warranties?

I think he meant most hard drives come with 3 year warranties

[sekker]

clay wrote:
[quote=deckeda]
the rest of the computer industry offers 3 year

I never knew that. I can buy a Dell, HP, whatever, and they come with 3 year warranties?

I think he meant most hard drives come with 3 year warranties
You guys are correct - I am out of date.

Back in the days of the Motorola Mac clones (and their sweet 5 year warranties), many computer vendors offered 3 year warranties. Except Apple, that offered their 1 year. I stand corrected - Dell's standard is 1 year, you have to pay $$ to go to 3 years.

Many hard drive warranties outside Seagate have been 3 years tops, tho. The 5 year bonus has been worth it to us. But we've also turned in at least 4 drives older than at least 1 year recently - so I can see the temptation by the manufacturers to try to go down to 1 year.

[JoeH]

" I stand corrected - Dell's standard is 1 year, you have to pay $$ to go to 3 years."

Yeah, that has not really changed in years. Though Dell used to quote prices initially with the 3 year warranty coverage included and you had to configure it down to 1 year. At some time in the last few years they changed to showing prices based on 1 year's coverage by default.