warranties


disco

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Maybe this has been discussed in the past, but what's up with the new warranty system from WD/Seagate?

 

I have a large (well, i guess probably small compared to most of you) 8x2tb system (+ cache/parity) that has been stable for a 3+ years (no drive deaths after a bunch initially when buying drives), but recently had my parity drive go out. Unfortunately, out of warranty, so I figured I'd pick up a 3tb as they're only $30 or so more than the 2tb variety these days.

 

Picked up one of these without checking warranty: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Barracuda-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM001/dp/B005T3GRLY/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1360998171&sr=1-1&keywords=3tb+seagate

 

Now, reading, I find it only has a 1 year warranty??? I could swear, the standard used to be 3 years for standard drives, 5 years for pricier drives. 1 year seems like a total joke given how often I've had drives fail in the past. Guess I'll have to preclear the crap out of this thing before adding to my system.

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Now, reading, I find it only has a 1 year warranty??? I could swear, the standard used to be 3 years for standard drives, 5 years for pricier drives. 1 year seems like a total joke given how often I've had drives fail in the past. Guess I'll have to preclear the crap out of this thing before adding to my system.

Warranties certainly used to be longer.  I have recently had a number of Seagate 2TB drives replaced under warranty that were in year 3 or 4.  The fact that they offered such long warranties was something that always attracted me to Seagate drives.  It was also an implied statement by them as to what they thought the quality/reliability of their drives was like.

 

It does seems that all the manufacturers have switched to 1 year warranties as standard.  The only upside I see is that disks tend to fail relatively quickly or last for a long time.  After about 3 years if a disk fails it is highly likely that one would want to replace it with a larger capacity one anyway.  Still, longer warranties is certainly something I take into account when deciding what brand to buy.

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When you live in Europe the seller is not allowed to offer less then 2 years of guarantee ..

 

Really? That explains why all the drives I found were either 2 years (Desktop/laptop models), 3 years (Raid models) or 5 years (Company models).

 

@OP, I recently just bought 3 3TB HDDs for my new server and all three have 3 years warranty.

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It's import to clarify a little...  In Europe your contract is with the party from whom you bought the device.  Generally for the buying public that party is the retailer, whether it is a bricks and mortar shop, or an on line outlet such as Amazon, etc.  Manufacturers are permitted to offer shorter warranties if they wish, and many do, but their contract is not normally with the end user.  This is why if the manufacturer publicises a one year warranty it is often accompanied by the phrase "does not affect your statuary rights" which refer to the end user's contract with the retailer.  If the manufacturer sells directly to the end user then the two year rule would apply.  And then we get into the grey area of "fitness for purpose", where even a two year warranty does not exclude the purchaser from making a claim against their supplier after a much longer period if there is a reasonable expectation that the device should have lasted longer than two years (many domestic appliances would fall into that category, for example).

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It's been that way for a few years now. I would rarely look at the warranty periods, usually they were 3-5 years, now lucky to get 2 years. Before price and speed was the main determining factor when buying, now have to consider warranty period.

 

American express will extend or double the warranty period of your purchase. https://www.americanexpress.com/us/content/card-benefits/extended-warranty/faq.html May want to check out other credit cards, fairly sure there are others out there that offer similar warranty extensions.

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I'm in the US and have no trouble getting 2+ year warranty. The 4TB drives I last purchased have 2 year warranty (Costco $159). All WD Red are 3 year.

 

The credit card companies add one year to warranty. AmEx max is 6 years (5+1), Discover and Citi is 4 years(3+1), and so on.

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