MEGATech Biz – Hard Drive Warranties First To Get Chopped In Wake of Thailand Floods Stephen Fung December 15, 2011 See what I did there? Wake? Floods? Too soon? At any rate, the whole computer industry is hurting because hard drive prices have skyrocketed. The same 2TB hard drive you bought during the Summer for around $55 is now $155…or more. While the big players continue to work towards a solution to bring factories back online, many companies are already showing the strain of having a single major component increase in price over three to four times its usual price. For many, this is all the margin they make on a system. It appears the hard drive industry has had to push back as well to recoup the massive losses incurred this year and in the future. This morning, one of the local wholesalers sent out an email outlining new warranty policy changes from Western Digital and Seagate. In a nutshell, effective as of January 2012, the warranty for any hard drives will be dropping in the number of years covered. For instance, Western Digital is dropping coverage for all WD Blue and WD Green drives from 3 years to 2 years, but warranties on the Black and Enterprise lines will remain at five years. Seagate however is putting the hammer down hard. Many desktop and mobile internal drives will be dropping from a 2 year warranty to a 1 year warranty and anything with 5 years goes to 3 years. They are also making this effective as of December 31, 2011 vs Western Digital’s January 2, 2012 date. Here’s the important part of the email: Western Digital – Effective date on January 2nd, 2012. Desktop and Mobile (Blue and Green family lines) change from 3 years to 2 years. Black product line will remain at 5 years warranty. Enterprise class products stay at 5 years warranty. Product Line Limited Warranty (as of January 02, 2012) Desktop & Mobile – WD Blue and WD Green 2 years Seagate – Effective date on December 31, 2011. Major Desktop and Mobile products change from 2 years to 1 years and 5 years to 3 years. Most of the Enterprise class product will be reduced warranty period from 5 years to 3 years. Product Line Limited Warranty Period(as of December 31, 2011) Constellation®.2 and Constellation® ES.2 3 years Barracuda® and Barracuda® Green 3.5” Drives 1 year Barracuda® XT 3 years Momentus® 2.5” Drives (5400 RPM & 7200 RPM) 1 year Momentus® XT 3 years SV35 Series™ – Video Surveillance 2 years Pipeline HD® Mini, Pipeline HD® 2 years If you need a hard drive now, you probably should get it before the end of the year. The price after December 31, 2011, and for the next few weeks after that is not going to vary that much, but the loss of a year or two of warranty is significant. Share This With The World!
