What Are Drive Warranties Really Worth?

[jim evans]

Some folks put a lot of emphasis on drive warranties. For example,
they may buy Seagate drives simply because of the five year
warranties.

I just had a drive fail. It had no warranty, but I wouldn't have
returned it for exchange anyway because it has all kinds of personal
information on it I wouldn't be comfortable sending to strangers.

So, how many people actually take advantage of drive warranties?

-- jim

 

[Anna]

Some folks put a lot of emphasis on drive warranties. For example,
they may buy Seagate drives simply because of the five year
warranties.

I just had a drive fail. It had no warranty, but I wouldn't have
returned it for exchange anyway because it has all kinds of personal
information on it I wouldn't be comfortable sending to strangers.

So, how many people actually take advantage of drive warranties?

-- jim

Jim:
I'll assume your question is a serious one without a touch of whimsy...

How many people actually take advantage of drive warranties you ask?
Countless numbers, Jim. It's an enormous advantage for users knowing that
the hard drive they've purchased comes with what amounts to an "extended
warranty". For many users (including ourselves) the fact that Seagate offers
a five year warranty often is a deciding factor in determining what brand of
HDD to purchase. And I know it is for many others. In these days where
manufacturers' warranties are getting shorter & shorter, it's at least
comforting to know that many hard drive manufacturers are offering three &
five year warranties with their products.

Virtually all the hard drive manufacturers we've dealt with over the years
(surely every major manufacturer) are very forthcoming in issuing RMA's for
their defective products under warranty. Rarely have we encountered any
problem in this area.

Frankly, I know of very few, if any, users like yourself who would fail to
take advantage of returning a warranty-covered defective HDD to the
manufacturer for the reason you mentioned. Surely you're aware of the
various programs that are available to erase the contents of a HDD should
the user believe a simple formatting of the drive is insufficient. And the
truth is a simple formatting of the drive will be sufficient in virtually
every case.

I've been working in this business for more than ten years now and I've yet
to hear of a single instance where a user returned a defective HDD to the
manufacturer and its data was somehow compromised.
Anna

 

[Michael Cecil]

Some folks put a lot of emphasis on drive warranties. For example,
they may buy Seagate drives simply because of the five year
warranties.

I just had a drive fail. It had no warranty, but I wouldn't have
returned it for exchange anyway because it has all kinds of personal
information on it I wouldn't be comfortable sending to strangers.

So, how many people actually take advantage of drive warranties?

I'll let you know if my trusty 10MB Miniscribe or my huge 50MB Conner ever
die!

 

[jim evans]

Surely you're aware of the
various programs that are available to erase the contents of a HDD should
the user believe a simple formatting of the drive is insufficient. And the
truth is a simple formatting of the drive will be sufficient in virtually
every case.

It's not clear to me how you format or erase a drive that won't
operate. The three drives I've had fail were completely dead. The
one that failed yesterday prevented the computer from booting (not XP,
but the computer bios, no CD, no floppy -- nothing. It hung
immediately at power on.). It wouldn't do anything until the drive
was removed. But, even if the computer boots, you can't access a
dead drive.

Perhaps some people are more concerned with the privacy of their
personal data than you, but maybe not. I simply would not deliver up
my financial data and private messages and files to strangers for
$100. That's why I posted the question.

-- jim

 

[Rod Speed]

Some folks put a lot of emphasis on drive warranties. For example,
they may buy Seagate drives simply because of the five year warranties.

I just had a drive fail. It had no warranty, but I wouldn't have
returned it for exchange anyway because it has all kinds of personal
information on it I wouldn't be comfortable sending to strangers.

So, how many people actually take advantage of drive warranties?

Most arent as paranoid about their personal info as that and
when the drive doesnt die completely, you can wipe it anyway.

Drive manufacturers are unlikely to be stupid enough to let any of their
monkeys get hold of your data, because it would be so obvious how they got it.

 

[Rod Speed]

Jim:
I'll assume your question is a serious one without a touch of
whimsy...
How many people actually take advantage of drive warranties you ask?
Countless numbers, Jim. It's an enormous advantage for users knowing
that the hard drive they've purchased comes with what amounts to an
"extended warranty". For many users (including ourselves) the fact
that Seagate offers a five year warranty often is a deciding factor
in determining what brand of HDD to purchase. And I know it is for
many others. In these days where manufacturers' warranties are
getting shorter & shorter, it's at least comforting to know that many
hard drive manufacturers are offering three & five year warranties
with their products.
Virtually all the hard drive manufacturers we've dealt with over the
years (surely every major manufacturer) are very forthcoming in
issuing RMA's for their defective products under warranty. Rarely
have we encountered any problem in this area.

Frankly, I know of very few, if any, users like yourself who would
fail to take advantage of returning a warranty-covered defective HDD
to the manufacturer for the reason you mentioned. Surely you're aware
of the various programs that are available to erase the contents of a
HDD should the user believe a simple formatting of the drive is
insufficient. And the truth is a simple formatting of the drive will
be sufficient in virtually every case.

Not possible if the drive is completely dead.

I've been working in this business for more than ten years now and
I've yet to hear of a single instance where a user returned a defective HDD to the manufacturer
and its data was somehow compromised.

Thats the important bit.

 

[Rod Speed]

It's not clear to me how you format or erase a drive that won't
operate. The three drives I've had fail were completely dead. The
one that failed yesterday prevented the computer from booting (not XP,
but the computer bios, no CD, no floppy -- nothing. It hung
immediately at power on.). It wouldn't do anything until the drive
was removed. But, even if the computer boots, you can't access a
dead drive.

Perhaps some people are more concerned with the privacy of their
personal data than you, but maybe not. I simply would not deliver up
my financial data and private messages and files to strangers for
$100. That's why I posted the question.

Yes, some are as paranoid as you, but its the minority, tiny minority in fact.

 

[David Flory]

Some folks put a lot of emphasis on drive warranties. For example,
they may buy Seagate drives simply because of the five year
warranties.

I just had a drive fail. It had no warranty, but I wouldn't have
returned it for exchange anyway because it has all kinds of personal
information on it I wouldn't be comfortable sending to strangers.

So, how many people actually take advantage of drive warranties?

-- jim

I've had only one drive that failed while under warranty, and getting a
new one was a piece of cake.

Usually if the manufacturer's diagnostic software (i.e. Seatools)
confirm that the drive is bad (or it is totally dead), they will
cross-ship you a new one (in return for a CC #) immediately. At least
that was my experience with Maxtor.

Regarding security: getting data off a totally dead drive is a
difficult operation requiring a clean room, specialized tools, parts,
and very skilled technicians. People pay a fortune to data recovery
services to do this when they forget to make backups.

I seriously doubt you need to worry about the RMA people doing this just
for kicks.

Dave

 

[mike]

It's not clear to me how you format or erase a drive that won't
operate. The three drives I've had fail were completely dead. The
one that failed yesterday prevented the computer from booting (not XP,
but the computer bios, no CD, no floppy -- nothing. It hung
immediately at power on.). It wouldn't do anything until the drive
was removed. But, even if the computer boots, you can't access a
dead drive.

Perhaps some people are more concerned with the privacy of their
personaul data than you, but maybe not. I simply would not deliver up
my financial data and private messages and files to strangers for
$100. That's why I posted the question.

-- jim

You've made the conscious decision to spend $100 to protect your data.
That's irrelevant to the warranty issue.

With a little planning, you can prevent the problem.
I keep my (active) financial data on a CDRW disk.
There are built-in and add-on solutions to encrypt part or all of your
drive.

To answer your question, twice I've bought used laptops with bad drives
that were still in warranty. Wasn't my data ;-)
mike

 

[jim evans]

I seriously doubt you need to worry about the RMA people doing this just
for kicks.

It wouldn't just be for "kicks" of course.

-- jim

 

[De Moni]

It wouldn't just be for "kicks" of course.

"Let's fix that HD and see if there's any good porn on it!"

 

[Paul Rubin]

I just had a drive fail. It had no warranty, but I wouldn't have
returned it for exchange anyway because it has all kinds of personal
information on it I wouldn't be comfortable sending to strangers.

Best bet is encrypt all such data before storing it on the disk. Then
you can get the disk fixed under warranty without revealing the data.

 

[Paul Rubin]

I've been working in this business for more than ten years now and I've yet
to hear of a single instance where a user returned a defective HDD to the
manufacturer and its data was somehow compromised.

Dunno about manufacturer returns (my guess is manufacturers just
recycle or trash the returned drive components without even attempting
to diagnose the problem, much less read the data), but I do know a guy
who sent a drive in for data recovery and had it compromised.

 

[Paul Rubin]

"Let's fix that HD and see if there's any good porn on it!"

I could imagine a drive mfgr's R&D department wanting to diagnose
RMA'd drives to figure out what's making them fail, in order to
improve whatever part of the manufacturing process is leading to the
failures.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Some folks put a lot of emphasis on drive warranties. For example,
they may buy Seagate drives simply because of the five year
warranties.

I just had a drive fail. It had no warranty, but I wouldn't have
returned it for exchange anyway because it has all kinds of personal
information on it I wouldn't be comfortable sending to strangers.

So, how many people actually take advantage of drive warranties?

I used to from time to time. I did not have a failed drive
recently. And before I usually caught them when they were
still somewhat usable and I could wipe them.

Arno

 

[timeOday]

It's not clear to me how you format or erase a drive that won't
operate. The three drives I've had fail were completely dead. The
one that failed yesterday prevented the computer from booting (not XP,
but the computer bios, no CD, no floppy -- nothing. It hung
immediately at power on.). It wouldn't do anything until the drive
was removed. But, even if the computer boots, you can't access a
dead drive.

Perhaps some people are more concerned with the privacy of their
personal data than you, but maybe not. I simply would not deliver up
my financial data and private messages and files to strangers for
$100. That's why I posted the question.

Even if you won't exercise the warranty, many people will. That means
companies with longer warranties have a stronger financial incentive to
make long-lasting drives than those that don't. IMHO a long warranty is
the only meaningful vote of confidence manufacturers can place in their
products. MTBF figures are just talk, and talk is cheap.

 

[De Moni]

I could imagine a drive mfgr's R&D department wanting to diagnose
RMA'd drives to figure out what's making them fail, in order to
improve whatever part of the manufacturing process is leading to the
failures.

If data on hard disk is that sensitive to someone, I'm sure he has used
encryption and makes backups regularly.

 

[Odie Ferrous]

Jim:
I'll assume your question is a serious one without a touch of whimsy...

How many people actually take advantage of drive warranties you ask?
Countless numbers, Jim. It's an enormous advantage for users knowing that
the hard drive they've purchased comes with what amounts to an "extended
warranty". For many users (including ourselves) the fact that Seagate offers
a five year warranty often is a deciding factor in determining what brand of
HDD to purchase. And I know it is for many others. In these days where
manufacturers' warranties are getting shorter & shorter, it's at least
comforting to know that many hard drive manufacturers are offering three &
five year warranties with their products.

Virtually all the hard drive manufacturers we've dealt with over the years
(surely every major manufacturer) are very forthcoming in issuing RMA's for
their defective products under warranty. Rarely have we encountered any
problem in this area.

Frankly, I know of very few, if any, users like yourself who would fail to
take advantage of returning a warranty-covered defective HDD to the
manufacturer for the reason you mentioned. Surely you're aware of the
various programs that are available to erase the contents of a HDD should
the user believe a simple formatting of the drive is insufficient. And the
truth is a simple formatting of the drive will be sufficient in virtually
every case.

I've been working in this business for more than ten years now and I've yet
to hear of a single instance where a user returned a defective HDD to the
manufacturer and its data was somehow compromised.
Anna

A month or so ago I was given 300 failed laptop drives from a large
manufacturer.

Having fixed most of them, I have to say that a fair proportion
contained what I could only describe as "intensely" personal data.

Given that these drives were all returned to the manufacturer for
warranty replacement, and they ended up in my hands, I can only assume
that other people have managed to get their paws on old drives and that
the less scrupulous will have had at least a slight temptation to do
something with the data.

If you have personal data on a drive and you would rather it stayed that
way, don't return your drive - destroy it and purchase a new one.



Odie

 

[Rod Speed]

jim evans wrote

Even if you won't exercise the warranty, many people will. That
means companies with longer warranties have a stronger financial
incentive to make long-lasting drives than those that don't.

Seagate claimed that they had decided that the failure rate in years 4 and 5
were low enough that a 5 year warranty would be worth offering returns wise.

IMHO a long warranty is the only meaningful vote of confidence manufacturers can place in their
products.

Or they have decided that the inevitable higher cost will produce more sales.

 

[Rod Speed]

Paul Rubin wrote

If data on hard disk is that sensitive to someone, I'm sure he has used encryption and makes
backups regularly.

More fool you. Plenty only consider the problem when the drive dies.