Warranty Length Not Related To Drive Life?

R

Ron Reaugh

Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?
 
B

Bill Todd

Ron Reaugh said:
Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

Well, AFAIK nothing physical changed in ATA drives when manufacturers a
while ago decided to drop the warranty period from 3 years to 1. And I just
read that Seagate is now going to *raise* that period to *5* years as an
inducement to prospective buyers (something I'd certainly take into
consideration: I deliberately chose a 3-year-warrantied drive last time I
bought one).

Even if manufacturers over time might be able to cut corners such that a
drive would often fail in its second year without too much risk of
first-year failures, it seems unlikely that the cost savings could make up
for the resulting bad publicity. So I'd guess that drives should be in the
bottom of their 'bathtub' curve for several years regardless of what the
nominal warranty period is: unless they fail (even during that nominal
period) at a fairly significant rate the savings that the manufacturer can
realize by shortening it would seem unlikely to be large (though in such a
cut-throat pricing environment the resulting price difference might
noticeably affect sales, so if one does it, the rest may have to follow, and
the same may be true for lengthening the period as Seagate is doing, since
it would otherwise give them a unique selling point for very little price
difference).

Whether similar considerations apply to the terms of service (e.g., duty
cycle) specified for the drive is less clear: there may be fairly
noticeable savings in manufacturing a drive for light-desktop rather than
server-style use, even leaving aside more obscure characteristics such as
resistance to the need for re-seeking in environments subject to vibration.

- bill
 
R

Ron Reaugh

As usual your pompous jibber below says little.

The deal is that HD warranties were ALWAYS a marketing and price point
decision and had little to do with expected HD life. Since the 1 year and 3
year warranty HDs ALREADY had an expected life of over 5 years. So in a pen
stroke a company could change its HD warranty length and even retroactively
without great exposure SINCE the drives were ALREADY going to last for 5
years anyway as I've always said.

Seagate simply announced a modest cost change internally and externally
effectively a modest price decrease, nothing more.
 
I

Impmon

Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

What I do understand are that hard drive warranties are often at the
time they are manufactured and not the date of purchase so if you
bought a new hard drive today, has a manufactor date of July 20, 2003
and it breaks down, the manufactor may not take it even though you
just bought it.

Most current warranties are for one year and in my experience,
properly manufactured hard drive should last at least a few years.
Unfortunately they tended to build them as cheaply as possible so it's
not unusual for hard drive to die horribly in just months or even
weeks.

I still have an old Seagate 20MB drive somewhere that is almost 20
years old and still works but Maxtor 120GB hard drive that I got new
last year went south after only 3 months. A 200 GB Western Digital
hard drive that refused to work properly even though I have 2 more of
the same models working just fine in the same PC.
 
F

Folkert Rienstra

Heheh, the wacko troll has stepped up a tree on the psychopathic ladder.
Now he is Super Wacko.


And now you know who that someone was.
When it looks like a trap and sounds like a trap and smells like a trap,
THEN IT USUALLY IS A TRAP.

And now you are part of that select group.
 
P

Paul Sherwin

Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

I also think this has always been a marketing exercise. Manufacturers
offset the cost of warranty claims against the increased sales that a
long warranty generates.

You also have to consider how many purchasers actually bother to claim
under warranty when a drive is 2 or 3 years old. By then, larger,
cheaper, smaller, cooler drives will be available, and most people
just buy a replacement. The vast majority of drives will last for more
than 5 years whatever the warranty arrangements.

Here in the UK, many stores offer extended warranties on consumer
electronics items for a one off payment. Some offer to refund your
payment if you don't make a claim. Of course, you have to actually
*ask* for the refund after 3 or 5 years. Last time I heard, the
proportion of purchasers that remembered / could be bothered to do
this was under 10%.

Best regards, Paul
 
C

chrisv

Rod Reaugh said:
As usual your pompous jibber below says little.

The deal is that HD warranties were ALWAYS a marketing and price point
decision and had little to do with expected HD life. Since the 1 year and 3
year warranty HDs ALREADY had an expected life of over 5 years.

Which is what he said, idiot.

Classic RonnieRetard - attack someone even when they are in agreement!

Wacko jibber snipped.
 
M

Monster

marketing ploy or not customers benefit by being able to send dead drives
back for a new one instead of forking out money again to get another flaky
hd. bottom line is a 5 year warranty beats the shit out of a 1 year warranty
 
I

Impmon

marketing ploy or not customers benefit by being able to send dead drives
back for a new one instead of forking out money again to get another flaky
hd. bottom line is a 5 year warranty beats the shit out of a 1 year warranty

True. And in the past when I tried to exchange the dead drive with a
new one, they often send a bigger hard drive. Long ago I had Maxtor
5.6GB that went south. Got it RMA'ed and they sent me 20GB. A few
years ago, it died. Got it RMA'ed (since the warranty on 20GB was
from date of manufacture and not from the 5.6's original warranty) and
they sent me a 100GB. That one outlasted the warranty before it died.

Maxtor used to be good before but now they sell garbage. :/

Anyway even if in 5 years your 250GB drive goes south and there are
faster and better drive on the market, get it exchanged anyway because
the replacement drive may be the better one.
 
J

Jesper Monsted

Impmon said:
Maxtor used to be good before but now they sell garbage. :/

Maxtor used to be the absolute worst shit money could buy, then they got
very good, but are losing quality again, it seems.
Anyway even if in 5 years your 250GB drive goes south and there are
faster and better drive on the market, get it exchanged anyway because
the replacement drive may be the better one.

Or use the 250 as boot drive when Windows 2008 needs 200+ GB disk space to
install :)
 
M

Malcolm Weir

marketing ploy or not customers benefit by being able to send dead drives
back for a new one instead of forking out money again to get another flaky
hd. bottom line is a 5 year warranty beats the shit out of a 1 year warranty

True. However, I rarely by warranties in isolation, and the HDD with
1 year warranty may beat the shit out of the HDD with the 1 year
warranty for whatever reason you bought the HDD in the first place!

Malc.
 
P

PM

Maxtor used to be the absolute worst shit money could buy, then they got
very good, but are losing quality again, it seems.

Are you talking about the IDE drives or SCSI drives. My experience of the
IDE drives is that, if they last, they are very good. Regards the SCSI
drives though, they always appear to be rated very highly - I have a few
10K3 drives and I was considering sticking with Maxtor for a forthcoming
upgrade. Are there problems with the current 15K offerings?

Thanks in advance for any feedback here.

PM
 
R

Ron Reaugh

Malcolm Weir said:
True. However, I rarely by warranties in isolation, and the HDD with
1 year warranty may beat the shit out of the HDD with the 1 year
warranty for whatever reason you bought the HDD in the first place!

Hmm, it sounds like you're into self mutilation<g>.
 
J

Jesper Monsted

Hmm, it sounds like you're into self mutilation<g>.

It sounds like he's into getting the right solution for the job instead of
just going for budget. I don't mind getting a fairly short warranty period
on the HDS gear and paying for the support afterwards.
 
J

Jesper Monsted

Are you talking about the IDE drives or SCSI drives. My experience of the
IDE drives is that, if they last, they are very good. Regards the SCSI
drives though, they always appear to be rated very highly - I have a few
10K3 drives and I was considering sticking with Maxtor for a forthcoming
upgrade. Are there problems with the current 15K offerings?

Ah, the SCSI drives are Quantum - they've always been good, in my
experience :)
 
C

chrisv

Jesper Monsted said:
Shouldn't the post be empty, then? There's nothing but wacko ranting coming
from the ronnie-beast.

True, I didn't snip all of Rod^Hn's jibber. Maybe I should have. 8)
 
I

Impmon

Are there problems with the current 15K offerings?

A frying pan would help as those high speed drives can get really hot.
Nothing like fresh eggs and bacon while reading emails in the morning.

Do make sure your PC case have excellent cooling system before
considering 10K+ drives.
 
P

Paul Repacholi

Jesper Monsted said:
Maxtor used to be the absolute worst shit money could buy, then they
got very good, but are losing quality again, it seems.

Not really. Spun up a pair of 380MB ESDI drives last night. Anyone
remember them? Seem fine, once the grease warmed up a bit and got
spread around a little :)

--
Paul Repacholi 1 Crescent Rd.,
+61 (08) 9257-1001 Kalamunda.
West Australia 6076
comp.os.vms,- The Older, Grumpier Slashdot
Raw, Cooked or Well-done, it's all half baked.
EPIC, The Architecture of the future, always has been, always will be.
 
R

Ron Reaugh

Impmon said:
A frying pan would help as those high speed drives can get really hot.

No, users let them get hot. It's the users responsibility to keep the HDs
cool.
Nothing like fresh eggs and bacon while reading emails in the morning.

Do make sure your PC case have excellent cooling system before
considering 10K+ drives.

Or use drive coolers.
 

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