Seagate’s New Warranty Policy – Who Are They Kidding?

I tend to go for the Samsung SpinPoint drives. The performance and price is on par with the others and they are usually much more quiet.

Three years are standard. They all went to 5 years after they cut from 3 years to 1 and users got upset.

I just brought a 500gb Samsung SpinPoint drive for my laptop. It runs better then the one that came in my laptop.

Joseph, I have few experiences with Samsung drives, but all of them have been replacement after failure during the warranty period. In each case, the customer bought another brand, and sold the replacement from Samsung.

Thanks for the comment.

Randall Lind, I get your points - do you get mine?

The company is fairly unrealistic thinking that a 5% failure (and obviously replacement) rate is worth the ill will from customer’s who knew of the older warranty policy, and newer customers, who then judge purely on performance - where Seagate loses.

Thanks.

In have used Seagate, Maxtor, Western Digital drives during the past 20 years. Guess what? The only drives that have failed were the Seagate drives.

Now I believe that Seagate is reducing the warranty to 3 years because they know the horrible quality of their drives coming out of China. I suspect they have enough statistical info to figure the time for failure rate is just over 3 years for their made in China drives.

As more of Seagate’s manufacturing shifted from other parts of the world to concentrate in China, the warranty reduction is a their way to cut their losses from poor quality control.

And BTW I usually am a fan of Seagate and their drives. Just not this time with the warranty reduction. Hitachi drives are starting to look more attractive now.

Zenium, I’ve installed, or personally used, enough drives of every type to have them all fail (except for Micropolis, remember them, they were great!).

But as far as I can remember back, Seagate’s non-SCSI drives have always been inferior, while their high end SCSI drives have always been very good, if somewhat expensive.

What will make me want to buy one brand of ANYTHING over another is the SERVICE behind the Sale.

I *WAS* going to purchase a Seagate Drive soon, because of the 5-year warranty, but now will question that decision and possibly go back to Western Digital for my purchase….as long as it’s 3-years.

Amazing that these companies really believe that by REMOVING service, they are making things better.

How very short-sighted of them.

The “average consumer”, you say, is not familiar with the names Fujitsu or Samsung. I maintain the averrage consumer hasn’t a clue what is inside his/her computer, Seagate, WD or otherwise.

Still, I agree that Seagate’s move is a bad one. A wiser decision, in my opinion, would be to advertise the 5 year warranty since they claim such low failure rates. Is it going to cost them anything more to retain the warranty? Only if their claimed small rate of failure it bunk.
Everything I own at the present time is Seagate, though I’ve already looked long and hard at the others guys. Like you, I’ll need a heavily discounted price to make me buy another Seagate drive, if only for the sake of principle.

Does Seagate possibly think that the recently falling prices of these drives will make a consumer feel less put out having to Buy a replacement for a failed drive?

@Randall Lind: It seems they haven’t learned a thing, then, doesn’t it.

Though I’m disappointed that Seagate is lowering the warranty coverage, I will continue to buy drives based on price, performance, and reliability.

When all things are considered equal in price, performance, and reliability among drives being ’shopped’, the obvious winner will likely be the one with some other difference, such as warranty, or even packaging.

Over the last 20 years of servicing and replacing drives, I’ve seen all the major manufacturers go through their ups and downs. I expect they will continue to experience ups and downs.

I have been dealing with computers and their attendant components since 1969. So I have a little experience with HDD and their foibles; my replacement rate for WD drives vs. Segate and Maxtor, Hitachi,Quantum, is about 4:1 in commercial apps. so I tell all my customers no WD HDD for any reason period. So if Seagate cuts their warr. down I am not going to change my habits because they are the best available. And that is from a prospective of 40 years in the business and it continues. I would say that IBM is the best drive ever made but they are out of the picture as Hitatchi continues the line, no failures so far.

Jack Doff, although I respect your views, my experience shows almost exactly the opposite, and knowing a bit about statistics, and the fact that I buy Western Digital drives on a 2 or 3 to one ratio, yet still have had more failures with other brands, leads me to want to stay with what I recommended above.

Some would say that Seagate drives are widely used by OEMs because of superior quality, I tend to think it is simply a matter of economy.

Thanks for the comment.

Over the past 20 years I’ve replaced more WD drives than any other. A lot more. I used Samsung for a while but their warranty process is a cluster f*&%k. I’ve actually had good results with Seagate and when they do fail getting a replacement drive is a simple process. Having read this article I might try some Hitachi’s just because I like anything that goes faster. I will have to see how their warranty process works though.

I like (for external drives) either LaCie or IOMega. I have a few of each of these brands and they have never failed me. Western Digital (MyBook) on the other hand have failed on me on many an occasion.

Seagate is another story. I really do not have much experience using their Hard Drives.

orbiker, you’re the second one who has had worse results with W-D drives - do you ever use their tools to resolve problems? I have found that drives I thought were beyond help could have a second life after doing a little work. Also, I have had very few just stop suddenly - those are the hardest to take. The Maxtor I spoke of just smoked the board when I started the PC, and the drive was in an external box. After a couple of checks, I inserted another drive, and all is well. BTW, the PSU for the box was/is surge protected.

Thanks for the comment. BTW, I have just purchased another 1 TB Hitachi for use in a machine I just assembled. Along with the 9950 BE, the Hitachi is scary fast.

JPMTJR, I only have purchased a factory assembled external drive once - a Fantom 250GB. It has a Maxtor drive, from before the buyout, and still works just fine.

In my experience professionally repairing computers for a little over 4 years, and I’m not saying that’s a lot. I have seen far more PCs with Western Digital drives installed by the assemblers than I have SeaGates. Is that also your experience?
Now, as far as failures, I’ve seen quite a few Maxtors from pre-merger days fail, but I’ve seen only 1 Seagate fail that I can recall. With the exception of an occasional Hitachi or Samsung, ALL of the other failures I have seen have been Western Digitals. To me, I WOULD interpret this as simply a matter of odds. If there are more WD’s out there, then you will see more in the shop. Just like how I work on a lot of Dells, there’s just so many out there. However, I am disturbed by the sometimes alarmingly short life of the WD drives. I often see them fail between year 1 and 2. Then I see how Seagate offers (offered) a 5 year warranty. With all the good things I read about how the company does business, I’m sold. Therefore, I currently am brand-loyal to Seagate.
Of course, things change quickly in this business. As I do with all other things pertaining to computers, I will remain in a constant state of evaluation. Hopefully Seagate will realize the error of their ways and reinstate the 5 year warranty.