[mythtv-users] OT: Seagate to reduce warranties on consumer drives to 3 years from 2009

[Alex Butcher]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2008, Brian Wood wrote:

> On Friday 12 December 2008 08:41:10 John Drescher wrote:
>> On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 10:26 AM, Nick Morrott
>> <knowledgejunkie at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2008/12/12/seagate_cuts_bare_drive_warra
>>> nty/
>>>
>>> If you're thinking of buying a bare/OEM Seagate consumer drive over
>>> the holiday period, get it before the end of the year to get the
>>> current 5 year warranty.
>>
>> Hmmm. To me this means I will not purchase only Seagate drives. I mean
>> the biggest reason I purchase only seagate drives is the warranty.
>
> A lot of people seem to like the 5 year warranty. I would prefer to have a
> drive that doesn't fail, and thus doesn't need a warranty.
>
> Pushing your warranty would seem to imply that your products fail a lot.

Quite the contrary; it implies that Seagate once had confidence that they
could up the warranty from 3 to 5 years without having repairs/replacements
cost very much. Assuming that drives across manufacturers cost pretty much
the same the manufacture, and that processes are pretty much as efficient,
that would suggest that Seagate had confidence that their drives would be
more reliable than those of their competitors.

[...]

> I wonder how many drives Seagate sells directly to comsumers, and thus has to
> warranty, as opposed to selling to OEMs or system builders, who wind up
> having to support them.

AFAIK, the warranty applied to both consumers and OEMs/system builders. The
end customer of an OEM/system builder may not have realised it, but it would
have meant lower warranty costs for those that used Seagate drives.

Best Regards,
Alex.