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

[Big Wave Dave]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2008 at 9:54 AM, Preston Crow
<pc-mythtv08a at crowcastle.net> wrote:
> On Fri, 2008-12-12 at 16:36 +0000, Alex Butcher wrote:
>> > 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.
>
> The problem is that to support a warranty, Seagate has to keep a
> stockpile of replacement drives.  That's dead inventory that
> depreciates.  A shorter warranty period suggests that they see a shorter
> product life cycle.
>
> >From a consumer perspective, if I had a drive fail after two years, the
> product cycle is such that I wouldn't bother getting a warranty
> replacement, as the cost of shipping would be more than the value of the
> drive.  I would instead buy a new, much larger drive.

Agreed.  I actually just sent them a 200GB PATA drive, and they are
sending back a 250GB PATA as a replacement.  With storage increasing
at such a rapid pace, it would be very cost prohibitive to expect to
keep stockpiles of old technology.  In addition, the last thing they'd
want to be doing is sending me a 500GB or 1TB drive as a replacement
for my 200GB.

Dave