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Seagate slashes warranties for HDDs
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The following comments relate to this news article:
article published on 4 August, 2011
Seagate has noted today that it will shorten the warranty on most of its consumer series HDDs.
In an effort to reduce costs, the warranties will be reduced from 5 years to just 2 years.
Included in the list are Seagate's most popular drives, the Barracuda 7200.12 and Momentus Green product series.
Barracudas are 3.5-inch form factor and used for desktop builds while the slimmer ... [ read the full article ]
Please read the original article before posting your comments.
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LM2008
Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 12:43 |
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I never buy Seagate now less. I use WD because they still work and last longer, at least in my experience, plus the warranty is good on most of the drives. I hope no more manufacturers slashes their warranty periods.
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Interestx
Senior Member
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5. August 2011 @ 12:46 |
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I used to buy nothing but Seagate.
I even had their hard drive firmware bug & they were outstanding in sorting that out FOC.
But then they did an Asian flit and pulled out of Ireland & the UK, so they lost my custom.
Why should I support them if they are just going to be like anyone else making everything in Asia?
But I'd love to hear them rationalise this, how on earth does reducing your warranty cover do anything positive for your brand?
It merely tells the world you will no longer stand by your product as well as you once did.
Great, not.
I get the message (just like everyone else).
I stopped buying Seagate a couple of years ago and switched everything to Western Digital.
Never had one problem with them ever......and they are often around the cheapest anyways.
I'm just waiting on the 4tb drives to appear & be seen to be reliable for my next big buying spree.
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Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 13:51 |
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Let me check my "dead" HD pile..I have 5 dead Seagate HDs all under 250Ghz in size.....while I have only have 2 WD HDs on the "dead" pile and both of those are over 500Ghz.....This warranty issue will definitely sway my decision the next time I purchase a new HD.....Are SSDs worth the price? Will those SSDs go 10 years and beyond? Gal like me gotta know!
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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5. August 2011 @ 13:59 |
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Wow, what a bonehead move. People are gonna look at that with a raised brow for sure!
"If they don't trust their drives to last 5 years, why should I?"
Excellent example! :) The one and only seagate I bought, began to fail in under 30 days. Ever since that point, I've bought WD. A few Raptor problems, but it could have been the cable, so I'll never know.
To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
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forkndave
Member
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5. August 2011 @ 15:33 |
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Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
Let me check my "dead" HD pile..I have 5 dead Seagate HDs all under 250Ghz in size.....while I have only have 2 WD HDs on the "dead" pile and both of those are over 500Ghz.....This warranty issue will definitely sway my decision the next time I purchase a new HD.....Are SSDs worth the price? Will those SSDs go 10 years and beyond? Gal like me gotta know!
I've never had a drive rated in Ghz which is frequency. I think my microwave oven runs at a little over 2Ghz. My hard drives are all rated in GB. Maybe yours are different.
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tabenx
Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 15:38 |
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I've owned 10 WD and 10 Seagate HDD's. I've had one WD fail and 6 Seagate's fail (within the first 6 months of their operation). This is a smart business move on Seagate's part considering how much their HDDs suck.
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Senior Member
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5. August 2011 @ 16:02 |
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It's not a smart move in fact it is a dumb move.
The correct move would be to correct their manufacturing problems but since they choose to build drives in countries that have big problems with quality but provide cheap labor this is a bigger issue than it should be. Basically they are in between a rock and hard place if you know what I mean. I personally would think they would send staff over seas to monitor the manufacturing process and assure that materials and processes are improved.
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Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 16:37 |
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Originally posted by forkndave:
Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
Let me check my "dead" HD pile..I have 5 dead Seagate HDs all under 250Ghz in size.....while I have only have 2 WD HDs on the "dead" pile and both of those are over 500Ghz.....This warranty issue will definitely sway my decision the next time I purchase a new HD.....Are SSDs worth the price? Will those SSDs go 10 years and beyond? Gal like me gotta know!
I've never had a drive rated in Ghz which is frequency. I think my microwave oven runs at a little over 2Ghz. My hard drives are all rated in GB. Maybe yours are different.
Well Excuuuuse Me......I didn't realize I was in the presence of God..let's just say gigs...Amen.......aye Jesus?
"Praise The Lord And Pass The Percocet"
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Mez
AfterDawn Addict
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5. August 2011 @ 16:48 |
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I agree Mr Movies, that was a typical fat cat way of doing business. They lay off their own people so that they get cheap labor but do not include quality penalties in their contracts. Obviously the Asians got the better end of the contract. Now they will go by the way of the dodo birds, go slowly go out of business or get bought out by the Chinese.
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Mez
AfterDawn Addict
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5. August 2011 @ 17:01 |
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Sultan, It is common to get ribbed if you say something stuid like that. forkndave didn't rub it it. I suggest you let that one lie. The members expect to see a minimul level of technical savy with its posters.
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Junior Member
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5. August 2011 @ 17:48 |
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Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
..This warranty issue will definitely sway my decision the next time I purchase a new HD.....Are SSDs worth the price? Will those SSDs go 10 years and beyond? Gal like me gotta know!
As for SSDs, sure they are very reliable if you avoid particular models from various manufacturers - again Google particular models for up-to-date info & check warranty cover - they are usually 3-years.
Most reliable and trusted being OCZ Vertex 3 currently, Crucial SSD are very fast and reliable with top CS, Corsair's Force 3 is one to avoid, but not the GTs as they use different SandForce controllers - it has been reported certain Sata cables have failed but using quality Sata-III cables have solved most issues. Intel 320's have 8MB bug which Intel are fixing, OCZs Agility has niggles and occasional BSODs. Bit of a mind-field which is why you need to research for a couple of hours or two.
||Intel 2600K @4.7GHz|Asus P8P67-D B3-Rev|5970 2GB B.E.+ GT440(PhysX)|16GB DDR3 1866MHZ|X-Fi Fatality|Win7 x64|120GB SataII SSD|2TB WD C.B|LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blu-Ray/HD-DVD||
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forkndave
Member
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5. August 2011 @ 18:07 |
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Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
Originally posted by forkndave:
Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
Let me check my "dead" HD pile..I have 5 dead Seagate HDs all under 250Ghz in size.....while I have only have 2 WD HDs on the "dead" pile and both of those are over 500Ghz.....This warranty issue will definitely sway my decision the next time I purchase a new HD.....Are SSDs worth the price? Will those SSDs go 10 years and beyond? Gal like me gotta know!
I've never had a drive rated in Ghz which is frequency. I think my microwave oven runs at a little over 2Ghz. My hard drives are all rated in GB. Maybe yours are different.
Well Excuuuuse Me......I didn't realize I was in the presence of God..let's just say gigs...Amen.......aye Jesus?
That was just an attempt at humor which I guess didn't work. I meant no insult. I say stupid things all of the time. Even I am not perfect. (sarc) Even in "Back to the Future" they referred to "jigawatts" which I guess would be abbreviated JW rather than GW.
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. August 2011 @ 18:17
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AfterDawn Addict
7 product reviews
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5. August 2011 @ 18:23 |
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To delete, or not to delete. THAT is the question! |
Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 18:36 |
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Originally posted by forkndave:
Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
Originally posted by forkndave:
Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
Let me check my "dead" HD pile..I have 5 dead Seagate HDs all under 250Ghz in size.....while I have only have 2 WD HDs on the "dead" pile and both of those are over 500Ghz.....This warranty issue will definitely sway my decision the next time I purchase a new HD.....Are SSDs worth the price? Will those SSDs go 10 years and beyond? Gal like me gotta know!
I've never had a drive rated in Ghz which is frequency. I think my microwave oven runs at a little over 2Ghz. My hard drives are all rated in GB. Maybe yours are different.
Well Excuuuuse Me......I didn't realize I was in the presence of God..let's just say gigs...Amen.......aye Jesus?
That was just an attempt at humor which I guess didn't work. I meant no insult. I say stupid things all of the time. Even I am not perfect. (sarc) Even in "Back to the Future" they referred to "jigawatts" which I guess would be abbreviated JW rather than GW.
Let me just say I stand corrected....I was thinking instant coffee when the Ghz came out......sorry about the heat......
"Praise The Lord And Pass The Percocet"
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JohnPaulsen
Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 19:55 |
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This is an unfortunate and inaccurate rumor. The rumor's wrong. Seagate consumer internal drives still all have a 5-year warranty.
- John Paulsen from Seagate
Originally posted by bigfamei:
seagate has a love/hate relationship with its hard drive products. I can't see this helping.
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Staff Member
4 product reviews
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5. August 2011 @ 20:16 |
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This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 5. August 2011 @ 20:17
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rudeann
Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 21:24 |
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Originally posted by bobiroc:
I guess all those drives failing in the 2 - 3 year mark made this happen. Lord knows I had plenty of them. Built a bunch of NAS type boxes for storage with about 60 1TB Drives and had so many fail it was not even funny. Got some RMAd but then those started failing. Finally started replacing them with WD Black drives which were about $20 more a drive and those are still kicking. Still have seagates fail but we have been using the 20 or so we pulled from one of the boxes to replace those.
Based on my experience with their drives these past few years I will not buy them anymore.
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rudeann
Newbie
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5. August 2011 @ 21:31 |
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I purchased a Seagate Expansion 2TB drive that lasted one week.
When I called Seagate technical support they told me the drive suffered from it's own inadequate power supply and offered to replace it another just like it. Duh, it is now a doorstop in my home and I'll never buy another Seagate anything!
This company used to be known for it's quality, now it's known for it's sub-standard, cheaply constructed devices and lack of consumer consideration.
Seagate is the apex of "Buyer Beware".
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Junior Member
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6. August 2011 @ 07:37 |
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So did this story originate from Seagate as it had to come from somewhere, if not who was the original source?
Nice u-turn for their customers! Phew!
||Intel 2600K @4.7GHz|Asus P8P67-D B3-Rev|5970 2GB B.E.+ GT440(PhysX)|16GB DDR3 1866MHZ|X-Fi Fatality|Win7 x64|120GB SataII SSD|2TB WD C.B|LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blu-Ray/HD-DVD||
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Interestx
Senior Member
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6. August 2011 @ 12:14 |
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Quote:
Mez
I agree Mr Movies, that was a typical fat cat way of doing business. They lay off their own people so that they get cheap labor but do not include quality penalties in their contracts.
This little Seagate story gets even worse.
They closed the plants in Ireland to move to Malaysia, only to find that the promises of a large & technically educated workforce just waiting & raring to go turned out to be completely divorced from the reality on the ground.
They had to train a lot of people to get up & running.
They might end up spending less on wages in the long-run but it did not turn out to be as much of a huge saving as they planned & now we see quality nose-dive and their brand tanking.
Idiots.
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Junior Member
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6. August 2011 @ 14:13 |
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RE: Interestx, any company that moves production from a well-established location to save on wages is shameful. You hear lots of stories of callcentres going to India, etc and eventually coming back to the UK because of the lack of skills and understanding of the market in a particular region of the world.
If production quality goes down and customer care if poor, it's both the consumer and the company that suffers. Complaints will no doubt rise and eventually they'll move back minus the love we once had for them.
||Intel 2600K @4.7GHz|Asus P8P67-D B3-Rev|5970 2GB B.E.+ GT440(PhysX)|16GB DDR3 1866MHZ|X-Fi Fatality|Win7 x64|120GB SataII SSD|2TB WD C.B|LG GGW-H20L Super Multi Blu-Ray/HD-DVD||
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pmshah
Member
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7. August 2011 @ 00:10 |
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Originally posted by champman:
RE: Interestx, any company that moves production from a well-established location to save on wages is shameful. You hear lots of stories of callcentres going to India, etc and eventually coming back to the UK because of the lack of skills and understanding of the market in a particular region of the world.
If production quality goes down and customer care if poor, it's both the consumer and the company that suffers. Complaints will no doubt rise and eventually they'll move back minus the love we once had for them.
So far as the call centers are concerned it is more a matter of accent than of intelligence.
I have lived and worked in US for quite a few years. While talking to a customer he asked me - "Do you understand English?" and my instant response was "Do you speak English?" In the early days I simply could not follow the ghetto accent nor the terminology. Over some time I became an expert. I studied and learned the so called "Queen's English" which in fact is more accurate - grammatically and phonetically than that spoken by half of the English population itself.
BTW the new call centers "returning" to UK are most likely owned by Indian IT companies.
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Newbie
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7. August 2011 @ 13:21 |
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Originally posted by forkndave:
Originally posted by HK_Sultan:
Let me check my "dead" HD pile..I have 5 dead Seagate HDs all under 250Ghz in size.....while I have only have 2 WD HDs on the "dead" pile and both of those are over 500Ghz.....This warranty issue will definitely sway my decision the next time I purchase a new HD.....Are SSDs worth the price? Will those SSDs go 10 years and beyond? Gal like me gotta know!
I've never had a drive rated in Ghz which is frequency. I think my microwave oven runs at a little over 2Ghz. My hard drives are all rated in GB. Maybe yours are different.
I have deciphered the punch-line and do see the frequency of bad Seagate HDs....Seagate=Many Ghz....I will think twice about purchasing another Seagate HD but that has all become "moot" since the 5 year warranty still exists.....that forkndave...he funny guy....me not flaming....me/LMAO
"Praise The Lord And Pass The Percocet"
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FreddyF
Junior Member
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12. August 2011 @ 10:27 |
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Honestly it doesn't matter to me if they have 2 or 5 year warranties, it costs much more than the price (in time and lost productivity) to have a drive fail or have to replace one during "prime" working hours that I replace every drive every 2 years. I have had drives from WD, Seagate, Hitachi, IBM(way back when)and Maxtor fail within the warranty on the drive, (if I purchased it alone) but since they were in a computer with a 1 or 2 year warranty, no such luck. I have a lot of WD and Seagate external drives and have had problems with both, a WD jsut stopped working after about a week and a 4 year old Seagate is starting to "beep" (metal on metal scraping, doesn't have a speaker). Drives are cheaper than trying to replace date, so replacing frequently and having multiple backups of external drives is the only option. Ghost and new drives are cheap insurance.
On WD, I purchased 4 of the new "My Passport" drives with the Micro USB connectors, all of them had bad connectors and they sent me new drives, not passports, Elements, with the mini USB connectors. No problems with thoses. I hope they aren't getting cheap FoxCon parts like almost all the computer "manufacturers" who have outsourced manufacturing to Foxcon. It is to the point that Dell, HP, Lenove, Asus and Apple are just resellers, Foxcon is the manufacturer. And they do a pretty poor job of it. Quality on notebook computers has been dropping for several years and appears to be related to outsourcing. Unfortunately, everyone does it, so there is pretty much no choice but to buy a Foxcon POS.
There aren't many moving parts in a computer, the fans (CPU and Power supply for a desktop), CD/DVD drive and Hard Drive. Those are the things that fail most, unless you overclock and cook the computer.
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