Looks like Seagate is cutting back on its warranty policy, just thought I would share.  This is part of an email I received today


At Seagate, we are standardizing warranty terms to be more consistent with those commonly applied throughout the consumer electronics and technology industries. By aligning to current     industry standards, Seagate can continue to focus its investments on technology innovation and unique product features that drive value for our customers rather than holding long-term         reserves for warranty returns.                

                Therefore, effective December 31, 2011, Seagate will be changing its warranty policy from 5 years                to 3 years for nearline drives, 2 years to 1 year for certain desktop and notebook bare drives (5 years to 3 years on Barracuda® XT and Momentus® XT), and from as much as 5 years to 2 years on                 Consumer Electronics (see table below.)                 \
Product Line

Limited Warranty Period
 (as of December 31, 2011)
Constellation®.2 and Constellation ES.2

3 years

Barracuda® and Barracuda Green 3.5" Drives

1 year

Barracuda XT

3 yearMomentus® 2.5" Drives (5400 RPM & 7200 RPM)

1 year

Momentus XT

3 years

SV35 Series™ – Video Surveilance

2 years

Pipeline HD® Mini, Pipeline HD

2 years

Products not impacted by this change include: mission critical and retail products.
 The new warranty periods will apply to all shipments of applicable products, as of December                31, 2011. Former warranty periods will be honored for all existing channel inventory shipped                to you before the effective date.  To check the warranty status of a single or multiple drives,                you may visit http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/warranty_&;_returns_assistance.                

                Seagate will update its Global Limited Warranty Overview Policy as of December 31, 2011 specifically documenting these changes.                The limited warranty included in your agreement with Seagate will continue to apply to these products under the new warranty periods.                  

                Please share the warranty change information with your end customers as you sell your inventory.                  If you mention warranties online or in printed material, don't forget to update that as well.                

                As always, we believe in strong communication with our channel partners and appreciate your support and loyalty.                Please do not hesitate to contact us via                 reseller.partner@seagate.com if you have any questions, comments, or                 need any other type of assistance or information regarding the Seagate Partner Program.                 

Yet another reason to buy WD.

"You don't know what you got, till its gone..
80's hair band Cinderella or ode to data backups???"

  I second that DrBob. Just replace a dead 6 month old seagate 500GB drive this morning.

Western Digital and Seagate Cut Hard Drive Warranty Lengths
http://www.storagereview.com/western_digital_and_seagate_cut_hard_drive_warranty_lengths

so it's not just SeaGate that does it...

but I still prefer WD over SeaGate, mainly because when you get a replacement drive from WD it is NEW and a replacement from SeaGate is usually a REFURBISHED unit (one they sent me, went bad within days)...

 

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

Yup, looks like it will be industry wide soon.

Or just buy WD black, which retains the 5 yr. warranty.