«

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Gordon wrote:
> On 2011-07-28, ~misfit~ <> wrote:
>> S'funny. I thought that this would have been big news in the
>> computer world. However I only found out as Zcom sent me an email a
>> couple of days ago (I have a wholesale account with them) saying
>> that Seagate warranties are now two years. (They were three
>> previously.)
>
> Funny old world we live in. Remember they, Seagate went back to one
> year, down from the three and the out cry was long and loud.


Yeah, they backed off from that move pretty quickly. Then they went up to 5
years for most all drives for a while. IT didn't make a huge difference back
then as most drives fail in the first month of use if they're going to fail
( they call it infant mortality).

However I wonder if this warranty change was bought about by the fact that a
lot of drives are being used for off-line storage? A drive could be two and
a half years old but might not have clocked up more than a couple of weeks
use time, then fail due to infant mortality even though it's 2.5 years old?

>> I'm pleased that the last couple of drives I bought were WD Scorpio
>> Blacks. They still have a 60 month warranty.
>
> Well if you build a sports car, you hardly build a cheap one.

Yet, amongst 7.2Krpm laptop HDDs the WD Black 320GB is in fact cheaper than
the Seagate 7200.4 320GB (going by Ascent's prices). 60 month warranty
compared to 24 month and the 60 is cheaper? Huh?
--
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

~misfit~ <> wrote:

> Somewhere on teh intarwebs David Empson wrote:
> > ~misfit~ <> wrote:
> >
> >> S'funny. I thought that this would have been big news in the
> >> computer world. However I only found out as Zcom sent me an email a
> >> couple of days ago (I have a wholesale account with them) saying
> >> that Seagate warranties are now two years. (They were three
> >> previously.)
> >>
> >> I waited a bit, feeling sure that I'd see articles on websites about
> >> it but... nothing. So I just checked Ascent's listings and, sure
> >> enough, they now say 24 months for Seagate drives where they said 36
> >> months last week.
> >
> > Thanks for the tip, Shaun. I was about to buy some drives and I might
> > not have noticed. WD got my money this time.
>
> You're welcome. I'm quite surprised it wasn't more widely discussed to be
> honest.
>
> > Almost all my other separately purchased drives are Seagates. Web site
> > visit coming up to tell them this policy change lost them two sales.
> >
> >> I'm pleased that the last couple of drives I bought were WD Scorpio
> >> Blacks. They still have a 60 month warranty.
> >
> > Judging from Ascent, Seagate still offers 5 year warranty on their
> > enterprise drives, and oddly also on the Momentus XT hybrid laptop
> > drive.
>
> Yes, various lines have various warranties with both companies. WD are the
> same, the 'Black' line is 5 years, most of the rest are 3 years. Seagate was
> the same but now, as of 2nd July, dropped it's minimum warranty for it's
> bulk lines from three years to two years.
>
> IIRC a few years back Seagate gave a 5 year warranty on *all* of their
> drives

All their bare drive mechanisms, yes. The external drives may hae been
less.

> and were the only company that did so.

I recall most others being three years at the time.

> That's why I used Seagate almost solely for years.

Me too. The 500 GB drives I bought in mid 2007 had 5 year warranties.
Don't recall offhand about the three 1.5 GB drives I bought more
recently.

> Then they dropped it to 3 years for bulk lines while WD raised theirs to 5
> years for premium lines, roughly equalling it out.
>
> Now, with Seagate dropping the bulk lines to 2 years I'm more inclined to
> buy WD myself. <ponders> I wonder if the drop in warranty has anything to do
> with Seagate's recent acquisition of Maxtor?

Did you mean Samsung? They bought Maxtor a while ago.

> Actually, as I understand it Seagate and Western Digital are the only one
> making desktop HDDs these days. Seagate bought Maxtor a while back and are
> currently taking over Samsung's HDD manufacuring. Western Digital are doing
> the same with Hitachi (who bought IBM a few years back). The only other
> player is Toshiba and they only make laptop drives.

I have some Fujitsu laptop drives (supplied in computers) but haven't
seen any recently - maybe they already got absorbed.

> Of course there are any number of companies making SSD 'hard drives'.
> However I think that the good old rotating platter mechanical drive will be
> with us for quite a while yet.

Agreed.

--
David Empson

In article <j0qfe6$ai3$>,
says...
>
> S'funny. I thought that this would have been big news in the computer world.
> However I only found out as Zcom sent me an email a couple of days ago (I
> have a wholesale account with them) saying that Seagate warranties are now
> two years. (They were three previously.)
>
> I waited a bit, feeling sure that I'd see articles on websites about it
> but... nothing. So I just checked Ascent's listings and, sure enough, they
> now say 24 months for Seagate drives where they said 36 months last week.
>
> I'm pleased that the last couple of drives I bought were WD Scorpio Blacks.
> They still have a 60 month warranty.
>
> Not much being said on teh intarwebs yet I thought that this was
> significant. <shrug>

I noticed a little while ago that ascent's 'reliability' rating for seagate
drives had dropped (i.e. they got more of them returned) compared to some other
brand(s).

-P.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs David Empson wrote:
> ~misfit~ <> wrote:
[snip]
>> Yes, various lines have various warranties with both companies. WD
>> are the same, the 'Black' line is 5 years, most of the rest are 3
>> years. Seagate was the same but now, as of 2nd July, dropped it's
>> minimum warranty for it's bulk lines from three years to two years.
>>
>> IIRC a few years back Seagate gave a 5 year warranty on *all* of
>> their drives
>
> All their bare drive mechanisms, yes. The external drives may hae been
> less.

I believe that they were less. However I thought we were discussing bare
internal drives (at least initially).

>> and were the only company that did so.
>
> I recall most others being three years at the time.

Yup, ditto.

>> That's why I used Seagate almost solely for years.
>
> Me too. The 500 GB drives I bought in mid 2007 had 5 year warranties.
> Don't recall offhand about the three 1.5 GB drives I bought more
> recently.

I have some 1.5TB / 7.2K Seagates that had 5 year warranties when I bought
them.

>> Then they dropped it to 3 years for bulk lines while WD raised
>> theirs to 5 years for premium lines, roughly equalling it out.
>>
>> Now, with Seagate dropping the bulk lines to 2 years I'm more
>> inclined to buy WD myself. <ponders> I wonder if the drop in
>> warranty has anything to do with Seagate's recent acquisition of
>> Maxtor?
>
> Did you mean Samsung? They bought Maxtor a while ago.

No, I meant Maxtor. Now they'll have a bit of data as to how drives made in
old Maxtor facilities are performing compared to Seagate facilities. I've
heard rumbles that the quality has dropped since they absorbed Maxtor, more
failures...

>> Actually, as I understand it Seagate and Western Digital are the
>> only one making desktop HDDs these days. Seagate bought Maxtor a
>> while back and are currently taking over Samsung's HDD manufacuring.
>> Western Digital are doing the same with Hitachi (who bought IBM a
>> few years back). The only other player is Toshiba and they only make
>> laptop drives.
>
> I have some Fujitsu laptop drives (supplied in computers) but haven't
> seen any recently - maybe they already got absorbed.

It's my understanding that there are still some available with Fujitsu
labels (basically old stock, like Ascent still list Samsung drives) but I
believe that they were bought out by Toshiba. (Just checked on teh
intarwebs; Tosh bought Fujitsu's HDD business in 2009.)

>> Of course there are any number of companies making SSD 'hard drives'.
>> However I think that the good old rotating platter mechanical drive
>> will be with us for quite a while yet.
>
> Agreed.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <j0qfe6$ai3$>,
> says...
>>
>> S'funny. I thought that this would have been big news in the
>> computer world. However I only found out as Zcom sent me an email a
>> couple of days ago (I have a wholesale account with them) saying
>> that Seagate warranties are now two years. (They were three
>> previously.)
>>
>> I waited a bit, feeling sure that I'd see articles on websites about
>> it but... nothing. So I just checked Ascent's listings and, sure
>> enough, they now say 24 months for Seagate drives where they said 36
>> months last week.
>>
>> I'm pleased that the last couple of drives I bought were WD Scorpio
>> Blacks. They still have a 60 month warranty.
>>
>> Not much being said on teh intarwebs yet I thought that this was
>> significant. <shrug>
>
> I noticed a little while ago that ascent's 'reliability' rating for
> seagate drives had dropped (i.e. they got more of them returned)
> compared to some other brand(s).

Thanks. I didn't see that but read in several hardware forums that, since
Seagate had been producing drives in previously-Maxtor facilities their
over-all reliability had dropped heaps, depending on where the HDD was made.
--
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

On 2011-07-28, Donchano <> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:53:09 +1200, "~misfit~"
><> shouted from the highest rooftop:
>
>>S'funny. I thought that this would have been big news in the computer world.
>>However I only found out as Zcom sent me an email a couple of days ago (I
>>have a wholesale account with them) saying that Seagate warranties are now
>>two years. (They were three previously.)
>>
>>I waited a bit, feeling sure that I'd see articles on websites about it
>>but... nothing. So I just checked Ascent's listings and, sure enough, they
>>now say 24 months for Seagate drives where they said 36 months last week.
>>
>>I'm pleased that the last couple of drives I bought were WD Scorpio Blacks.
>>They still have a 60 month warranty.
>
> Very interesting as I'm in the market for a 2TB external drive and
> have avoided the WD specials on at the moment due to the reputation
> they "used" to have when compared to Seagate.
>
> Warranties aside, does anyone have an opinion on what is the most
> reliable, long lasting external hard drive on the market? Price is not
> as much as a factor as reliability.
>
I would argue that the difference is greater within a brand, than between
them. Any mass produced product will have some lemons in the barrel, or is
that on the platter.

On 29 Jul 2011 05:24:27 GMT, Gordon <> shouted from
the highest rooftop:

>On 2011-07-28, Donchano <> wrote:
>>
>> On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:53:09 +1200, "~misfit~"
>><> shouted from the highest rooftop:
>>
>>>S'funny. I thought that this would have been big news in the computer world.
>>>However I only found out as Zcom sent me an email a couple of days ago (I
>>>have a wholesale account with them) saying that Seagate warranties are now
>>>two years. (They were three previously.)
>>>
>>>I waited a bit, feeling sure that I'd see articles on websites about it
>>>but... nothing. So I just checked Ascent's listings and, sure enough, they
>>>now say 24 months for Seagate drives where they said 36 months last week.
>>>
>>>I'm pleased that the last couple of drives I bought were WD Scorpio Blacks.
>>>They still have a 60 month warranty.
>>
>> Very interesting as I'm in the market for a 2TB external drive and
>> have avoided the WD specials on at the moment due to the reputation
>> they "used" to have when compared to Seagate.
>>
>> Warranties aside, does anyone have an opinion on what is the most
>> reliable, long lasting external hard drive on the market? Price is not
>> as much as a factor as reliability.
>>
>I would argue that the difference is greater within a brand, than between
>them. Any mass produced product will have some lemons in the barrel, or is
>that on the platter.

Guess my Iomega ZIP drive was just one of the lemons <grin>.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Donchano wrote:
> On 29 Jul 2011 05:24:27 GMT, Gordon <> shouted from
> the highest rooftop:
>
>> On 2011-07-28, Donchano <> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Thu, 28 Jul 2011 13:53:09 +1200, "~misfit~"
>>> <> shouted from the highest rooftop:
>>>
>>>> S'funny. I thought that this would have been big news in the
>>>> computer world. However I only found out as Zcom sent me an email
>>>> a couple of days ago (I have a wholesale account with them) saying
>>>> that Seagate warranties are now two years. (They were three
>>>> previously.)
>>>>
>>>> I waited a bit, feeling sure that I'd see articles on websites
>>>> about it but... nothing. So I just checked Ascent's listings and,
>>>> sure enough, they now say 24 months for Seagate drives where they
>>>> said 36 months last week.
>>>>
>>>> I'm pleased that the last couple of drives I bought were WD
>>>> Scorpio Blacks. They still have a 60 month warranty.
>>>
>>> Very interesting as I'm in the market for a 2TB external drive and
>>> have avoided the WD specials on at the moment due to the reputation
>>> they "used" to have when compared to Seagate.
>>>
>>> Warranties aside, does anyone have an opinion on what is the most
>>> reliable, long lasting external hard drive on the market? Price is
>>> not as much as a factor as reliability.
>>>
>> I would argue that the difference is greater within a brand, than
>> between them. Any mass produced product will have some lemons in the
>> barrel, or is that on the platter.
>
> Guess my Iomega ZIP drive was just one of the lemons <grin>.

LOL! I had one of those that developed the 'click of death' after 18 months
and, after getting no joy from DSE, pulled it to bits. *Then* Iomega
announced they'd replace them, even out of warranty.....
--
Shaun.

"He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a
monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also
into you." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche