SCSI warranties
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timwhit
Hairy Aussie
Time, where did you get that info from? Just curious really...
time
Storage? I am Storage!
I'm a little nervous about revealing this in public, but here goes:
I had a couple of lengthy conversations with the Australasia (or maybe Asia Pacific?) manager of IBM's Technology Group, Storage Division. HDDs, in other words. He even gave me a tip on resuscitating 75GXPs. :roll:
He became a little chatty and revealed that IBM and Seagate representatives in Singapore are holding discussions about reducing SCSI warranties from five years to three. He left me in no doubt that the five year warranties hurt them, because they had a policy of crediting older claims at original value (who can replace a five year old model anyway?). Think about how much a 2GB SCSI drive cost five years ago. IBM could have saved heaps by giving each customer an 18GB drive or better, but the drives might be raided etc.
BTW, he also suggested it was crazy to think that in a server environment, IDE desktop drives would be just as reliable as SCSI drives built for that purpose.
I had a couple of lengthy conversations with the Australasia (or maybe Asia Pacific?) manager of IBM's Technology Group, Storage Division. HDDs, in other words. He even gave me a tip on resuscitating 75GXPs. :roll:
He became a little chatty and revealed that IBM and Seagate representatives in Singapore are holding discussions about reducing SCSI warranties from five years to three. He left me in no doubt that the five year warranties hurt them, because they had a policy of crediting older claims at original value (who can replace a five year old model anyway?). Think about how much a 2GB SCSI drive cost five years ago. IBM could have saved heaps by giving each customer an 18GB drive or better, but the drives might be raided etc.
BTW, he also suggested it was crazy to think that in a server environment, IDE desktop drives would be just as reliable as SCSI drives built for that purpose.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
Anyone else who feels the need to badmouth Seagate, the line forms here.
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We've been badmouthing IBM for awhile, so I guess that's nothing new.
That leaves Maxtor (er, does Fujitsu still make SCSI? I forget) in the leadership position, warranty-wise. Somehow I doubt Maxtor would keep it.
I don't really know what to say to this, other than it's extremely disappointing but confirms my opinion of both Seagate and IBM...
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We've been badmouthing IBM for awhile, so I guess that's nothing new.
That leaves Maxtor (er, does Fujitsu still make SCSI? I forget) in the leadership position, warranty-wise. Somehow I doubt Maxtor would keep it.
I don't really know what to say to this, other than it's extremely disappointing but confirms my opinion of both Seagate and IBM...
time
Storage? I am Storage!
You may not believe this, but IBM had a problem with connectors. A large number from a particular supplier turned out to be flaky. According to him, it may actually pay to try several different cables with an apparently dead 75GXP.LiamC said:
I'm inclined to believe it because I've read a couple of reports of people assuming a drive was dead, then plugging it in months later to find it worked okay.
That's not the only fault of course, but I got the impression it was a biggy.
time
Storage? I am Storage!
It's worth remembering that Maxtor appears to be responsible for initiating this whole saga of warranty theft.Mercutio said:
Do you remember the last time that a Fujitsu drive was featured in our Leaderboard? We can't either... but there's one there now! The MAP3147 delivers an unbeatable combination of performance and whisper-quiet operation. StorageReview 09 October 2002
Fushigi
Storage Is My Life
Not to play devil's advocate, but reducing SCSI drives to 3 year warranties would go hand in hand with reducing OEM/budget drives to 1 year. Most servers, like those purchased from Dell & the like, come with 3 year warranties.
This could simply be another case of aligning the warranties with the rest of the box it's likely to come in.
That's not to say I like the idea. Like any consumer I'd prefer a lifetime warranty with a "free two-way shipping" clause. But from a vendor's standpoint, it makes a lot of sense.
- Fushigi
This could simply be another case of aligning the warranties with the rest of the box it's likely to come in.
That's not to say I like the idea. Like any consumer I'd prefer a lifetime warranty with a "free two-way shipping" clause. But from a vendor's standpoint, it makes a lot of sense.
- Fushigi
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
Your main point is good, Fushigi, but in there you seem to have fallen for one of the biggest marketing lies the industry has seen in recent years. The line that Maxtor, WD, et al are "aligning the warranties with the rest of the box it's likely to come in" is a pure, simple lie: repeat lie put about by Western Digital (and possibly the others too, but I haven't seen it said by the other two). So far as system warranties go, the standard warranty is two years, and had been for many years. If my memory is to be trusted, we felt obliged to double our own standard one year system warranty because so many of our competitors had already done so and we were starting to loose sales because of it back around about the time that the 486DX/4 was giving way to the 5x86 and the Pentium-90 - i.e., about 1995 or '96. The standard specialist computer shop warranty is not one year, and has not been one year for almost a decade. The standard major OEM warranty (IBM, Hewlett-Packard, et al) is one year, but they do not buy drives on the open market anyway, they buy by direct negotiation with the drive manufacturers. In other words, the standard system warranty for standard wholesale channel drives is two years, and the industry standard warranties on other components is trending up not down.
Examples, major components first:
Motherboards: Three years or two years for nearly all makers. e.g., FIC, Soltek, ASUS: three years. Gigabyte, Epox: two years. A few still do twelve months only, they are, almost without exception, low-end no-name makers.
RAM: depends on grade: A grade RAM is usually lifetime warranty, or else five years. (Legend, Crucial, Micron, etc.) B grade RAM is mostly twelve months. C grade RAM, you are lucky to get any warranty at all, though DOAs will usually be replaced.
Video cards: The majors all offer long warranties. Three years is typical. (e.g., Leadtek, Hercules, ASUS, MSI.) The no-name generic makers used to all give twelve months but even amongst them there are now quite a few exceptions.
Monitors. Three years is all but universal. Only in some cheaper LCD screens do we find exceptions.
Hard drives: Guess you all know this one by now!
Minor components:
Case and PSU: 12 months
Floppy drives: 12 months or two years. The better brands (Panasonic, Sony) give two years. Maybe the others have followed suit now.
Optical drives: Traditionally twelve months, but trending strongly towards two years. Already almost half of the better brands (Panasonic and Lite-On come to mind) have a two year warranty. Sony are an interesting stand-out - but then, I'm tempted to relegate Sony's optical drives to the second rank now anyway - they do seem to have slipped from their former glory.
Keyboard and mouse: mostly twelve months.
Sound card: twelve months.
Having said all that, I don't think I'd be too worried about a three year warranty for my SCSI drives. By the time a drive, particularly a SCSI drive, is three years old, it's a long way off state of the art. For people running arrays it could be a real problem, I guess, but for me, I'm not too fussed. In any case, the only time I ever needed warranty service on a SCSI drive that was more than three years old, the company had gone bankrupt anyway!
Examples, major components first:
Motherboards: Three years or two years for nearly all makers. e.g., FIC, Soltek, ASUS: three years. Gigabyte, Epox: two years. A few still do twelve months only, they are, almost without exception, low-end no-name makers.
RAM: depends on grade: A grade RAM is usually lifetime warranty, or else five years. (Legend, Crucial, Micron, etc.) B grade RAM is mostly twelve months. C grade RAM, you are lucky to get any warranty at all, though DOAs will usually be replaced.
Video cards: The majors all offer long warranties. Three years is typical. (e.g., Leadtek, Hercules, ASUS, MSI.) The no-name generic makers used to all give twelve months but even amongst them there are now quite a few exceptions.
Monitors. Three years is all but universal. Only in some cheaper LCD screens do we find exceptions.
Hard drives: Guess you all know this one by now!
Minor components:
Case and PSU: 12 months
Floppy drives: 12 months or two years. The better brands (Panasonic, Sony) give two years. Maybe the others have followed suit now.
Optical drives: Traditionally twelve months, but trending strongly towards two years. Already almost half of the better brands (Panasonic and Lite-On come to mind) have a two year warranty. Sony are an interesting stand-out - but then, I'm tempted to relegate Sony's optical drives to the second rank now anyway - they do seem to have slipped from their former glory.
Keyboard and mouse: mostly twelve months.
Sound card: twelve months.
Having said all that, I don't think I'd be too worried about a three year warranty for my SCSI drives. By the time a drive, particularly a SCSI drive, is three years old, it's a long way off state of the art. For people running arrays it could be a real problem, I guess, but for me, I'm not too fussed. In any case, the only time I ever needed warranty service on a SCSI drive that was more than three years old, the company had gone bankrupt anyway!
time
Storage? I am Storage!
Two years for Compucase/HEC in Oz.
Three years for Mitsubishi keyboard (pity about the keys
), three or five years for Logitech non-OEM mice.
blakerwry
Storage? I am Storage!
and dont forget about the lifetime of "wisdom" tannin sells with every computer... it carries...... na.. i wont go into it[/i]
Santilli
Hairy Aussie
- Joined
- Jan 27, 2002
- Messages
- 5,184
I've always been amazed with Seagates Cheetahs, both in speed, and in reliability. I think I had to send one back, DOA thanks to some really bad shipping. Other then that, they are still going, like the energizer bunny.
With the current drop in warranty on ide drives, I have now become completely scsi oriented, even if the warranty is only three years.
I'm not really caught by surprise that the ide makers are dropping warranty lengths. Monopolies, or collusion amoung a couple companies to price fix, or warranty fix, is something that has long existed in many markets, despite all efforts to stop it. I don't find it unusual that with the limiting number of drive producers, a drop in warranty protection is likely to be accompanied with an increase in sales price, fixed by the current major three ide makers.
Welcome to the New World.
s
With the current drop in warranty on ide drives, I have now become completely scsi oriented, even if the warranty is only three years.
I'm not really caught by surprise that the ide makers are dropping warranty lengths. Monopolies, or collusion amoung a couple companies to price fix, or warranty fix, is something that has long existed in many markets, despite all efforts to stop it. I don't find it unusual that with the limiting number of drive producers, a drop in warranty protection is likely to be accompanied with an increase in sales price, fixed by the current major three ide makers.
Welcome to the New World.
s
Buck
Storage? I am Storage!
Did you hear that Seagate is going to increase EIDE warranties back to three years in India? Since Samsung has stuck to three years and is a major competitor in India, Seagate had to switch back in order to keep its share of the Indian market. Granted, that doesn't help us in the USA (unless we buy Samsung), but the game of changing warranties for greater profit is interesting to watch.