Western Digital - Warranty Change?

[Buck]

Has Western Digital gone the way of Maxtor? Perhaps this is front page news.
http://famulus.msnbc.com/famuluscom/pr-newswire09-13-045734.asp?sym=WDC

Concurrent with the expansion of its Special Edition product offerings, the Company has adopted a new warranty policy effective October 1, 2002. WD Caviar Special Edition hard drives are covered under warranty for a three-year period. Consistent with the current PC industry standard, all other Western Digital products will be covered under a standard warranty for a period of one year. Extended warranties will be available for an additional fee via the Company's Web site at http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp#extwarranty

 

[Tannin]

Dear Sirs,

We have been selling and recommending Western Digital drives for many years. Our relationship with WD products goes back to the time when the 40MB drive was a premium product and the 386SX a novelty. We have sold many brands of drive over the years, but always ended up returning to Western Digital, and have rarely had cause to regret it. Many times we have been impressed by the high standard of Western Digital service - and in the long-term, it is reliability and service that matter most of all.

I am appalled to see that WD appear to be following Maxtor into a reduced warranty policy. I was surprised when Maxtor announced that they were cutting their cover from three years to one, and astonished to see WD doing the same. The bottom line for us is very simple. Our systems have a two-year warranty: we can no longer consider using Western Digital drives. We are a long-established retailer in a small country town. We live and die by our service standards. Reducing our traditional two year system warranty is out of the question.

I understand that (at least so far) the reduced warranty applies to the BB, AB and EB units but not the SE drives but this is small consolation. In the mind of the typical buyer, it is the company that is significant, not the individual product line, and this applies to us as well. Why should we order a box of Western Digital drives and have to remember which of the four product families we have to avoid, and check up to make sure that the policy has not been changed again, and trust that the wholesaler will send us the right product (Westan are superb, but even they make mistakes) when we can just order Samsung, Seagate or IBM drives and know that we are covered no matter what?

After more than ten years of selling WD drives, I have no real choice now but to cross Western Digital off our list of preffered suppliers.

Yours with regret,

Tony Wilson
Proprietor, Red Hill Technology

 

[Tea]

It's official: http://www.wdc.com/company/releases/PressRelease.asp?release=1438

 

[Buck]

I shutter when thinking that the entire industry will follow this 1-year warranty policy.

 

[Tannin]

The company that doesn't will get 100% of my business.

 

[SteveC]

I was afraid this would happen and I only hope other companies don't follow them. I'm interested in knowing if anyone here would still consider buying a drive with a 3 year warranty from either Maxtor or WD while they still have the 1 year warranty policy for other drives.

Steve

 

[Tea]

Only as a last resort

 

[Buck]

Neither are part of my standard orders anymore, although I still try to keep up with WD news. I've been in the habit of selling Samsung drives for the past year.

 

[Mercutio]

Looks like that's the direction I'm going to go, too. Reliability is a strong, strong selling point, and the implication of a short warranty obvious.

Seagate - Make and sell crap.
IBM - deeply questionable reliability, exiting business
WD & Maxtor - "Average" warranty too short.

Not many names to choose from, are there?

 

[Handruin]

Looks like that's the direction I'm going to go, too. Reliability is a strong, strong selling point, and the implication of a short warranty obvious.

Seagate - Make and sell crap.
IBM - deeply questionable reliability, exiting business
WD & Maxtor - "Average" warranty too short.

Not many names to choose from, are there?

To add to your list Fujitsu isn't doing to well either, check out these news clips:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/27112.html

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/54/27109.html

In short:

Fujitsu may have to replace up to 300,000 faulty hard disk drives, made between September 2000 and 2001. They can be found in NEC and IBM PCs, as well as Fujitsu Siemens home-grown PCs, according to Japanese newspaper Nihon Keizai, which estimates that replacement programme will cost Fujitsu 10 billion yen (approx $US 83m).


This warranty thing really pisses me off. Like I said in the other thread where this was discussed, hard drive Manfu's are going the same route as cell phone companies. Once one switches their nighttime minutes to 9:00 PM, the rest follow. And they lead you to believe 4000 minute plans are awesome, but you only get 300 anytime leaving you 3700 minutes to call all your friends and family at 9:00PM.

Lets see what Seagate does... I think they sell the largest amounts of drives per year. I wonder if this will weigh in on anything. I bet Maxtor and WD met about this plan to reduce their costs by lowering warranty length.

 

[Tea]

Lets see what Seagate does... I think they sell the largest amounts of drives per year.

No, ever since the Quantum merger, Maxtor has sold the most drives each year. Except, of course, for next year.

Looking to find the largest manufacturer of drives in the future? Hellooo Seagate.

 

[Tannin]

Actually, Tea, I wouldn't be so sure about that. I wouldn't be in the slightest surprised to discover that Seagate have the exact same change already decided on, certainly for the U Series things. Mind you, it's Seagate that stand to save the largest sum of money: those ugly black things are easily the least reliable drive we have sold these last few years. I posted some numbers over at Storage Review this time last week. (Reminder to self: be sure to slip over there and paste those posts into a thread here somewhere. Loosing my reliabily notes again would be horrible.)

 

[NRG = mc²]

Ridiculous! I just ordered a WD800JB yesterday so at least thats on the extended warranty.

 

[Tea]

I bet Maxtor and WD met about this plan to reduce their costs by lowering warranty length.

If they did, and if US law is anything like Australian law, then they are in big, big trouble. It is called collusion. To see just how seriously illegal it is, go to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission site http://www.accc.gov.au/fs-search.htm and type "collusion" into one of the search fields.

Now the half-dozen cases I'm familiar with were collusive price fixing or collusive market sharing prosecutions (secretly agreeing to quote high with each other's customers, for example), but I should imagine that colluding to reduce consumer warranty periods would be regarded by the courts as just a variation on the theme.

It is also illegal to take joint action with another company in relation to the conditions of dealing with a particular customer. For example, it would be illegal for competitors to decide jointly that they will change a customer's repayment terms to COD only.

Like the other TPA breaches we have examined, no formality is required for an exclusionary agreement to exist.

The best way to avoid falling foul of this part of the TPA is to ensure that all your company's decisions are made independently. That doesn't mean you have to turn a blind eye to what your competitors are doing — merely that it is not just bad business practice, but also illegal, to make arrangements of this kind with them.

(From http://www.accc.gov.au/smallbus/best_fairest/bf_module_03.htm )

 

[Platform]

Seagate - Make and sell crap.

? Explain...

 

[NRG = mc²]

their IDE drives are crap... as far as performance goes at least.

 

[Mercutio]

We're talking about IDE drives here. I wouldn't wipe PeeWee's butt with a Seagate IDE drive. Slow and expensive, and unreliable to hear Tannin tell it (wouldn't know. Wouldn't dream of putting a Seagate IDE unit in a build), I think that just about sums up all the least desireable traits in an IDE unit.

I don't have any problem with their SCSI equipment or tape drives.

I *did* have a WD800BB that I put in a build about five months ago fail last week. Every once in awhile you access the drive and get a "THOK THOK THOK" sound, followed by a hard lock. The drive was less than a year old, but right now discussions of shortened warranty length make that failure a stark reminder of the change.

From my reading of Maxtor's press release, it sounds like they're going to keep their current "model year" drives on a 3 year warranty. If that's true, I'll re-evaluate Maxtor. WDx000SEs are too far out of my price range to consider (and they don't add any value to their AB drives, which already command a premium price for "5400rpm" units).

Still, it's clearly time to find someone to sell me Samsung equipment.

 

[time]

I wouldn't wipe PeeWee's butt with a Seagate IDE drive. Slow and expensive, and unreliable to hear Tannin tell it ...

Horse's arse.

The SR benchmarks show the Barracuda IV neck and neck with the Maxtor 740, and the legacy tests show it ahead. Only the server tests show it dominating, if you can call 10% dominating.

Over here at least, Maxtor is more expensive (or certainly no cheaper).

Tannin has never claimed that the Barracuda IV is unreliable. Anecdotally, it doesn't seem to have any problems. The 740 may be more reliable, but I don't believe it's enough of a difference to offset the warranty debacle.

Obviously I'm not referring to the infamous U series, although I'd expect the lastest super slow version of that to be reliable, considering its intended usage in appliances rather than PCs.

Hopefully, the firmware in the next generation Samsung drives will remove any lingering doubts about performance. It's crystal clear that they've been hugely successful mechanically, offering decent seek performance while keeping noise, heat and reliability under control.

Will Seagate drop to one year? Probably with the U series, but I'd be very surprised to see it happen with the Barracuda series. It's worth remembering that Maxtor is hemorrhaging, and eliminating the hassle of dealing with long term warranty claims was probably essential for them. I'd guess that WD was just being opportunistic - their overall margins are the smallest in the industry, so it makes financial sense, superficially anyway.

Samsung won't because a) they're trying to expand and b) they have the reliability bogey locked up in a cupboard. Hitachi can't afford to because they'll be trying to rebuild IBM's lost reputation. Seagate probably won't because they're profitable, and because reliability has been a key plank of the Barracuda IV marketing, so I'd expect them to reinforce this by highlighting the additional warranty. Always kick your competitors when they are down.

 

[LiamC]

Guess Seagate weren't listening Time

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=5392

Seagate has reduced warranties on its IDE Barracuda IV and V series to one year.

Oh well...

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Bugger......

 

[NRG = mc²]

This is becoming a fashion.... what now, Samsung? :evil:

 

[Handruin]

Let me guess, the next phase will be to reduce "enterprise" class drives from 5 years to 3 in warranty length.

[Insert vulgar words]

[/vulgar]

 

[CougTek]

They are all a bunch of bastards!

As for the collusion law, in North America, this law is a joke. Corporations are more powerful than the government, especially in the United States where the governement tries to stay as far as possible from the business side (except for screwing other countries with lesser economical power - those who can't confront US like where I am - and impose taxes on importation while refusing to pay taxes on exportation). Lobbying rules here and politicians are easily bribable for anyone with a decent wallet. The government only acts when public pressure becomes too strong and they also only act in order to save their face, not because they are driven by any sense of justice or other noble reasons.

You think HDD companies will have problems with the law regarding their glaring collusion about warranty? Dream on. Oil companies have been in collusion well before the birth of anyone on this board. They still are too and there isn't even a single tiny cloud in their sky. Microsoft vs DOJ was another joke where the outcome only allowed Microsoft to extend its monopoly even further. Read their EULA? Find me the part where you see any improvement compared to what it was before the clowns of the DOJ started their circus.

Collusion law my ass. They make me sick.


Although I despise them, I'll have to continue to buy their products anyway (do I really have a choice, seriously?). But I'll try to stick with their higher-end lines that still bear 3 years warranty. In the future, I'll probably sell Maxtor MaxLine Plus II drives only in almost all my boxes except the very most budget-oriented ones. Or maybe also the Special Edition Western Digital too. But forget the Barracuda V, no matter how good they might be (to my surprise if they would be) since I don't plan to support by myself the 2 missing warranty years they'll soon have. No thanks. IBM are a question mark since I don't know how the Hitachi buyout will affect their customer support service and I don't have any suppliers for Samsung drives. Samsung drives are too slow to enter my boxes currently anyway, so I don't feel I miss much.

 

[Tea]

Samsung drives are too slow to enter my boxes currently anyway, so I don't feel I miss much.

So tell me Coug, where do you get your ganja? It's obviously pretty good stuff. No. It can't be that, the rest of your post makes too much sense. Damn it, the rest of your post is so depressing that I wish your were smoking too much ganja. I'll write to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, but to believe that that will do anything I'll need to take some further, heavily psychoactive, mesures.

Know any good ganja suppliers?

 

[CougTek]

Just for the record, I don't know what ganja is. I suppose it must be something related to marijuana. Here's what SR got from their tests on the Samsung P40 compared to other similar drives :

Office DriveMark
P40 261
Barr. IV 296
D740X 301
WD800AB (5400rpm) 286

Bootup DriveMark
P40 212
Barr. IV 260
D740X 221
WD800AB (5400rpm) 261

Gaming DriveMark
P40 340
Barr. IV 378
D740X 372
WD800AB (5400rpm) 360

Busines WB99
P40 6.2
Barr. IV 8.5
D740X 8.0
WD800AB (5400rpm) 7.8

High-End WB99
P40 12.2
Barr. IV 27.5
D740X 26.7
WD800AB (5400rpm) 26.1

I didn't take all the tests, just a brochette to show my point. Here, Samsung drives cost just as much as any other brand. With such poor performances (they get they ass kick in every benchmark), I prefer to look elsewhere. Same money for less speed isn't a winning combo for me.

You claim they are very reliable. It's probably true. Hey, turtles live longer than rabbits too.

As Time wrote at SR, the mecanical side of the Samsung isn't all that bad, but their firmware is disapointingly unoptimized. True, most customers wouldn't notice it (yours obviously), but I take a certain pride to insure that every box I build is a notch over the crowd, be it in term of reliability or in performances. That's not something I would be able to say if I would sell Samsung's current line of HDD. I'll probably switch to the WD800JB in October. I'll increase slightly the average price of my mainstream systems, but I don't mind if the overall performance increase and allow me to sleep better knowing that my drive is warrantied for a full 3 years.

 

[Prof.Wizard]

I *did* have a WD800BB that I put in a build about five months ago fail last week.

Then get a Cuda instead of wiping my arse. :wink:

I don't really give a damn about the 1-2% difference in performance. But I would be really sorry to lose my current configuration because of a HDD failure. Seagate is great under this aspect. Quiet and deadly!

 

[time]

Seagate has reduced warranties on its IDE Barracuda IV and V series to one year.

Sh*t!

Oh well, so much for that little analysis! I guess that means I have to reduce my Hitachi and Samsung predictions to probably.

On the other hand, Hitachi and Samsung aren't based in North America. Here's hoping they have a different approach.

CougTek, I'm inclined to agree with your strategy of using the WDxxxxJB drives. It should be easy to sell the customer on that with triple the warranty ...

However, despite the rather damning SR benchmarks, Tannin reckons the responsiveness of the Samsungs is comparable with their competitors, and I always listen to what he has to say, even if it is purely subjective. I just think that the rest of us would be happier if some of those benchmarks were a little better.

But if you ask a customer "Would you prefer to have a standard drive with a one year warranty, or a slightly slower drive with three years?", it's obvious what most will go for.

 

[Tea]

Or, "would you prefer a reasonably reliable drive with a one year warranty, or a very reliable drive with a three year warranty?"

Not one of the world's toughest buying decisions.

I'm going to start buying SpinPoints ten at a time: one the word gets out, they are going to be in shortage.

 

[Mercutio]

time, when I go looking for 7200rpm drives, I see Seagate at a +10% premium over everybody. Even in the 5400rpm space, it's possible to find Samsung and Maxtor drives below the cost of the ultra-lame U. Maxtor has been competitive in terms of performance, cost and reliability.

Besides, the 740X has (had? I haven't looked in the last few months) the fastest seek time of any currently shipping drive, and that's something that I seem to find as a premium in my subjective analysis.

.. and Prof, I've never had a Maxtor drive I've installed fail. Never. Not one. Granted, I only sell about 40 computers a year, but since I put Maxtor drives in around 75% of them, that still adds up over time. I can't say that about Seagate or WD.

 

[CougTek]

Or, "would you prefer a reasonably reliable drive with a one year warranty, or a very reliable drive with a three year warranty?"

[fishing]
You forgot to insert the words "but sluggish" in reference to the very reliable drive.
[/fishing]

 

[Tea]

You will need better bait than that.

 

[Buck]

When I use the WD400BB and WD800BB they don't seem any faster then when I use a SP4002H or a SP8004H. But I suspect that this would lead back to benchmarking drive performance.

 

[CougTek]

I'm not saying that putting a drive into a computer system will morph it into a snail. But it will be slightly slower for most disk intensive tasks. Depending on the tasks the user will do, it might or might not be perceivable. Net browsing and messing with small Office documents won't show much of a difference for sure.

Basicly, what I'm saying is that if you can get better for a similar price, why not? If I get a reasonnable reliabilty from another drive with better performances, why should I go for a Samsung that is a least one generation back in term of speed compared to most of the others. Ok, if Samsung keeps their 3 years warranty, I might consider it for my most budget boxes targeted at people who wouldn't notice the difference between a U6 and an X15-36LP. Otherwise, WD SE and nothing else from now on.

Just for the record, I haven't had any failures from all the 120GXP I sold either (I skipped the 75GXP and sold only one 60GXP). Should I elevate a statue at glory of IBM?

 

[Pradeep]

Just for the record, I haven't had any failures from all the 120GXP I sold either (I skipped the 75GXP and sold only one 60GXP). Should I elevate a statue at glory of IBM?

You should start up your own class action against IBM, claiming that you are dissapointed that you didn''t get a dodgy drive.

 

[jtr1962]

While not defending this stupid warranty change and possible collusion, I can certainly understand it from a business standpoint, just as I understand why Tannin will no longer use WD drives from a business standpoint. The simple fact is that over the last three or four years hard drives have become commodity items, and have gotten stupidly cheap for what you are getting. It is easy to see how a one year warranty versus a three year warranty could mean the difference between profit and loss on a particular model even with a reliable drive, especially when low end drives(one or two heads) sell in the $65 to $80 dollar range. I would probably say that the big vomitbox system makers are behind this more than anyone else. They want cheap drives for their low end systems, and Maxtor/WD/Seagate can no longer afford to sell those drives at the prices they want with a three year warranty. I still don't see why they can't have a three year warranty on their non-OEM drives and just charge maybe $10 more, which nearly everyone else would be willing to pay, or perhaps not include things likes those 5.25" mounting brackets in their hard drive kits, like Maxtor does, in order to cut costs. Does anyone ever really use those things any more?

Since Maxtor's 3 year policy is remaining in effect a while, I'll stick with them and perhaps buy a few extra drives for the future. It still a damned shame since they have a product I'm otherwise very happy with.

 

[LiamC]

CougTek, Tannin, Mark - the Usual Suspects.

Coug, you are right. A slightly slower drive won't turn a system into a snail.

Mark is also right. The difference in performance between drives in most classes of drives is not distinguishable.

The problem rears its head when substitute an average performer on every component. 10% here, 5% there adds up.

I'm not about to get into the whole AMD/Intel pissing contest, but IMO, AMD offers better price for performance. Tannin mostly sells AMD, a reasonable video card (in the price range) and DDR. A 5% slower drive isn't going to make any difference (I'm am thinking that the things that matter most about performance are CPU, video, drive, RAM).

Coug, you're probably in the same boat. The only time it will make a difference is when the user is doing disk intensive stuff, and then you both probably know your customers well enough to steer them in the right direction drive wise in these cases. The "vomit vendors" don't have this ability. If your system is otherwise up to scratch (and I'm sure it is), what if the drive isn't quite as snappy (as the benchmarks say). Offer the Samsung (or any other drive with the warranty that suits) as standard and offer the faster/8MB/3 year warranty drive as an upgrade.

Inform the buyer and let them make the decision.

 

[Buck]

Imagine if CPUs went to this same strategy of a 1 year warranty.

 

[NRG = mc²]

CPUs almost never break though...

 

[timwhit]

Tannin, what will you do if Samsung follows suit and goes to a 1 year warranty also?

 

[Mercutio]

... then the circle of life will be complete and we'll all be buying IBM drives again.