Seagate and WD cut HDD warranties

Last week news hit the wire that Western Digital will lower the warranty of its Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue HDDs from three to two years and now we hear Seagate follows suit and is going even further in axing the warranty of its HDDs, with some of the company's 3.5" desktop and 2.5" notebook HDDs now receiving just one measly year of warranty instead of five years.

Effective December 31, 2011, Seagate will be changing its warranty policy from a 5 year to a 3 year warranty period for Nearline drives, 5 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.

The details of the new warranty periods are:

Constellation 2 and ES.2 drives: 3 years

Barracuda and Barracuda Green 3.5-inch drives: 1 year

Barracuda XT: 3 years

Momentus 2.5-inch (5400 and 7200rpm): 1 year

Momentus XT: 3 years

SV35 Series - Video Surveillance: 2 years

Pipeline HD Mini, Pipeline HD: 2 years

Mission-critical and retail products are not affected by this change. The new warranty periods will apply to shipments from 31 December.

According to Seagate, the change to the company's warranty terms is made "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".

Personally, I believe it's more related to the HDD supply crisis.