New Maxtor ATA Drives only 1 year warranty.

[KeiFront]

http://www.storagereview.com/

An interesting development accompanies this product announcement. Starting October 1st, the warranty on Maxtor's standard ATA drives will be one year in length, down from the three years that Maxtor and many competitors currently offer on their desktop units.

[ZokesPro]

A good warranty can mean good business, even if your product may not best.

I say to 1 year warranty, expecially on hdd's!

[Fred H]

Only 1 year warranty for my IBM GXP60-40GB. After 8 months it crashed, but I recovered it anyway with 3-4 MB bad clusters, not covered by the warranty.
A WD worked 2 years error free, and a small Fujitsu is out of warranty since 3 years ago.
Just bought a new Maxtor D740X-FDB 80GB-fluid bearing with 1 year warranty. I hope it will be better than the IBM and after 1 year I don't care about the warranty anymore.
A 3 years old HD is an old HD...

Fred H

[The PIT]

Yes but without a warrenty how are you going to persuade Joe Bloggs to buy a new hard drive. He's got 80gig using only 20 gig and this can be brought down to 10gig. He ain't go buy a new one.
So the only way you're going to do it is by either making hard drives much faster or by making the drive fail. If the drive fails during warrenty period you ain't making money. So you make it shorter warrenty in line with everyone else.
Okay I'm tongue in cheek over this one but look at how many hard drives fail these days.

[Dr Mordrid]

Well...get used to them. IBM & WD are already at 1 year and I would expect others to follow suit for the reasons stated above.

Dr. Mordrid

[thop]

not in the EU (or only in germany, i'm not sure) you got to give 24months of warranty here.

[The PIT]

Wrong Fujitsu europe one year unless they've changed it in last few months.

[thop]

it's a law, you have to give 24 months (since 1.1.2002).

[KeiFront]

Fred you can argue that 3 years is a long time to use a desktop drive, but one year is not. Even if I don't use my drives so very long I expect them to have a warranty of at least 3 years.

IDE disks should be manufactured with the same quality as SCSI disks. There is a bigger market than many manufacturers beleive for quality products. Even if they cost a little bit more.

I get the impression that most manufacturers prefer to make cheap lower quality drives.

[The PIT]

Originally posted by thop
it's a law, you have to give 24 months (since 1.1.2002).

Well no one told Fujistu Europe about it. My drive failed one month outside the one year warrenty and they said get lost.

[KeiFront]

It's currently a european guideline.

"According to a new guideline of the European Community, to be converted into national law before the end of the year 2002, manufacturers must grant a warranty period of at least two years for their products."

[The PIT]

Originally posted by KeiFront
It's currently a european guideline.

"According to a new guideline of the European Community, to be converted into national law before the end of the year 2002, manufacturers must grant a warranty period of at least two years for their products."

Thanks I thought it wasn't law.
That means Joe BLoggs maybe be able get a replacement 80gig in a year and a half.

[az]

Well, it's already a law in germany. Along with the law that anything (except things like food, etc.) you buy over phone, catalog, or the net MUST be taken back within a two week period by the dealer if you decide you don't like it. You don't have to state a reason and you get your money back.

AZ

[thop]

well like i already said it's a law (edit: at least in germany, i just read other posts) and not voluntary it doesn't matter what they say, if they don't replace the drive you can sue them and you will get your drive. or just kindly remind them about it.
however you only get 24months if you bought your drive after 1.1.2002.

[Wombat]

These shorter warranties are to be expected. As everything gets smaller, the stability of the data decreases greatly. Just they other day you guys were discussing Seagate's laser-heating of the platter - doesn't that sound a bit less long-lived to you?