Warranty Length Not Related To Drive Life?
 

Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

"Ron Reaugh" wrote in message
...
Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

Well, AFAIK nothing physical changed in ATA drives when manufacturers a
while ago decided to drop the warranty period from 3 years to 1. And I just
read that Seagate is now going to *raise* that period to *5* years as an
inducement to prospective buyers (something I'd certainly take into
consideration: I deliberately chose a 3-year-warrantied drive last time I
bought one).

Even if manufacturers over time might be able to cut corners such that a
drive would often fail in its second year without too much risk of
first-year failures, it seems unlikely that the cost savings could make up
for the resulting bad publicity. So I'd guess that drives should be in the
bottom of their 'bathtub' curve for several years regardless of what the
nominal warranty period is: unless they fail (even during that nominal
period) at a fairly significant rate the savings that the manufacturer can
realize by shortening it would seem unlikely to be large (though in such a
cut-throat pricing environment the resulting price difference might
noticeably affect sales, so if one does it, the rest may have to follow, and
the same may be true for lengthening the period as Seagate is doing, since
it would otherwise give them a unique selling point for very little price
difference).

Whether similar considerations apply to the terms of service (e.g., duty
cycle) specified for the drive is less clear: there may be fairly
noticeable savings in manufacturing a drive for light-desktop rather than
server-style use, even leaving aside more obscure characteristics such as
resistance to the need for re-seeking in environments subject to vibration.

- bill

"Bill Todd" wrote in message
...

"Ron Reaugh" wrote in message
...
Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty
was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

As usual your pompous jibber below says little.

The deal is that HD warranties were ALWAYS a marketing and price point
decision and had little to do with expected HD life. Since the 1 year and 3
year warranty HDs ALREADY had an expected life of over 5 years. So in a pen
stroke a company could change its HD warranty length and even retroactively
without great exposure SINCE the drives were ALREADY going to last for 5
years anyway as I've always said.

Seagate simply announced a modest cost change internally and externally
effectively a modest price decrease, nothing more.

Well, AFAIK nothing physical changed in ATA drives when manufacturers a
while ago decided to drop the warranty period from 3 years to 1. And I
just
read that Seagate is now going to *raise* that period to *5* years as an
inducement to prospective buyers (something I'd certainly take into
consideration: I deliberately chose a 3-year-warrantied drive last time I
bought one).

Even if manufacturers over time might be able to cut corners such that a
drive would often fail in its second year without too much risk of
first-year failures, it seems unlikely that the cost savings could make up
for the resulting bad publicity. So I'd guess that drives should be in
the
bottom of their 'bathtub' curve for several years regardless of what the
nominal warranty period is: unless they fail (even during that nominal
period) at a fairly significant rate the savings that the manufacturer can
realize by shortening it would seem unlikely to be large (though in such a
cut-throat pricing environment the resulting price difference might
noticeably affect sales, so if one does it, the rest may have to follow,
and
the same may be true for lengthening the period as Seagate is doing, since
it would otherwise give them a unique selling point for very little price
difference).

Whether similar considerations apply to the terms of service (e.g., duty
cycle) specified for the drive is less clear: there may be fairly
noticeable savings in manufacturing a drive for light-desktop rather than
server-style use, even leaving aside more obscure characteristics such as
resistance to the need for re-seeking in environments subject to
vibration.

- bill

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 19:11:02 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:

Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

What I do understand are that hard drive warranties are often at the
time they are manufactured and not the date of purchase so if you
bought a new hard drive today, has a manufactor date of July 20, 2003
and it breaks down, the manufactor may not take it even though you
just bought it.

Most current warranties are for one year and in my experience,
properly manufactured hard drive should last at least a few years.
Unfortunately they tended to build them as cheaply as possible so it's
not unusual for hard drive to die horribly in just months or even
weeks.

I still have an old Seagate 20MB drive somewhere that is almost 20
years old and still works but Maxtor 120GB hard drive that I got new
last year went south after only 3 months. A 200 GB Western Digital
hard drive that refused to work properly even though I have 2 more of
the same models working just fine in the same PC.
--
To reply, replace digi.mon with tds.net

You've got issues. I thought the information was well laid out and
fairly intuitive.

Everything is about price, but there's unquantifiable costs as well;
like bad publicity when your drives barf in year 1. Even with a
warranty I wouldn't buy that mfg again simply because it's a pain in
my butt to restore all the data and get it back the way I had it. I
will pay more money for a drive that doesn't barf even with a shorter
warranty. So my guess is a mfg would make the drive as robust as
possible without losing money. But like I said, some costs are not
quantifiable.

I would agree that warranty length isn't *all* about drive life but
I'm sure it has something to do with it. An example is a Mecerdes
Benz. The warranty has little to do with why people purchase the car,
it's because of the reputation. However, if they made the warranty 1
year some people would likely consider another mfg.

~F

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 20:29:21 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:


"Bill Todd" wrote in message
...

"Ron Reaugh" wrote in message
...
Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty
was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

As usual your pompous jibber below says little.

The deal is that HD warranties were ALWAYS a marketing and price point
decision and had little to do with expected HD life. Since the 1 year and 3
year warranty HDs ALREADY had an expected life of over 5 years. So in a pen
stroke a company could change its HD warranty length and even retroactively
without great exposure SINCE the drives were ALREADY going to last for 5
years anyway as I've always said.

Seagate simply announced a modest cost change internally and externally
effectively a modest price decrease, nothing more.

Well, AFAIK nothing physical changed in ATA drives when manufacturers a
while ago decided to drop the warranty period from 3 years to 1. And I
just
read that Seagate is now going to *raise* that period to *5* years as an
inducement to prospective buyers (something I'd certainly take into
consideration: I deliberately chose a 3-year-warrantied drive last time I
bought one).

Even if manufacturers over time might be able to cut corners such that a
drive would often fail in its second year without too much risk of
first-year failures, it seems unlikely that the cost savings could make up
for the resulting bad publicity. So I'd guess that drives should be in
the
bottom of their 'bathtub' curve for several years regardless of what the
nominal warranty period is: unless they fail (even during that nominal
period) at a fairly significant rate the savings that the manufacturer can
realize by shortening it would seem unlikely to be large (though in such a
cut-throat pricing environment the resulting price difference might
noticeably affect sales, so if one does it, the rest may have to follow,
and
the same may be true for lengthening the period as Seagate is doing, since
it would otherwise give them a unique selling point for very little price
difference).

Whether similar considerations apply to the terms of service (e.g., duty
cycle) specified for the drive is less clear: there may be fairly
noticeable savings in manufacturing a drive for light-desktop rather than
server-style use, even leaving aside more obscure characteristics such as
resistance to the need for re-seeking in environments subject to
vibration.

- bill

Heheh, the wacko troll has stepped up a tree on the psychopathic ladder.
Now he is Super Wacko.

"Bill Todd" wrote in message ...

"Ron Reaugh" wrote in message ...
Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life?

Somewhere I think I remember someone making such a claim

And now you know who that someone was.
When it looks like a trap and sounds like a trap and smells like a trap,
THEN IT USUALLY IS A TRAP.

and a bunch of trolls tried unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

And now you are part of that select group.


Well, AFAIK nothing physical changed in ATA drives when manufacturers a
while ago decided to drop the warranty period from 3 years to 1. And I just
read that Seagate is now going to *raise* that period to *5* years as an
inducement to prospective buyers (something I'd certainly take into
consideration: I deliberately chose a 3-year-warrantied drive last time I
bought one).

Even if manufacturers over time might be able to cut corners such that a
drive would often fail in its second year without too much risk of
first-year failures, it seems unlikely that the cost savings could make up
for the resulting bad publicity. So I'd guess that drives should be in the
bottom of their 'bathtub' curve for several years regardless of what the
nominal warranty period is: unless they fail (even during that nominal
period) at a fairly significant rate the savings that the manufacturer can
realize by shortening it would seem unlikely to be large (though in such a
cut-throat pricing environment the resulting price difference might
noticeably affect sales, so if one does it, the rest may have to follow, and
the same may be true for lengthening the period as Seagate is doing, since
it would otherwise give them a unique selling point for very little price
difference).

Whether similar considerations apply to the terms of service (e.g., duty
cycle) specified for the drive is less clear: there may be fairly
noticeable savings in manufacturing a drive for light-desktop rather than
server-style use, even leaving aside more obscure characteristics such as
resistance to the need for re-seeking in environments subject to vibration.

- bill

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 19:11:02 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:

Has anyone ever heard anyone claim that the length of a HD's warranty was
simply a marketing and price point decision by the mfg and the warranty
length has nothing to do with expected drive life? Somewhere I think I
remember someone making such a claim and a bunch of trolls tried
unsuccessfully to shoot him down?

I also think this has always been a marketing exercise. Manufacturers
offset the cost of warranty claims against the increased sales that a
long warranty generates.

You also have to consider how many purchasers actually bother to claim
under warranty when a drive is 2 or 3 years old. By then, larger,
cheaper, smaller, cooler drives will be available, and most people
just buy a replacement. The vast majority of drives will last for more
than 5 years whatever the warranty arrangements.

Here in the UK, many stores offer extended warranties on consumer
electronics items for a one off payment. Some offer to refund your
payment if you don't make a claim. Of course, you have to actually
*ask* for the refund after 3 or 5 years. Last time I heard, the
proportion of purchasers that remembered / could be bothered to do
this was under 10%.

Best regards, Paul
--
Paul Sherwin Consulting http://paulsherwin.co.uk

http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/...1,2285,00.html

http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/...1,2285,00.html

On Tue, 27 Jul 2004 23:13:09 GMT, "Ron Reaugh"
wrote:

http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/...1,2285,00.html


Not arguing they did it, but for me I don't care if the warranty is 10
years. If it fails in year 1 I'm going to replace it with someone
else. The warranty does not take into account my time and effort to
put things back.

Like I said, I agree a warranty is alot of marketing. But so are
statistics and benchmarks.

~F