Seagate, warranty period, unknown.

[-=Mr_B=-]

I thought they were kidding. But, apparently, Seagate doesn't know what warranty period they have on their shit.

I'll get a bit over elaborate, but the back story is as follows:
I bought a second & third NAS, a ReadyNAS1100 & a ReadyNAS NV+, both SPARC based, both stone-age tech, reliable, and, cheap. Sadly, since they are dated, there is not much actual development going on for em. There is a few bugfixes, but thats about it. As a result, the Linux that these things run on haven't been updated to support 2TB+ drives, and that meant i was of looking for a good cheap drive with low powerdraw (heat-management) with good reliability. The NV+ i already got is stocked with 2TB Seagate drives SV35.5, with 5 year warranty, but since then there has been a few new drives released to the market, some better, some worse. So i started snooping about. Turns out the Pipeline series from Seagate could suit my needs fairly well, but when i went to check retailers i got confusing information about the warranty period, so i went to Seagate. You'd think it's a fairly straight forward question.

"Hi. I was wondering, what is the warranty period for a retail Seagate Pipeline ST2000VM003. I'd like to know before i buy one."
I couldn't even guess at the response i got.

Thank you for contacting Seagate.

Regarding your email concerning your question. We need the device serial number to determine the warranty status of the device.

If you have additional questions please let us know.

I'm sorry, come again. Serial of a not yet bought drive? How do you get that?
Anyway, so, i expected them to have misunderstood my question, and so asked them again, with the same response in return. So now i'm starting to get a bit pissed of, and send a final message asking them if they are really sure about this pre-sales support, promising that i'd tell everyone i meet, and post on every PC related forum i frequent, about their stupid handling and providing a final chance of providing a answer.

This is what i get in return:

Thank you for contacting Seagate Technical Support.

Unfortunately without a serial number we can not determine the warranty on any specific drive. The normal range is between 2 and 3 years.

I checked the data sheet just to ensure and under 2.13 Warranty it states that we do need a serial number:

http://www.seagate.com/files/staticf...100633414f.pdf

We always suggest to purchase a drive with a retailer to ensure a better warranty period.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact Seagate Technical Support.

Best regards

Kerstin

Are they for real? Of course i'm going to buy a retail drive from a retailer, what else, travel to a local (in sweden?) factory outlet, and buy a rejected 'retail' (as if) drive of the guy in the garbage room? How about they specify the warranty period one of these drives come with when they are sold as new... I've pretty much given up on Seagate at this point. Is there anyone else that can help Seagate with the warranty period for a retail pipeline drive sold in the EU? 1, 2, 3, 5 years? Oh, and feel free to spread the word, the support isn't able to provide any pre-sales support, what so ever. Unless you include the "If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact Seagate Technical Support." bit that isn't really that helpful...
B!

[Phoenix32]

Seagate told you the truth.

Most drive manufacturers sell their drives through various different outlets. This includes boxed retail, OEM, and white box (bare oem drives) drives. But to add to this, many outlets will negotiate deals for larger number of drives etc etc etc. In these negotiations, quite often the warranty period is negotiated as well (both longer and shorter), or a price increase or decrease. Meaning, what Dell pays, HP pays, Best Buy pay, your local outlet pays, Newegg pays, etc etc etc etc, can be very diferent prices based on possible negotiations. Thus, various different batches o drive serial numbers can have different warranties.

While there may (or may not) be a standard base warranty for a given drive, tech support will need to know what batch the drive came from to know for sure on any given drive.

[Terry Kennedy]

Originally Posted by Phoenix32

While there may (or may not) be a standard base warranty for a given drive, tech support will need to know what batch the drive came from to know for sure on any given drive.

True. But Seagate does a miserable job of telling people what the warranty on retail drives is. This page says "Our warranty periods are 1 year, 2 years, 3 years or 5 years from the documented date of purchase, depending on the type of product and where it was purchased."

On the other hand, Western Digital has a list of every product family they sell, stating what the retail warranty period is for each.

[Phoenix32]

Originally Posted by Terry Kennedy

True. But

No buts. I never said it was good (or bad). I just said they didn't lie to him, which you agreed. He said they lied to him and was upset about it. I just explained it to him so he would know they didn't lie to him. It is for each consumer to decide if that policy is good or bad for them.

You mention Western Digital, kind of hinting they are better with that particular policy. While that may be true, they do inform you better about what the warranty is, they do a far piss poorer job of honoring it IMO. And, also IMO, since they bought out hitachi drives, hitachi drives tech support has been crappier than before.

For myself, I have never had a problem determining if a particular drive (using the serial number) is in or out of warranty with Seagate. I also have never had a single problem getting a drive under warranty replaced (and far quicker than WD as well). WD on the other hand, has been nothing but a pain in the arse the last 5 years or so getting a drive replaced. I had a drive that showed as "in warranty" and they refused to replace it saying it was out of warranty. I also had a drive that was "in warranty" and they pro-rated it, requiring me to pay a portion of the cost of the replacement. They have been slow in turnarounds and in general, very inconsistant with honoring or replacing drives in warranty. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't, etc....

Lets also not forget that WD PURPOSELY make the firmware in their less expensive drives not work well (if at all) in RAID arrays, just so they can sell you a more expensive drive.

I am NOT a Seagate fan, trust me. But, given a choice between WD and Seagate, I will take Seagate every time. At least with Seagate, you know what you are getting and they will honor the warranty, whatever that warranty is. 5 or so years ago, this was not the case, it was the opposite, but now...


Honestly, I think "we the consumers" are screwed anymore. As near as I can tell,there are now only 3 drive manufacturers. Seagate, WD, and Toshiba. Toshiba concentrates on specialty drives, and the other two have bought out everyone else. Neither of which have been great reliable drives the last ew years.

In the end, you get to pick the lesser of evils IMO.

[Terry Kennedy]

Originally Posted by Phoenix32

You mention Western Digital, kind of hinting they are better with that particular policy.

I don't think it was a hint. I spent about 15 minutes searching the Seagate site looking for any sort of statement about their retail warranty and couldn't find anything other than the link I posted.

For myself, I have never had a problem determining if a particular drive (using the serial number) is in or out of warranty with Seagate.

Sure, if you already have the drive (or see a picture of one on eBay or something), you can find out how much warranty (if any) is remaining. As a potential customer looking to purchase a new retail drive, being told "it varies" isn't particularly useful. I suppose if you were to actually walk into a Best Buy or whatever and look at the drive package, you might be able to find this out (if the serial number is visible and you have a smartphone to access the manufacturer's web site).

It may be that the model the original poster was asking about is one which Seagate simply doesn't supply to the retail channel. If all of that model are sold to OEMs, the correct answer is "It varies, and the warranty isn't between you and Seagate, it's between the OEM and Seagate".

WD on the other hand, has been nothing but a pain in the arse the last 5 years or so getting a drive replaced. I had a drive that showed as "in warranty" and they refused to replace it saying it was out of warranty. I also had a drive that was "in warranty" and they pro-rated it, requiring me to pay a portion of the cost of the replacement. They have been slow in turnarounds and in general, very inconsistant with honoring or replacing drives in warranty. Sometimes they will, sometimes they won't, etc....

WD thinks I'm 2 people - one that buys a lot of disks for a company, and one that is a consumer with a couple drives. I've never had any RMA problems, using either personality. The corporate one does get a bunch of perks like advance replacement and new replacement drives, not refurbs. But I've never had a problem as an end user.

Obviously, individual results may vary.

I actually switched from Seagate because of the change in their warranty from 5 to 3 years, followed by the firmware fiasco where an "important - apply soon" firmware update bricked drives and then there were RMA issues with those drives.

Lets also not forget that WD PURPOSELY make the firmware in their less expensive drives not work well (if at all) in RAID arrays, just so they can sell you a more expensive drive. I am NOT a Seagate fan, trust me. But, given a choice between WD and Seagate, I will take Seagate every time.

In another thread here (I think it was about WD's "Red" drives), you can see that I'm not entirely happy with WD's product strategy.

However, we both know that people like us, who buy small quantities of drives, are not the people the drive manufacturers care about. It's customers like Dell, Pace Micro (DVR's), EMC, etc. If there happens to be a model in the manufacturer's lineup that can be sold at retail, that's a very minor side benefit to the manufacturer.

And, franky, the average customer who buys a retail drive is putting it in a Windows box and they don't know (or care) about TLER, etc. We're a smaller subset of a small subset of their customers.

Honestly, I think "we the consumers" are screwed anymore. As near as I can tell,there are now only 3 drive manufacturers. Seagate, WD, and Toshiba. Toshiba concentrates on specialty drives, and the other two have bought out everyone else. Neither of which have been great reliable drives the last ew years.

They're all building drives to a price point where they can sell them (with whatever OEM warranty) and have the warranty end before the drive fails. You can see this with lots of things - for example, recent Blu-ray players have faster CPUs and far more functionality than the ones from even 2 years ago - but they have a design / build quality that's little better than junk.

The days where you buy a drive, run it for 10 years, then look at it and notice that there's a label that says the filter should be cleaned every few months, but you never did and it's still working fine are long gone. [Fujitsu Eagle, if anyone cares.] Of course, at the same time there was the DEC RA81, where some beancounter decided to save a few pennies per drive and made a change that caused every single drive to fail.