Seagate and Western Digital have announced they’re slashing the warranties of their consumer-grade hard drives, with Seagate cutting warranty coverage by up to 4 years.
According to site techspot, Seagate issued a letter to an authorised distributor informing them of the new warranty policies which will come into effect on December 31st, 2011.
Techspot reports Barracuda and Barracuda Green 3.5 inch drives, along with Momentus 2.5 inch drives now come with one year warranty. Pipeline HD Mini and Pipeline HD products come with two years warranty, while Momentus XT, Barracuda XT, Constellation 2 and ES 2 drives will have a warranty spanning 3 years.
Western Digital has reduced the warranty period for Caviar Blue, Caviar Green and Scorpio Blue drives from three years to two. Drives sitting higher up in the range, including its Caviar Black and Scorpio Black are unscathed by the warranty cut, with the new policy commencing from January 1st, 2012.
Seagate claims the move is intended to align them with other companies and will use the freed up finances by reinvesting in future product development.
The drop in warranty follows an increase in driver prices after production lines in Thailand were affected by catastrophic floods. Suddenly cloud storage looks like an attractive alternative.
