80gb 8mb hard drives: Maxtor 1yr warranty , WD 3yr warranty, why?

[BentValve]

I have owned several Western Digital drives in the last several years and have had a few fail but I
have always gotten them RMAed with no problems at all. Western Digital has excellent CS in my experience.

Recently I bought a Maxtor 80gb 8mb SE drive for a great price thru the Hot Deals section, I was disappointed
to find out that it only has a 1 year warranty...crap I paid $66 for a drive with a 1 year warranty , I would have
much rather spent $99 for a drive with a 3 year warranty.

Heck Western Digital even offers a 2 year extention on their 1 year warranty drives for a measly $20.

I could return this but I wont because its not worth the hassel , I will give Maxtor one chance, if this drive
fails in less than 2 years I will never buy another one of their products again.
I emailed Maxtor last week explaining to them that I was considering returning the drive because of the
1 yr warranty.

IMO if you believe in your own product then back it up, WD sure does.

 

[GnomeCop]

...except about a year into using the WD drive, many start to develop a high pitched whine that will drive you up the wall. It will still operate normally other than that though.

heheh j/k... yeah my WD drives have really been takin a beating and I keep expecting them to die, but they wont. oh well I guess they are safe from being victims of upgrading heheh

 

[TheCorm]

Originally posted by: GnomeCop
...except about a year into using the WD drive, many start to develop a high pitched whine that will drive you up the wall. It will still operate normally other than that though.

heheh j/k... yeah my WD drives have really been takin a beating and I keep expecting them to die, but they wont. oh well I guess they are safe from being victims of upgrading heheh

Grand!....only a couple of months and I get some whining!!

 

[GnomeCop]

if you are lucky, no

.... but probably yes.

 

[chizow]

I believe all the major HDD mfgs. are migrating towards 1 year warranties on their desktop lines, including WD's SE drives. I do believe Maxtor was the first, but given the razor-thin margins on cheap IDE storage, its not a big surprise. Sounds like you got unlucky on your Maxtor; depending on what the box looks like, you can still get the 8MB Ultras with a 3-year warranty. The newer boxes with the guy on them have 1-year warranties, the old style with the gold foil and girl typing have 3-year warranties.

Chiz

 

[rbV5]

I believe all the major HDD mfgs. are migrating towards 1 year warranties on their desktop lines, including WD's SE drives

WD Caviar Special Edition drives carry a 3yr warranty as well as Maxtor MaXLine drives.
Here's the basics:
Maxtor Warranty
Western Digital

 

[chizow]

Yah just double-checked some of the news releases. Looks like WD didn't pull the 3 year warranty on their JBs, which is . Maxtor had 3 years on their Ultras longer than the standard DM 9+'s, but it looks like they are making a very clear distinction between 1-year for their Desktop products (DiamondMax and Fireball) and 3-years on their higher-end performance and server ATA drives (Maxline).

Chiz

 

[madthumbs]

3 year very limited warranty from date of manufacture for WD's. I have yet to have a Maxtor die anyway. After 3 years, I think I'll want a bigger HD.

 

[mboy]

In 3 years we will be wanting the 3rd gen SATA drives spinning at 12-15k rpms for desktop use

 

[BentValve]

Originally posted by: rbV5

I believe all the major HDD mfgs. are migrating towards 1 year warranties on their desktop lines, including WD's SE drives

WD Caviar Special Edition drives carry a 3yr warranty as well as Maxtor MaXLine drives.
Here's the basics:
Maxtor Warranty
Western Digital

Basically all of WDs HDs at least have the option of a 3years..........

Extended Warranty Purchase - Protect your Investment



Western Digital is pleased to offer our valued customers an extended warranty plan for your new WD hard drive.


United States and Canada

Western Digital will extend the terms of our 1-year warranty for an additional 2 years. If you opt for the extended warranty plan, the total warranty period on your hard drive will be 3 years from the date of purchase.

The cost of this extended plan is $14.95 and is payable by Visa, Mastercard, Discover, or American Express. This offer applies only to retail-packaged hard drives with a 1-year warranty. Please enter your hard drive serial number and date of purchase below to start the extended warranty process.

 

[BentValve]

Originally posted by: chizow
Sounds like you got unlucky on your Maxtor; depending on what the box looks like, you can still get the 8MB Ultras with a 3-year warranty. The newer boxes with the guy on them have 1-year warranties, the old style with the gold foil and girl typing have 3-year warranties.

Chiz

Unlucky? Luck is required to own a drive with a decent warranty? Actually I did drive around town looking for a 3 year drive and nobody
in my area has any left, all of the 3yr drives are gone.

Oh well , no biggie because if it dies I am only out $66 and I just wont buy another Maxtor, its that simple.

 

[T9D]

..

 

[madthumbs]

Originally posted by: xerosleep
I'd rather get the maxtor for cheaper and a less warranty. It seems way less likely that maxtor will fail anyway so it doesn't matter as much. Honestly from my own experience and reading on forums it seems the WD drives have a much higher rate of failure than any other drive.

cheaper more reliable but less warrenty > more expensive less reliable but more warrenty

-Where were you during all those IBM Deathstar threads?

 

[SithSolo1]

Originally posted by: madthumbs

Originally posted by: xerosleep
I'd rather get the maxtor for cheaper and a less warranty. It seems way less likely that maxtor will fail anyway so it doesn't matter as much. Honestly from my own experience and reading on forums it seems the WD drives have a much higher rate of failure than any other drive.

cheaper more reliable but less warrenty > more expensive less reliable but more warrenty

-Where were you during all those IBM Deathstar threads?

OMG! Deathstar! ROFL!

Anyway, I've had my Maxtors since summer of '00 and they're still kicking.

 

[RanDum72]

The newer boxes with the guy on them have 1-year warranties, the old style with the gold foil and girl typing have 3-year warranties.

Not necessarily. I just got a 160gb 8meg Maxtor with the 'guy' outside. Although the box (and the documentation inside) says 1-year warranty, checking the serial number on Maxtor's website came up with a 3-year warranty. The only sure way to tell is to actually check the serial numbers on the website, especially for the 8meg models.

 

[Dulanic]

Maxtor has always been good to me, yet to have a drive die and Ive owned 6. My WD died after 8 months, but they were semi quick at replacing it. The whole 1 year warranty thing does suck tho.

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I haven't really ever had a problem with any of my hard drives to date. Except, once but that was when my dad pulled the cord on the old server and then a part of the drive got bad, but we had a backup so no biggie.

We have 2 WD drives (1gig drive Caviar, damn, at the time this was the 250 gig drive of the day. I'm gonna be modding this thing and putting LEDs inside and glass on the top and a 60 Gig Caviar) and 2 Maxtor drives (5gig and 20 gig DX8). All have served well and I have no complaints. The 20 gig and 60 gig drives which I use are completely quiet and I hardly ever hear them. The only time is if I put my ear up to it, hehe.

But, my next drive purchase will be a Seagate 15,000 rpm drive model 15k.3

 

[Acanthus]

5 YEARS on raptors

 

[magomago]

I had a old 4.3 Gig WD that my dad bought me. It crapped out on me with so many bad sectors

So then I got a Maxtor Diamond Max 20 gig...man was it quiet that I was scared it was broken when I first booted it up because my old 4.3gig was hella loud!

Now on my new pc I went back to WD mainly b/c of the 8 meg cache and 3 year warranty and I'm loving it.


The way I figure you get one with a long warranty b/c it shows they back their products more and if it craps out within that time eI can get a new one

 

[sharkeeper]

Because Maxtor doesn't make a quality product worth backing for that length of time. (SCSI excluded which is Quantum anyways--SCSI rules! )

Not that WDC is much better and frankly I'm shocked that the Barracuda V SATA (8MB) has a 1 year warranty! Non SCSI HDD are becoming hell in a little package! :Q

-DAK-